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Libby: My 'superiors' authorized leaks
Prosecutor says Libby shared classified intelligence with media

Friday, February 10, 2006; Posted: 12:27 a.m. EST (05:27 GMT)

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is accused of lying to police about how he learned the name of a CIA operative.

Was Scooter Libby 'authorized' to leak information? (2:52)
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, told a grand jury he was "authorized by his superiors" to disclose classified information from an intelligence report to reporters, according to the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case.

In a letter to Libby's lawyers, obtained by CNN, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said it is his understanding that Libby testified he was "authorized to disclose information about the National Intelligence Estimate to the press by his superiors."

The letter does not name who the superiors are. But the National Journal, which first reported on the Fitzgerald letter, named Vice President Dick Cheney and other White House officials as authorizing Libby to disclose the classified material.

A legal source involved in the case tells CNN that Libby did not testify to and has never suggested that anyone in the administration -- including Cheney -- authorized disclosing the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Libby was indicted in October on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to investigators looking into the July 2003 exposure of Plame, whose husband had emerged as a critic of the pre-war intelligence backing the invasion of Iraq.

Libby has pleaded not guilty, and a judge has set a trial date for January 2007.

His lawyer, William Jeffress, told The Associated Press, "There is no truth at all" to suggestions that Libby would try to shift blame to his superiors as a defense against the charges.

According to Fitzgerald's letter, Libby met with Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times, on July 8, 2003, to "transmit information concerning the NIE."

A former top U.S. intelligence official said it's unusual for National Intelligence Estimates to be declassified by the president or vice president without consulting the CIA director.

The former official adds that some key judgments of that intelligence report were declassified on July 18, 2003 -- 10 days after Libby's meeting with Miller.

Plame is the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent by the CIA to the African nation of Niger to check out an intelligence report that nuclear material was being sold to Iraq.

Plame's identity was disclosed shortly after her husband said he found no evidence to support the intelligence report and accused the Bush administration of skewing intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

When asked to comment at Thursday's White House briefing, Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, "Our policy is we're not going to discuss this while it's an ongoing legal proceeding, and that remains our policy."

On September 30, 2003, President Bush said, "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is, and if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of."

Fitzgerald's investigation is ongoing.