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Lawyer: Leak info won't affect Libby case

WASHINGTON, April 8 (UPI) -- The attorney for a former top White House aide said reports that U.S. President George Bush authorized a leak won't impact the ex-aide's case.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, was indicted in October on perjury and obstruction of justice counts.

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He allegedly lied to a grand jury and federal investigators looking into who leaked the name of then-CIA covert official Valerie Plame to the media.

William Jeffress, Libby's lawyer, maintained that Libby didn't lie to investigators about the former CIA agent but that it was a small part of a conversation and he just forgot, The Washington Post reported.

On Wednesday, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald filed in court Libby's assertion that Bush approved the leak of unrelated classified information to the public in order to counter claims his administration had fudged Iraq intelligence to promote war plans.

Fitzgerald alleges the disclosure of the CIA official's name was meant to hurt Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who spoke out against presidential claims that Saddam Hussein tried to get nuclear materials from Africa.

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No one yet has been charged with directly leaking Plame's name.

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