Cheney, Politics and Iraq Focus of Jury Selection

Jan. 16, 1007 — -- This morning a pool of 60 potential jurors entered Courtroom 16 at the U.S. District Court in Washington as the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, got under way.

Opening statements are slated to begin on Jan. 22. By the end of the day, prosecutors and defense attorneys had questioned only nine potential jurors, and three had been dismissed.

As the jurors were brought in they were greeted by Judge Reggie Walton. Each took a brief oath, affirming to tell the truth under questioning by the judge and lawyers for the government and defense.

Walton read the nine-page jury questionnaire, which included a list of 80 potential witnesses and names that would be mentioned during the trial. The names were provided to see if jurors had biases against the individuals who may appear as witnesses or who would be mentioned during the trial, which is expected to last four to six weeks.

The names included well-known Washington journalists and influential government officials from the CIA, State Department and the White House, and included Cheney, who is expected to testify at the trial as part of Libby's defense.

Libby was charged last year with lying to a federal grand jury and FBI investigators about how he came to know the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA officer married to former U.S. ambassador Joseph Wilson. Plame's name was published by political columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003, and Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate the matter later that year.

Fitzgerald's investigation centered on a plot to discredit Wilson, who disputed claims made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger. Fitzgerald's investigation focused on discussions among administration officials after New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote about an unnamed ambassador traveling to Niger in a May 2003 column, and after Wilson wrote a July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed that disputed the administration's intelligence claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.