Looks like Libby is going after the CIA.
Libby is requesting records from the CIA. Specifically regarding Plame's employment classifcation and any national security assessments conducted by the CIA to determine any damage as a result of the WH leak.
Attorneys for Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff urged a court yesterday to force a prosecutor to turn over CIA records indicating whether former CIA operative Valerie Plame's employment was classified, saying the answer is not yet clear.
The defense team for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby also asked that the court require Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald to turn over any informal assessments conducted by the CIA to determine whether the leak of Plame's identity in July 2003 damaged national security or agency operations.
WaPo 2/1/06
Libby's argument is, why would he lie if Plame was not covert or if national security wasn't threatened.
I can't see a judge buying this one. I can't see how Plame's employment status (covert or not) has anything to do with Libby's indictment which include false statements and obstruction charges.
Defense lawyers argued in court papers that it is crucial to determine whether Plame was not an undercover operative at the time Libby was discussing her with members of the media, and whether little or no damage was done to national security when her identity was publicly disclosed.
If either is true, the defense argued, it will "challenge the prosecution's contention that Mr. Libby has reason to lie to the FBI and the grand jury about his conversations with reporters in July 2003."
WaPo 2/1/06
Apparently the strategy is to request as much classified information as possible. Libby is also requesting records from the Office of the Vice President to show how busy and confused Libby was in June 2003.
Confused? Please
The defense said it also is seeking records of daily briefings from the Office of the Vice President to show that Libby was immersed in national security matters from dawn to dusk every day.
"These documents are material to establishing that any misstatements he may have made were the result of confusion, mistake and faulty memory . . . rather than deliberate lies," according to the papers.
WaPo 2/1/06
Go see ReddHedd's take at Firedoglake.
Awww, poor Scooter Libby. His job was hard, and he got confused and called multiple reporters to plant a deliberate story about a covert operative who just coincidentally happened to be married to Joseph Wilson who pissed off the boss, Darth Cheney, by saying that Cheney and his fellow war-aggrandizing cronies were lying sacks of dung.
Firedoglake
UPDATE
Very Interesting from the NY Daily News today, from the same court papers referred to in the WaPo story. I wonder if Fitz's letter, quoted below, was in the court papers? The article isn't clear on that point.
CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald collected 10,000 pages of documents - including the most sensitive terrorism memos in the U.S. government - from Vice President Cheney's office, he said in court papers released yesterday.
snip
Fitzgerald, who is fighting Libby's request, said in a letter to Libby's lawyers that many e-mails from Cheney's office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy.
NY Daily News 2/1/06
More on the Fitz letter to Libby's lawyer from TMP.
Josh Marshall has some of the text of the letter. This was not in the NY Daily news article. Needlenose picked this up, sharp eyed as always.
Fitzgerald's letter says that "we have learned that not all email of the Office of Vice President and the Executive Office of President for certain time periods in 2003 was preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system."
TMP
More on the Fitz letter. Rawstory has the link to the Fitz letter to Libby's lawyers. This is a portion of the letter I found interesting, the letter has a great deal of information and I highly recomend you read the whole thing.
We also advise you that we understand that reporter John Dickerson of Time magazine discussed the trip by Mr. Wilson with government officials at some time on July 11 or after, subsequent to Cooper learning about Mr. Wilson's wife. Any converstions involving Mr. Dickerson likely took place in Africa after July 11th.
Letter PDF