'NY Times': Libby Learned About Plame from Cheney

By: E&P Staff I. Lewis Libby first learned about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a conversation with his boss, Dick Cheney, weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case told The New York Times on Monday.

Notes of a previously undisclosed conversation between Cheney and Libby on June 12, 2003 appear to differ from Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about Plame, also known as Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers told the Times. That conversation occurred just 11 days before Libby's now-famous "Valerie Flame" chat with reporter Judith Miller, and a month before Robert Novak's outing of the agent.

"The notes, taken by Mr. Libby during the conversation, for the first time place Mr. Cheney in the middle of an effort by the White House to learn about Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was questioning the administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program to justify the war," the Times reveals.

"Mr. Libby's notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson. But they contain no suggestion that either Mr. Cheney or Mr. Libby knew at the time of Ms. Wilson's undercover status or that her identity was classified. Disclosing a covert agent's identity can be a crime, but only if the person who discloses it knows the agent's undercover status."

White House officials did not respond to requests for comment.

"It is not clear why Mr. Libby would have suggested to the grand jury that he might have learned about Ms. Wilson from journalists if he was aware that Mr. Fitzgerald had obtained the notes of the conversation with Mr. Cheney or might do so," the Times observed. "At the beginning of the investigation, Mr. Bush pledged the White House's full cooperation and instructed aides to provide Mr. Fitzgerald with any information he sought....

"Lawyers involved in the case said they had no indication that Mr. Fitzgerald was considering charging Mr. Cheney with wrongdoing. Mr. Cheney was interviewed under oath by Mr. Fitzgerald last year. It is not known what the vice president told Mr. Fitzgerald about the conversation with Mr. Libby or when Mr. Fitzgerald first learned of it."