FBI agent describes Libby interviews

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WASHINGTON, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- I. Lewis Libby did not mention telling reporters that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent in his first FBI interviews, an agent testified Thursday in Washington.

Deborah Bond said that Libby, then Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, omitted significant details about conversations with reporters Judith Miller, then with the New York Times, and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, the Washington Post reported.

Bond said Libby told her he had forgotten about a telephone conversation with Cheney in which the vice president told him that Plame worked for the CIA and is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson -- remembering it only when he found a handwritten note shortly before his FBI interview.

Libby is not charged with leaking Plame's identity. He is charged with perjury and obstructing an investigation into allegations that the White House deliberately outed Plame after Wilson wrote an op-ed piece that suggested the Bush administration misled the public about Saddam Hussein's nuclear plans.

Both Miller and Cooper have testified this week, telling the jury that Libby discussed Plame with them. Neither wrote about Plame until columnist Robert Novak revealed her identity in a July 2003 column.