Murray Waas on How Cheney "Authorized" Libby to Leak Classified Information

We turn now to the ongoing controversy over the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Three months ago Vice President Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby resigned after being charged with obstruction of justice, lying to the FBI and committing perjury before a federal grand jury in connection to the Plame case.

So far Libby is the only White House official to be charged in the case. He is schedule to go on trial next January - two months after the mid-term elections.

But newly released court documents raise new questions about the role of the Vice President in the affair. Investigative journalist Murray Waas has revealed in the National Journal that Libby testified before federal grand jury that he had been "authorized" by Cheney and other White House "superiors" in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration's use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq.

Waas bases his article in part on a recent letter written by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's to Libby's attorney.

Fitzgerald writes, "Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that he had contact with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) ... in the course of his interaction with reporters in June and July 2003.

Fitzgerald went on to write, "We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors."

Although Fitzgerald does not identify Cheney by name, sources have told Waas that Fitzgerald is in fact referring to the Vice President.

* Murray Waas, investigative journalist who writes for a number of publications. Among them, American Prospect magazine and Salon.com. He has broken a number of stories on the saga of the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. He maintains a blog at WhateverAlready.blogspot.com.

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