Defense Portrays Libby as Scapegoat

I. Lewis Scooter Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, top, gets out of his vehicle as he arrives at U.S. Federal Court in Washington, Monday, Jan. 22, 2007, with his attorney Theodore V. Wells, Jr., bottom, and other members of his legal team. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais - AP)

Wells asserted that the vice president's former right-hand man gave investigators his "good-faith recollection" and that any mistakes in his memory were innocent. He also contended that the journalists and administration officials who are to testify during the trial also have imperfect memories. He said that Libby did not aggressively push the Wilson story, did not know that Plame worked in a covert role and had no motive to lie to investigators.

According to Wells, when the federal investigation of the leak began in the fall of 2003, Libby was not worried about his job, but was "concerned about . . . being scapegoated." Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary at the time, said publicly that Rove was not responsible for any leaks, Wells said, but did not say the same about Libby.

Libby, Wells said, told Cheney he feared "people in the White House are trying to set me up." Wells then showed the jury the text of a note Cheney had jotted that said: "Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

Wells said: "That one person was Karl Rove. He was viewed as a political genius. . . . He had to be protected. The person who was to be sacrificed was Scooter Libby." According to Wells, the vice president tried to persuade White House colleagues to publicly clear Libby's name as the source of the leak.

Plame's name first appeared in a July 14 column by Robert D. Novak. Rove and Richard L. Armitage, then the deputy secretary of state, have acknowledged being Novak's sources for the story.

Wells did not make it clear how the White House's handling of Libby's role influenced what he later told the FBI and grand jury. But the attorney said the "meat grinder" Libby was put through meant he took on the extra task of having brief conversations with reporters while carrying out his "day job" dealing with crucial national security matters.

Asked about the defense's portrayal, White House spokeswoman Dana M. Perino said yesterday: "We are not commenting on an ongoing criminal matter."

Both sides yesterday provided small pieces of new information about the events leading to Libby's indictment.

Fitzgerald disclosed, for instance, that Libby had underlined his own copy of Wilson's op-ed piece. Fitzgerald also identified a CIA employee Libby asked about Wilson as Craig Schmall.

Late in the afternoon, the prosecution's first witness, Marc Grossman, a former undersecretary of state, testified that Libby had asked him in late May 2003 to look into Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger to investigate the uranium claim. Grossman said he spoke to Wilson and learned that his wife worked at the CIA and had appeared to help arrange the trip.

"I thought the whole business was of less than zero importance," Grossman testified. "I thought the wife was an interesting tidbit, though."