Libby Trial: Day Eight

• Bush declassification unnerved White House aide:

  "WASHINGTON, Jan 25 (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's 2003 decision to declassify an intelligence report to rebut an Iraq war critic stirred unease even in the White House, an administration official said on Thursday in the perjury trial of a vice presidential aide.
  
  White House communications official Cathie Martin said she was 'not comfortable' in July of that year when her boss, Vice President Dick Cheney, told her to use the information to counter charges that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for invading Iraq.
  
  'I wasn't sure if I could use that point because it was related to the NIE,' Martin said, referring to a classified National Intelligence Estimate report that said Saddam Hussein had sought to buy uranium from Niger.
  
  Martin was not aware that Bush had already declassified the report by that time.
  
  Bush drew criticism last spring when he admitted he declassified the report and authorized White House officials to leak it to reporters to counter criticism from former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who said the administration ignored his findings that no uranium sale had taken place.
  
  Martin said she was 'still not comfortable about the NIE' even as Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, began sharing the information with reporters.
  
  'I was aggravated that Scooter was calling the reporters and I wasn't,' Martin said as her husband, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin, watched from the front row of the courtroom."

• Jason Leopold | Attorney: "Libby Sacrificed to Protect Rove"

  "Karl Rove's criminal exposure in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson was so extensive that the White House feared it could cost Republicans the presidential election in 2004. So administration officials sacrificed one of their senior cabinet members and set him up to be the fall guy for the leak in order to protect Rove, 'the lifeblood of the Republican party' and the White House's senior political adviser...."

• Firedoglake: � Morning Cuppa


• Firedoglake: � Libby Live: Craig Schmall, Two


• Firedoglake: � Libby Liveblog: Cathie Martin One


• Firedoglake: � Libby Live: Cathie Martin, Two


• Firedoglake: � Libby Live: Cathie Martin, Three


• Firedoglake: � Libby Trial: Oncoming Train


• Byron York on Libby Trial on National Review Online


• WaPo: Ex-Spokeswoman Contradicts Libby Account


• Firedoglake:� Reflecting on What We've Learned

Technorati tags: Libby Trial, Scooter Libby, Plamegate, CIA Leak Investigatiion, Cathie Martin, Craig Schmall, Patrick Fitzgerald, news, commentary