Libby caught red-handed

And the Daily News has done a MUCH better job of reporting on Plamegate than the compromised New York Times.

Scooter notes ID'd CIA spy
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - Handwritten notes taken by the CIA show Vice President Cheney's top aide knew the name of CIA spy Valerie Plame a month before her cover was blown.

It appears to be the first known document in the hands of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that directly contradicts Lewis (Scooter) Libby's claim he learned from reporters in July 2003 that Valerie Plame was a CIA employee.

Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff, has been indicted for perjury in the CIA leak investigation.

Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, was a Bush critic dispatched to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to see if Iraq had shopped for uranium. "A CIA employee assigned to provide daily intelligence briefs to the Vice President and Libby has handwritten notes indicating that Libby referred to 'Joe Wilson' and 'Valerie Wilson' by those names in conversation with the briefer on June 14, 2003," Fitzgerald wrote in a recently unsealed brief.

The filing suggests Cheney may have been present when Libby griped to his CIA briefer about agency officials slamming the veep in the press.

Seven officials have testified that Libby raised the CIA spy with them before columnist Robert Novak outed her. In the filing, Fitzgerald also revealed that his investigators also confiscated computers.

Meanwhile, a judge overseeing Libby's perjury trial ruled yesterday that Libby won't get any copies of the secret daily intelligence briefings for Cheney and President Bush.