Vice President Dick Cheney could be called to testify in the perjury case
against his former chief of staff, a special prosecutor said in a court filing
Wednesday.
Vice President Dick
Cheney delivers a speech at a luncheon held for congressional candidate
Brian Bilbray at the Sheraton Hotel and Marina Tuesday, May 23, 2006 in
San Diego, Calif. [AP] |
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald suggested Cheney would be a logical
government witness because he could authenticate notes he jotted on a July 6,
2003, New York Times opinion piece by a former U.S. ambassador critical of the
Iraq war.
Fitzgerald said Cheney's "state of mind" is "directly relevant" to whether I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's former top aide, lied to FBI agents
and a federal grand jury about how he learned about CIA officer Valerie Plame's
identity and what he subsequently told reporters.
Libby "shared the interests of his superior and was subject to his
direction," the prosecutor wrote. "Therefore, the state of mind of the vice
president as communicated to (the) defendant is directly relevant to the issue
of whether (the) defendant knowingly made false statements to federal agents and
the grand jury regarding when and how he learned about (Plame's) employment and
what he said to reporters regarding this issue."
In the Times article, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson accused the Bush
administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq to justify going to war. In
2002, the CIA sent Wilson to Niger to determine whether Iraq tried to buy
uranium yellowcake from Niger to build a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted the
reports. But the allegation wound up in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union
address.
Cheney wrote on the article, "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send
an ambassador to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to
work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"
Libby told the agents and the grand jury that he believed he had learned from
reporters that Plame is married to Wilson and had forgotten that Cheney had told
him that in the weeks before Wilson's article was published.
In his grand jury testimony, Libby said Cheney was so upset about Wilson's
allegations that they discussed them daily after the article appeared. "He was
very keen to get the truth out," Libby testified, quoting Cheney as saying,
"Let's get everything out."
Cheney viewed Wilson's allegations as a personal attack because the article
suggested that the vice president knew that Wilson had discounted old reports
that Iraq had tried to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger to build a nuclear
weapon.
Eight days after Wilson's article, conservative syndicated columnist Robert
Novak identified Plame and suggested that she had played a role in the CIA's
decision to send Wilson to Niger.
Fitzgerald contends that Plame's status as a CIA officer was classified and
that Libby was told that disclosing her identity could pose a danger.
The prosecutor wants to use Cheney's notes on the Wilson article to
corroborate other evidence he has that Libby lied about outing Plame to
reporters.
In a filing last week, Libby's lawyers said Fitzgerald would not call Cheney
as a witness and would have a hard time getting the vice president's notes
admitted into evidence.
"Contrary to defendant's assertion, the government has not represented that
it does not intend to call the vice president as a witness at trial," Fitzgerald
wrote. "To the best of government's counsel's recollection, the government has
not commented on whether it intends to call the vice president as a witness."
