Plame Gossip - Bush Authorized the Judy Miller Leak

Now, this isn't about Plame's identity, but in a court filing in his perjury and obstruction case, Scooter Libby's defense lets slip that his "leaks" of classified information to Judy Miller(see aluminum tubes) were made with the "specific permission" of President Bush.

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded "National Intelligence Estimate" on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.

Now, technically, there is nothing illegal in this, it is in the president's prerogative to declassify anything, anytime, but it's pretty damning when combined with Murray Waas's last National Journal article, which reported "that Bush had been specifically advised that claims he later made in his 2003 State of the Union address -- that Iraq was procuring high-strength aluminum tubes to build a nuclear weapon -- might not be true."

Now, there'll have to be some digging on the timeline, but this might just be a smoking gun that Bush knowingly and intentionally misinformed the American people about the Iraq threat.

I know, I know, everybody already assumed that, but this may be proof.

A little more context from the article.

"Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was ‘pretty definitive' against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was ‘very important' for the key judgments of the NIE to come out," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote.

Mr. Libby is said to have testified that "at first" he rebuffed Mr. Cheney's suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. "Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE," the prosecution filing said.

Also, the article makes it clear that Cheney, who was pushing for the leak, knew that it was destined for the NYTimes. This was the support he cited in the famous Meet the Press interview where he cited the NYTimes reporting as evidence, independent from the administration, that Iraq was seeking nuclear weapons.

UPDATE: At 11:10 central this morning on CNN, Jim Clancy broke into the newscast to report that George Bush authorized the leak of Plame's name based on an AP story. About 10 minutes later he issued a correction back down to this version of the testimony. The AP story in question has been lengthened and now includes that the Plame name wasn't part of the authorized leak.

So, after about ten breathless minutes, the story is the same as the above. The only difference is that with this CNN screwup, that this story, that the President of the United States authorized the leak of information known to him to be dubious, will probably get much more prominence and play.

Sorry for CNN, but good for News.