Prosecutors say Libby lied as trial winds down

WASHINGTON, Feb 21 (Reuters) A former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney lied to the FBI because he was worried he might face criminal charges for blowing a CIA employee's cover, the prosecution said as the trial neared its close.

Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby also feared he would lose his job as Cheney's chief of staff after he enlisted the vice president to clear his name, prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg told the jury in his closing argument.

''He had a choice to make -- he could tell the truth and take his chances with the investigation, or he could lie.

Ladies and gentlemen, he took the second choice,'' Zeidenberg said yesterday.

Libby is on trial for lying to investigators trying to find out who leaked a CIA analyst's identity after her husband accused the White House of twisting intelligence to bolster the case for invading Iraq.

Libby's defense team said the government's entire case rested on two phone calls with reporters -- not enough to prove him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

''There's just two guys, one on one side and one on the other,'' contradicting each other, defense attorney Theodore Wells said.

Nobody has been charged with intentionally blowing CIA analyst Valerie Plame's cover. Libby's perjury trial is the only criminal case to emerge from the three-year investigation.

Over four weeks, jurors have heard government officials and journalists describe how Libby sought information on Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, and passed it along to reporters weeks before he says he learned about her.

Jurors did not heard from Libby or Cheney.

FAULTY MEMORY Libby's lawyers say he did not lie to the FBI and a grand jury intentionally but simply misremembered his conversations about Plame at a time he was swamped by national security matters.

Libby says he first heard about Plame from his former boss, but forgot about her until a conversation with NBC's senior vice president and Washington bureau chief Tim Russert jarred his memory.

Russert said the two did not discuss Plame in a telephone call.

In his closing argument, Wells pointed out that Russert kept no notes of the phone call. Russert also told the FBI that he ''could not completely rule out the possibility'' that the two might have discussed Plame, Wells said.

''You cannot convict Scooter Libby solely on the word of this man. It would be fundamentally unfair,'' Wells said.

Defense lawyers were expected to address the second phone call, with Matt Cooper of Time magazine, in the afternoon. Both sides are expected to finish their closing arguments by the end of the day.

Defense lawyers called no witnesses to bolster their assertion that Libby had been sacrificed to protect other White House employees deemed more valuable, like political guru Karl Rove.

But Wells said a handwritten note by Cheney submitted as evidence was proof enough.

Legal analysts say Libby's lawyers focused less on creating a coherent defense than trying to undermine the government's case.

While that strategy probably won't win an acquittal, it could prevent the jury from reaching a unanimous decision and force a mistrial, they said.

Reuters PDS VP0450