ParfumGigi@aol.com

By Emma Schwartz
Legal Times
02-13-2007

He said he had nothing against Joseph Wilson. That he didn't know Valerie Plame was Wilson's wife.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. said a lot of things in eight hours of grand-jury testimony. But somewhere in the lengthy recordings, it was revealed for the first time in Libby's perjury trial, that he actively contributed to a smear campaign against Wilson in an effort to destroy his credibility as a Bush administration critic.

And that naturally involved Plame, the former CIA agent whose identity was a casualty of the dustup between Wilson and the White House.

That March 2004 testimony, played before the jury last week in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is a linchpin of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's case against Libby, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney.

In it, Libby admitted that he spoke to at least one reporter in July 2003 during which he called Wilson's excursion to Niger -- investigating what later proved to be a bogus claim over Iraq's purchase of uranium -- nothing more than a "boondoggle."

And befitting a case in which words play the prominent role, much of the back-and-forth between the prosecutor and Libby about that conversation involved whether the term "boondoggle" was ever used -- and, indeed, whether Plame and Wilson were ever even mentioned.

Libby, 56, is not charged with leaking classified information, but he is the only person charged as a result of Fitzgerald's 2 1/2-year investigation.

Prosecutors say Libby began asking questions about Wilson in May 2003 after the former ambassador was an unnamed source in a New York Times column that questioned the credibility of Cheney's role in developing the administration's rationale for invading Iraq. Libby first learned Wilson's wife was employed at the CIA in early June 2003 from Cheney. Six current and former government officials have testified in the trial that they discussed Plame's CIA employment with Libby in the following days and month before his conversation with reporters.

Libby says he found a note that says Cheney told him about Plame in June. But he says he had no recollection of this when he spoke with NBC's Tim Russert a month later, who Libby says told him about Plame. Last week on the witness stand, Russert called Libby's version of events "impossible."

But buried in the grand-jury testimony was the account of yet another reporter, The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler. Kessler was one of four reporters Libby tried to reach that Saturday, July 12, 2003, after returning from the christening of the USS Ronald Reagan in Norfolk, Va.

Throughout his testimony, Libby was fairly certain that he spoke with Kessler about Plame -- something Kessler, who is expected to testify when the defense begins its case this week, has stated he never discussed with Libby.

By the account of Cathie Martin, the former press secretary for Cheney who sat in on the call, the July 12 Kessler conversation was brief. Kessler was on his cell phone and at the zoo and asked Libby to call back later.

But during Libby's first appearance before the grand jury on March 5, 2004, Libby did not recall Kessler cutting off the conversation. Instead, Libby said he probably told Kessler that other reporters were saying the same things about Plame as he told then-Time reporter Matthew Cooper.

"What I recall about this conversation was that Glenn Kessler was at the zoo with his kids, and yet he was able to have this lucid conversation," Libby told the grand jury, "something I could never do with my kids at the zoo on a sunny day with, you know, hundreds of people milling around. And then he was able to have this conversation, which I thought was pretty impressive, actually, and we talked about this stuff."

Fitzgerald thought otherwise. During Libby's second grand-jury appearance, just 19 days later, Fitzgerald handed Libby a copy of an October 2003 newspaper article, pulled from Libby's files, indicating that a Washington Post reporter had been told by a White House official on July 12 of that year that the administration was not putting much credence in Wilson because he had been sent on a "boondoggle" by his wife.

Reading this, Fitzgerald asked, did Libby ever wonder if the coincidence of the date and the attribution could mean that Libby was, in fact, this White House source?

"I did not," Libby said. "I had a conversation with a Washington Post reporter on July 12 and that dawned on me, but what this described was not my conversation."

Well, did you tell him it was a boondoggle? Fitzgerald quizzed.

"Quite to the contrary," Libby said flatly. He said he had merely emphasized then-CIA Director George Tenet's statement that Cheney had never been told about the Wilson mission.

Fitzgerald interjected, "And you didn't relay a concern that this wasn't taken seriously by the administration, even though your boss had expressed that?"

Libby didn't budge.

Well, Fitzgerald pushed, was it possible that anything you said could have led Kessler to such a characterization?

"No, sir, I don't think so," Libby answered. "Kessler said to me, 'Was this a boondoggle?'" Libby quickly tried to downplay this statement. "I said, 'What I think is important about this is how he may have gotten the wrong information, not that it was a boondoggle.'"

Now the prosecutor was confused: Was it a boondoggle or not?

"No, I mean it was a boondoggle in the sense that the guy got a trip," Libby said. "I've never thought that boondoggle was what was the important point here."

So, then, it was a boondoggle? Fitzgerald asked.

"Not in bad sense, but a boondoggle," Libby replied.

There was still the problem of timing. Libby still couldn't place the date of this conversation. But he didn't think it was July 12 because he had made those press calls in the car, and he had a memory that when Kessler raised the question of a "boondoggle," he was standing.

"Standing where?" Fitzgerald asked.

"I remember sort of either sitting or leaning down after he said it," Libby said, quickly adding that the "boondoggle" was not what was important, it was how Wilson could have gotten the wrong information.

"Did you ever indicate to him that Wilson's trip was not a boondoggle?"

"No," Libby replied.

Fitzgerald continued in his matter-of-fact tone, "Is this the first time you've described a boondoggle?"

Libby paused. "I don't recall. It might be."