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Leopold: Witnesses to Grossman-Libby Meeting

Jason Leopold, writing at Truthout, says former Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who has been cooperating with Fitzgerald in the Valerie Plame leaks investigation, has witnesses to support his claim that he told Libby in June, 2003 that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA.

Libby has claimed in his latest filing (see pages 15-16) that he doesn't remember the conversation, that it might not have happened, that Grossman may have confused him with someone else or that Grossman may be biased.

Leopold writes,

But the conversation did take place, according to current and former administration officials and attorneys who have remained close to the two-year-old CIA leak probe. At least a half-dozen witnesses who testified before a grand jury over the past two years said that they were at the meeting when Marc Grossman, the former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, told Libby that Plame Wilson worked for the CIA, according to attorneys and US officials close to the two-year-old CIA leak probe.

...."It's not just Mr. Grossman's word against Mr. Libby's," said one former State Department official knowledgeable about the substance of the conversation between Grossman and Libby. "There were other people present at the meeting at the time when Mr. Grossman provided Mr. Libby with details about Ms. Plame's employment with the agency. There is an abundance of evidence Mr. Fitzgerald has that will prove this."

If these witnesses were at a meeting with Libby and heard Grossman's identification of Valerie Plame Wilson, and if they are cooperating with Fitzgerald, Libby may have to stick with his lack of memory defense and forget the bias claim. He's already testified he forgot a key conversation in June with Dick Cheney by the time he spoke with Judith Miller in July. (See page 20 of Fitz's last filing.)

Defendant testified that he did not discuss the CIA employment of Ambassador Wilson's wife with reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003 and that he could not have done so because he had forgotten by that time that he had learned about Ms. Wilson's CIA employment a month earlier from the Vice President.

But what will he do about Ari Fleischer?