Libby pleads not guilty in CIA leak case

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff pleaded not guilty Thursday in the CIA leak scandal, marking the start of what could be a long road to a trial in which Cheney and other top Bush administration officials could be summoned to testify.\nI. Lewis "Scooter" Libby entered the plea in front of U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, a former prosecutor who has spent two decades as a judge in the nation's capital.\n"With respect, your honor, I plead not guilty," Libby told the judge.\nLibby, who is recovering from a foot injury, leaned his crutches against a podium from which lawyers normally question witnesses or address the court. He stood with his newly expanded legal team at the table reserved for the defense.\n"He wants to clear his good name, and he wants a jury trial," one of Libby's new lawyers, prominent trial attorney Ted Wells, said later outside the courthouse.\nDuring the 10-minute arraignment, Walton set Libby's next court appearance for Feb. 3 and learned from the lawyers they had no idea when they would be ready for trial.\nSpecial Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald estimated it would take two weeks for the government to present its case against Libby, and the timing would depend upon pretrial motions by his attorneys.\nWilliam Jeffress, one of the lawyers Libby hired this week to bolster his defense team, told the judge, "It may be a little early" to predict when they would be ready for trial. Jeffress said several First Amendment and national security issues would have to be resolved by the court before a trial could be held.\nAmong the issues is whether journalists will be compelled to testify during the trial and how quickly Libby's lawyers will receive security clearances so they can review classified documents that might prove useful in his defense.\nLibby signaled his determination to fight the charges after Friday's grand jury indictment and in the past few days has hired Jeffress and Wells -- two well-known defense lawyers -- to assist in his defense.\nWells won acquittals for former Agriculture Secretary Michael Espy and former Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan. He is a partner at the New York-based firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.\nJeffress is from the firm Baker Botts, where Bush family friend and former Secretary of State James A. Baker is a senior partner. Jeffress has won acquittals for public officials accused of extortion, perjury, money laundering and vote-buying, his firm's Web site says.\nLibby was charged with lying to investigators and the grand jury about leaking to reporters the CIA identity of the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Valerie Plame's name was published by conservative columnist Robert Novak after Wilson accused the administration of twisting intelligence in the run-up to the war to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.\nThe indictment said Libby got information about Plame's identity in June of 2003 from Cheney, the State Department and the CIA, then spread it to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. Libby told FBI agents and a federal grand jury that his information had come from NBC reporter Tim Russert.\nRussert said he and Libby never discussed Wilson or his wife.\nMiller, who never wrote a story, said Libby told her about the CIA connection of Wilson's wife. Cooper said Libby was one of his sources for a story identifying the CIA connection of Wilson's wife.\nLibby attorney Joseph Tate said inconsistencies in recollections among people regarding long-ago events should not be charged as crimes. Libby is accused of one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of lying to FBI agents and two counts of perjury before a federal grand jury.\nSenate Democrats seized on the Libby indictment to put the Bush administration on the defensive, focusing attention on the possible manipulation of prewar intelligence on Iraq and the failure by Senate Republicans to promptly investigate the issue.\nDemocrats are pressing for the intelligence committee, among other things, to examine the administration's strongly worded prewar statements on the Iraqi threat and whether they match up with the actual intelligence.\nIt also wants to scrutinize the role of the prowar Iraq National Congress, an exile group run by Ahmad Chalabi, in feeding information from defectors to the Pentagon and to Cheney's office.\n"Any line of questioning that has brought us too close to the White House has been thwarted," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee. "We have been undermined, avoided, put off, and vilified by the other side"