Timeline for Scooter

CIA leak case timeline

Staff and agencies
05 June, 2007


By The Associated Press

A timeline of events leading up to the conviction of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges stemming from the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame ‘s name.

_Jan. 28: President Bush asserts in his State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

_March 19-20: The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq begins.

_May 29: Libby asks Marc Grossman, an undersecretary of state, for information about the ambassador‘s travel to Niger. Grossman later tells Libby that Joseph Wilson was the former ambassador.

_June 11 or 12: Cheney advises Libby that Wilson‘s wife works at the CIA.

_June 14: Libby meets with a CIA briefer , , )" and his wife, "Valerie Wilson."

_July 6: The New York Times publishes an opinion piece by Wilson under the headline "What I Didn‘t Find in Africa" and he appears on NBC‘s "Meet the Press." Wilson said he doubted Iraq had recently obtained uranium from Niger and thought Cheney‘s office was told of the results of his trip.

_July 7: Libby meets with then-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer . Fleischer says Libby tells him that Wilson‘s wife works at the CIA and that the information is "hush hush." Libby denies that.

• July 8: Columnist Robert Novak interviews Armitage, who tells him that Wilson‘s wife works for the CIA. Novak says this was confirmed the next day by White House political adviser Karl Rove.

_July 11: Fleischer, on a presidential trip to Africa, tells two reporters that Wilson‘s wife works for the CIA. Rove tells Time Magazine‘s Matthew Cooper that Wilson‘s wife works for the CIA.

_July 12: Walter Pincus of the Washington Post says Fleischer tells him that Wilson‘s wife works at the CIA. Fleischer doesn‘t recall that.

_July 14: Columnist Novak reports that Wilson‘s wife is a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction and that two senior administration officials, whom Novak did not name, said she suggested sending her husband to Niger to investigate the uranium story.

_Sept. 26: A criminal investigation is authorized to determine who leaked Plame‘s identity to reporters. Disclosing the identity of CIA operatives is illegal. A short time later, Armitage tells investigators that he may have inadvertently leaked Plame‘s identity to Woodward.

_Oct. 14 and Nov. 26: Libby is interviewed by FBI agents.

_Dec. 30: U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald in Chicago, an aggressive career prosecutor, is named to head the leak investigation after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft takes himself out of the case to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

2004:

_January: A grand jury begins investigating possible violations of federal criminal laws.

_March 5 and March 24: Libby testifies before the grand jury. In a tape of his testimony, Libby tells jurors that he forgot the information about Plame working for the CIA until he heard it from Russert. Anything he told reporters, he says, was just chatter passed on from that conversation.

2005:

_Oct. 28: Libby is indicted on five counts: obstruction of justice and two counts each of false statement and two counts of perjury.

2006:

_Sept. 7: Armitage admits he leaked Plame‘s identity to Novak and to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. Armitage says he did not realize Plame‘s job was covert.

2007:

_Jan. 16: Jury selection begins in Libby‘s trial.

_Jan. 23: Prosecution and defense lawyers make opening statements to the jury and U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton.

_Feb. 20: Prosecution and defense attorneys make closing statements.

_Feb. 21: Jurors begin deliberations.

_March 6: Jurors return guilty verdicts on charges of obstruction, perjury and lying to the FBI. A not guilty verdict was returned on one count of lying to an FBI agent.