OpEdNews - Page 2 of Article: Cheney's Testimony in Valerie Plame Leak Case Classified, DOJ Says

Conyers' and Waxman’s interest in the CIA leak case was revived with the publication in June of former White House press secretary McClellan’s memoir which suggested Bush and Cheney played a larger role in the matter than they have admitted publicly.

Conyers was set to hold a vote Sept. 10 on a contempt citation for Mukasey for refusing to turn over the subpoenaed documents to his panel but decided to “defer” the matter when the DOJ reluctantly released 681-pages of documents related to a voter identification law implemented last year in the state of Georgia that the Michigan Democrat had sought.

But in a letter sent to Conyers Sept. 9, Keith Nelson, a deputy attorney general, did not say that Cheney’s interview transcript was classified. Nelson said he could not release the document because Bush had already asserted executive privilege.

Senior Bush administration officials disclosed Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to several journalists in June and July of 2003 amid White House efforts to discredit her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for challenging Bush’s use of bogus intelligence to justify invading Iraq.

Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA employment was revealed in a July 14, 2003, article by right-wing columnist Robert Novak, effectively destroying her career. Two months later, a CIA complaint to the Justice Department sparked a criminal probe into the identity of the leakers.

Initially, Bush professed not to know anything about the matter, and several of his senior aides, including political adviser Karl Rove and the vice president’s chief of staff I. Lewis Libby, followed suit.

However, it later became clear that Rove and Libby had a hand in the Plame leak and that Bush and Cheney had helped organize a campaign to disparage Wilson by giving critical information to friendly journalists.

On June 24, 2004, Fitzgerald interviewed Bush for 70 minutes about the Plame leak. The only other member of the Bush team in the room during the meeting was Jim Sharp, the private lawyer that Bush hired, according to a press briefing by then-press secretary Scott McClellan.

Fitzgerald had interviewed Cheney a couple of weeks earlier.

According to sources knowledgeable about the vice president’s testimony, Cheney was specifically asked about conversations he had with senior aides, including Libby, and queried about whether he was aware of a campaign led by White House officials to leak Plame’s identity.

It is unknown how Cheney responded to those questions. Cheney retained a private attorney, Terrence O’Donnell.

At the time of Waxman's comments, Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation was still underway, leading to Libby’s indictment in October 2005 and his subsequent conviction in March 2007 on four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

During closing arguments at Libby’s trial, Cheney was implicated in the leak, as Fitzgerald acknowledged that Cheney was intimately involved in the scandal and may have told Libby to leak Plame's status to the media.

Fitzgerald told jurors that his investigation into the true nature of the vice president's involvement was impeded because Libby obstructed justice.

Libby's attorney, Theodore Wells, told jurors during his closing arguments that Fitzgerald had been trying to build a case of conspiracy against the vice president and Libby and that the prosecution believed Libby may have lied to federal investigators and to a grand jury to protect Cheney.

“Now, I think the government, through its questions, really tried to put a cloud over Vice President Cheney," Wells said.

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