[JURIST] Lawyers made their final arguments in the perjury trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby [defense website; JURIST news archive] Tuesday, with the defense arguing that Libby was a scapegoat for presidential aide Karl Rove's disclosures. In its final remarks, the prosecution argued that Libby was merely trying to a cover up a potentially illegal intelligence leak. In response, the defense said the government's witnesses were not credible and to accept the testimony of Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert [profile] as truth "would just be fundamentally unfair."

Libby's defense team rested [JURIST report] last week, one week after the prosecution finished presenting [JURIST report] its evidence against Libby. Also last week, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak testified [JURIST report] that Libby did not leak Plame's identity to him. It was Novak's July 2003 column that publicly outed Plame, thus igniting the CIA leak scandal [JURIST news archive]. Libby is not charged with leaking Plame's identity, but instead faces perjury and obstruction of justice charges [indictment, PDF; JURIST report] in connection with the investigation into the leak. The Los Angeles Times has more.