Vice President Dick Cheney and his former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were personally and actively involved in an effort to spin news coverage and discredit a critic of the Iraq war even before the fact that his wife was a CIA operative became public, a senior White House official testified Thursday.
In the first insider account of how top officials reacted when questions were raised about the intelligence used to justify the war, Catherine Martin said that at one point Cheney dictated a detailed list of talking points to be used by Libby and others in making calls to reporters. Martin was Cheney's top media aide at the time and is now deputy White House director of communications for policy and planning.
She testified as a prosecution witness at Libby's trial on charges of obstructing an investigation into how the name of a CIA operative became public. The operative, Valerie Plame, is the wife of former U.S. envoy Joseph Wilson.
Two months later on Meet The Press
MR. RUSSERT: Now, Ambassador Joe Wilson, a year before that, was sent over by the CIA because you raised the question about uranium from Africa. He says he came back from Niger and said that, in fact, he could not find any documentation that, in fact, Niger had sent uranium to Iraq or engaged in that activity and reported it back to the proper channels. Were you briefed on his findings in February, March of 2002?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I don’t know Joe Wilson.
In the first insider account of how top officials reacted when questions were raised about the intelligence used to justify the war, Catherine Martin said that at one point Cheney dictated a detailed list of talking points to be used by Libby and others in making calls to reporters. Martin was Cheney's top media aide at the time and is now deputy White House director of communications for policy and planning.
She testified as a prosecution witness at Libby's trial on charges of obstructing an investigation into how the name of a CIA operative became public. The operative, Valerie Plame, is the wife of former U.S. envoy Joseph Wilson.
Two months later on Meet The Press
MR. RUSSERT: Now, Ambassador Joe Wilson, a year before that, was sent over by the CIA because you raised the question about uranium from Africa. He says he came back from Niger and said that, in fact, he could not find any documentation that, in fact, Niger had sent uranium to Iraq or engaged in that activity and reported it back to the proper channels. Were you briefed on his findings in February, March of 2002?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: No. I don’t know Joe Wilson.
Catherine Martin, Cheney's top media-aide, and still working in the White House, testified in the Libby trial this week that Cheney was "personally and actively involved" in trying to discredit Joe Wilson. And Libby has said in earlier testimony that they had spent weeks on it. But Cheney told Tim Russert, 'I don't know Joe Wilson'?
If everything is on the up and up... if you're not covering something up, you don't need to lie.
Cheney needs to be put under oath.
