Date: March 6th 2007

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/06/cia.leak/index.html

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been found guilty on four of five counts in his perjury and obstruction of justice trial.

Libby, 56, faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison and a fine of $1 million.

Libby was convicted of obstruction of justice, making a false statement and two counts of perjury.

Jurors cleared him of a second count of making a false statement.

The indictment against the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney concerned how Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA operative and what Libby said to a grand jury concerning the case.

Libby was not accused of exposing Plame. He resigned in 2005 after the grand jury indicted him.

Prosecutors contended Libby disclosed Plame's covert profession to reporters as part of a plan to discredit her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who alleged that the Bush administration twisted some intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war.

Wilson, who conducted a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, wrote in a July 2003 New York Times editorial that he found no evidence Iraq sought to buy uranium from the African nation, as the administration claimed.

The jury was down to 11 members -- seven women and four men. A week ago, one of the jurors revealed that she had obtained outside information that prompted the judge to disqualify her.

The defense said it would accept 11 jurors to avoid having to start deliberations over with an alternate. The prosecution objected, but U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton overruled, and the panel has continued with one chair empty.

Testimony and evidence in the trial began January 23.