The ex-envoy's stinging rebukes of the administration's use of pre-war Iraq intelligence led Libby and other White House officials to leak Wilson's wife's covert CIA status to reporters in July 2003 in an act of retaliation.
The revelation that Bush may have known all along that there was
an effort by members of his office to discredit the former ambassador
raises the question: Was the president also aware that senior members
of his administration compromised Valerie Plame's undercover role with
the CIA?
Further, the highly explicit nature of Cheney's
comments not only hints at a rift between Cheney and Bush over what
Cheney felt was the scapegoating of Libby, but also raises serious
questions about potentially criminal actions by Bush. If Bush did
indeed play an active role in encouraging Libby to take the fall to
protect Karl Rove, as Libby's lawyers articulated in their opening
statements, then that could be viewed as criminal involvement by Bush.
Last week, Libby's attorney Theodore Wells made a stunning
pronouncement during opening statements of Libby's trial. He claimed
that the White House had made Libby a scapegoat for the leak to protect
Karl Rove - Bush's political adviser and "right-hand man."
"Mr. Libby, you will learn, went to the vice president of the United
States and met with the vice president in private. Mr. Libby said to
the vice president, 'I think the White House ... is trying to set me
up. People in the White House want me to be a scapegoat,'" said Wells.
Cheney's notes seem to help bolster Wells's defense strategy. Libby's
defense team first discussed the notes - written by Cheney in September
2003 for White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan - during opening
statements last week. Wells said Cheney had written "not going to
protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his
head in the meat grinder because of incompetence of others": a
reference to Libby being asked to deal with the media and vociferously
rebut Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration knowingly
"twisted" intelligence to win support for the war in Iraq.
However, when Cheney wrote the notes, he had originally written "this Pres." instead of "that was."
During cross-examination Tuesday morning, David Addington was asked
specific questions about Cheney's notes and the reference to President
Bush. Addington, former counsel to the vice president, was named
Cheney's chief of staff - a position Libby had held before resigning.
"Can
you make out what's crossed out, Mr. Addington?" Wells asked, according
to a copy of the transcript of Tuesday's court proceedings.
"It says 'the guy' and then it says, 'this Pres.' and then that is scratched through," Addington said.
"OK," Wells said. "Let's start again. 'Not going to protect one staffer
and sacrifice the guy ...' and then what's scratched through?" Wells
asked Addington again, attempting to establish that Cheney had
originally written that President Bush personally asked Libby to beat
back Wilson's criticisms.
"T-h-i-s space P-r-e-s," Addington said, spelling out the words. "And then it's got a scratch-through."
"So it looks like 'this Pres.?'" Wells asked again.
"Yes sir," Addington said.
Thus, Cheney's notes would have read "not going to protect one staffer
and sacrifice the guy this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meat
grinder because of the incompetence of others." The words "this Pres."
were crossed out and replaced with "that was," but are still clearly
legible in the document.
The reference to "the meat grinder"
was understood to be the Washington press corps, Wells said. The
"protect one staffer" reference, Wells said, was White House Political
Adviser Karl Rove, whose own role in the leak and the attacks on Wilson
are well documented.
Furthermore, Cheney, in his directive
to McClellan that day in September 2003, wrote that the White House
spokesman needed to immediately "call out to key press saying the same
thing about Scooter as Karl."
McClellan had publicly stated
in September 2003 that Rove was not culpable in the leak of Valerie
Plame's covert CIA identity, nor was he involved in a campaign to
discredit her husband, but McClellan did not say anything to the media
that exonerated Libby, which led Cheney to write the note. A couple of
weeks later, in October 2003, McClellan told members of the media that
it was "ridiculous" for them to suggest Libby and Rove were involved in
the leak, because he received personal assurances from both men that
they had nothing to do with it.
Moreover, Wells insinuated
Tuesday that Cheney's note [seemingly] implicating President Bush in
the discrediting of Wilson was one of the 250 pages of emails and
documents the White House failed to turn over to investigators who had
been probing the leak for more than two years.
Wells
insinuated that Cheney's note, because it contained a reference to
"this Pres." may have been an explosive piece of evidence that Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales, who at the time of the leak was White House
counsel, withheld from investigators, citing executive privilege.
Addington told Wells that when subpoenas were first issued by the
Justice Department in the fall of 2003, demanding documents and emails
relating to Wilson and Plame be preserved, he was given Cheney's notes
and immediately recognized the importance of what the vice president
had written. Addington said he immediately entered into a "discussion"
with Gonzales and Terry O'Donnell, Cheney's counsel, about the note,
but Addington did not say whether it was turned over to investigators
in the early days of the probe.
Wells's line of questioning
is an attempt to shift the blame for the leak squarely onto the
shoulders of the White House - a tactic aimed at confusing the jury -
and will likely unravel because it has nothing to do with the perjury
and obstruction-of-justice charges at the heart of the case against
Libby. Still, Tuesday's testimony implicating President Bush may be the
most important revelation that has emerged from the trial thus far.
Addington revealed during his testimony Monday that in June 2003 there
were internal discussions - involving President Bush and Vice President
Cheney - about declassifying for specific reporters a portion of the
highly classified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate as a way
to counter Wilson's criticisms against the administration. That portion
purportedly showed that Iraq was attempting to purchase uranium from
Niger to use for building an atomic bomb - a claim that Wilson had
debunked when he personally traveled to Niger to investigate it a year
earlier.
In late June or early July 2003, "a question was
asked of me - by Scooter Libby: Does the president have authority to
declassify information?" Addington told jurors Monday, in response to a
question by defense attorney William Jeffress. "And the answer I gave
was, 'Of course, yes. It's clear the president has the authority to
determine what constitutes a national security secret and who can have
access to it.'"
President Bush signed an executive order in
2003 authorizing Cheney to declassify certain intelligence documents.
The order was signed on March 23, four days after the start of the Iraq
War and two weeks after Wilson first appeared on the administration's
radar.
Writings 
Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at trial by attorneys prosecuting former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case. 
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