WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Witnesses discredited I. Lewis Libby's claim that he gave misinformation to the FBI because of faulty memory, a prosecutor told a Washington jury Tuesday.
In his closing statement in Libby's perjury trial, Peter Zeidenberg also reminded jurors that when the trial began, a defense lawyer promised to show Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff had been a scapegoat, The New York Times reported. In his opening statement, Theodore Wells, who heads Libby's defense team, "painted a very different picture" from his actual defense, Zeidenberg said.
Libby is charged with obstructing the investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson angered the Bush administration with an op-ed piece undercutting claims that Saddam Hussein had been buying uranium in Niger.
In interviews with FBI agents and in grand jury testimony, Libby claimed he learned Wilson's wife was a CIA agent from reporters. Libby did not testify at the trial.
"He invents out of whole cloth," Zeidenberg said.
Wells, in his summation, said the prosecution case was based on unreliable witnesses, including Tim Russert, host of NBC's "Meet the Press" and Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, the Los Angeles Times reported.
