LAT's coverage of yesterday's bombshell: " Libby Said Bush OKd Leaks"

Libby Said Bush OKd Leaks
Court papers say the former White House aide, who is charged with perjury, testified that he told reporters about Iraq intelligence.
By Richard B. Schmitt and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers
April 7, 2006

WASHINGTON — President Bush personally authorized leaking classified information to deflect Iraq war critics at a time when declining public support for the invasion threatened his reelection campaign, according to testimony from a former senior White House aide.

The assertion, which came in a filing late Wednesday by federal prosecutors in the perjury case against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, connects the president for the first time to a case that until now publicly focused on the activities of senior aides and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, is facing charges related to the disclosure of a CIA operative's identity.

Bush repeatedly has deplored leaks and has maintained an appearance of distance throughout the CIA leak investigation, telling reporters in 2003: "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."

But Libby's testimony, if true, places Bush in the middle of his administration's effort to undermine its critics at a time that the White House was preparing to make Iraq a central theme of the 2004 presidential campaign.

According to the new court filing, Libby testified to a grand jury that Cheney told him Bush had approved the release of information from the CIA's classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction....

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak7apr07,0,3961358,full.story?coll=la-home-headlines