Former White House spokesman says Libby told him about Plame earlier than admitted
RAW STORY
Published:
Monday January 29, 2007
 Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has confirmed the testimony of other witnesses by stating that he learned Valerie Plame's identify from I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby several days before Libby claimed to have heard about it from a reporter on July 10 or 11, 2003.
Fleischer said Libby had told him at a lunch meeting on July 7 that ex-ambassador Joe Wilson, Plame's husband, was "sent to Niger to investigate reports Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material there by Wilson's wife, not by the vice president, as some news accounts were saying," write Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein at The Washington Post.
David Shuster of MSNBC remarked on the air during a courtroom break that "the last half an hour of testimony that the jury has heard is by far the most dramatic and compelling testimony they have heard in this trial."
Below is a transcript of Shuster's on-air remarks:
As Ari Fleischer started describing a crucial lunch with Libby, he was looking at the jury with all his responses, and the jury seemed to be hanging on every word, writing down everything that he said.
The crucial testimony from Ari Fleischer is that on Monday, July 7, 2003, he was asked to go to a lunch with Scooter Libby and they were talking about Fleischer leaving the White House, and Ari Fleischer started to talk about how he was stating to get questions about the criticism from Joe Wilson.
Fleischer testified that [Libby] then told him Ambassador Wilson was sent to Niger by his wife. She, Valerie Plame works at the counter-proliferation division and, by the way, this is hush, hush, this is on the QT. That was Fleischer's testimony.
The reason it's so significant is because Scooter Libby, as part of his defense, has alleged that the first time he had heard about Wilson was several days later, in July, when he had a conversation with Tim Russert. Tim Russert has said the issue never came up. Ari Fleischer is the fifth government witness to place a conversation about Valerie Wilson before the crucial Libby conversation with reporters.
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