Libby to Make First Court Appearance

By: PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer (AP) Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff is making his first court appearance since his indictment in the CIA leak investigation, a case in which Bush administration officials including Cheney could be summoned to testify.

I. Lewis Libby was expected to plead innocent Thursday before U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton.

Libby signaled his determination to fight the charges after last week's grand jury indictment, which has provided more fuel to the political debate over the White House's possible misuse of prewar intelligence on Iraq. The Libby case stems from a 22-month criminal investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.

Cheney's former top aide was charged Friday with lying to investigators about leaking the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Plame's name was exposed by conservative columnist Robert Novak after Wilson accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence in the run-up to the war to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

The indictment says Libby got information about Plame's identity in June 2003 from Cheney, the State Department and the CIA, then spread it to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. Libby told FBI agents and a federal grand jury that his information had come from NBC reporter Tim Russert.

Russert says he and Libby never discussed Wilson or his wife.

Miller, who never wrote a story, said Libby told her about the CIA connection of Wilson's wife. Cooper said Libby was one of his sources for a story identifying the CIA connection of Wilson's wife.

Libby attorney Joseph Tate said inconsistencies in recollections among people regarding long-ago events should not be charged as crimes. Libby, who says he is confident he will be exonerated, is accused of one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of lying to FBI agents and two counts of perjury before a federal grand jury.

The judge handling Libby's case is an appointee of three Republican presidents.

Early in his career, Walton was a highly respected trial lawyer for the U.S. attorney's office in the District of Columbia. When President Reagan appointed him to D.C. Superior Court, Walton became known as a no-nonsense judge who was tough on sentencing street criminals. He served as the senior White House adviser for crime in the administration of President Bush's father before returning to Superior Court. In 2001, Bush nominated Walton to the U.S. District Court.

Senate Democrats have seized on the Libby indictment to put the Bush administration on the defensive, focusing attention on the possible manipulation of prewar intelligence on Iraq and the failure by Senate Republicans on the intelligence committee to promptly finish an investigation of the issue.

Democrats are pressing for the intelligence committee to examine:

_The administration's strongly worded prewar statements on the Iraqi threat and whether they match up with the actual intelligence.

_The role of the pro-war Iraq National Congress, an exile group run by Ahmad Chalabi, in feeding information from defectors to the Pentagon and to Cheney's office.

_ The intelligence activities of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which fed policy-makers uncorroborated prewar intelligence on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, particularly involving purported ties with the al-Qaida terror network.

_The prewar intelligence assessment and its failure to predict the postwar insurgency.

"Any line of questioning that has brought us too close to the White House has been thwarted," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee. "We have been undermined, avoided, put off and vilified by the other side."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday that the Clinton administration and fellow Democrats used intelligence to come to the same conclusion as the Bush administration, that Saddam Hussein and his regime were a threat.