Libby Trial: Opening Statements

And it's he said: he said...

With Patrick Fitzgerald claiming that Libby "wiped out" a memo of Cheney's.

Fitzgerald said Cheney told his chief of staff, “Scooter” Libby, in 2003 that the wife of Iraq critic and former ambassador Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA, and that Libby spread that information to reporters. When that information got out, it triggered a federal investigation.

“But when the FBI and grand jury asked about what the defendant did,” Fitzgerald said, “he made up a story.” Fitzgerald alleged that Libby in September 2003 “wiped out” a Cheney note just before Libby's first FBI interview when he said he learned about Wilson and his wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, from reporters, not the vice president.

Meanwhile Libby's attorney Theodore Well's claims that Libby isn't the villain of this story - Karl Rove is.

Attorney Theodore Wells said Libby went to Cheney in 2003 and complained that the White House was subtly blaming him for leaking Plame’s identity to columnist Robert Novak.

“They’re trying to set me up. They want me to be the sacrificial lamb,” Wells said, recalling the alleged conversation between Libby and Cheney. “I will not be sacrificed so Karl Rove can be protected.”

Yet apparently he was sacrificed and will soon be on the witness stand claiming faulty memory when he was asked by the FBI about his conversations with various reporters.

It should make for an interesting month.

Vyan