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WASHINGTON - The former vice-presidential aide charged with perjury was "set up" by the White House to protect political strategist Karl Rove during a CIA leak investigation, his lawyer said yesterday.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby was so worried he would be blamed for blowing the cover of a CIA operative that he asked his boss, Vice-President Dick Cheney, to intervene on his behalf, defence lawyer Theodore Wells told the jury at the beginning of Libby's perjury trial.
"He was concerned about being set up," Wells said.
Libby resigned as Cheney's chief of staff when he was charged with lying to investigators who sought to determine who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
The leak occurred after Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush Administration of manipulating intelligence to build its case for invading Iraq.
Special prosector Patrick Fitzgerald said Libby told investigators he only passed along rumours about the operative, known by her maiden name Valerie Plame, to reporters.
But Libby had sought information from other government officials and then shared it with reporters as fact, Fitzgerald said, adding that "the defendant lied to the FBI and stole the truth from the grand jury."
Wells said Libby couldn't possibly remember the details of conversations he had about Plame months after they happened because he was preoccupied with other matters.
In his opening statement, Wells showed a note by Cheney that said he was "not going to protect one staffer [and] sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder."
Libby "was an important staffer, but Karl Rove was the lifeblood of the Republican Party," Wells said.
Cheney is among the prominent government officials and journalists expected to testify in the six-week case.
- REUTERS
