Libby testifies Bush authorized intelligence leak

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

In the court filing, drawn in part from Libby's own grand jury testimony before his indictment, Fitzgerald indicated that:

— A July 8, 2003, Libby conversation with the Times' Miller occurred "only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information" from a then-classified intelligence estimate on Iraq. Libby is alleged to have mentioned the CIA status of Wilson's wife in the conversation.

— Cheney's chief of staff at first told the vice president that he could not have the July 8, 2003, conversation with Miller because of the classified nature of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq.

— Libby "testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions" of the NIE.

— The White House aide testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the vice president, "whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."

— Cheney's then-chief of staff "understood that the vice president specifically selected him to talk to the press about the NIE and Mr. Wilson on July 12, 2003." In conversations that day with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and again with Miller, Libby referred to the CIA status of Wilson's wife.

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My first thought upon reading this was something to the effect of Bush is the commander in chief and I suppose that ultimite authority to declassify stuff lies with him, and if Libby can pull this off, it's a brilliant strategy. Later I read what Atrios over at Eschaton had to say:

It's probably reasonable that the president can declassify whatever he wants, or at least I haven't really seen an especially strong argument to the contrary, but that doesn't mean that the president can declassify stuff, show it to Judy Miller, and then turn around claim the stuff is still classified. That's where this argument falls apart.

More thoughts from Atrios on this subject here.

That got me thinking. Even if no laws were broken here, and Bush really did authorize the leaking of Plame's name to the press, the President sure did put on a big song and dance routine about how they were going to get the leakers. And, if true, why didn't they bail out Libby when the indictment came down? Someone's lying. Lying about big, big issues. Really, this is just plain trashy when you get down to it.

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