The New York Sun’s Josh Gerstein has a very good round-up of who’s who in the Libby trial, which commences today. Gerstein’s round-up includes this interesting tidbit at the end:
The trial is unlikely to explore details about how the investigation was launched. Some conservatives have asserted that the report the CIA sent to the Justice Department, triggering the criminal inquiry, must have misstated Ms. Plame’s history at the agency. These critics believe that the CIA’s referral falsely claimed that she had been in covert status overseas in the past five years. Only leaks about agents who have such a record could result in a prosecution under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
Mr. Libby’s defense team sought access to the referral, but prosecutors resisted and the judge deemed it irrelevant to the pending charges. The Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal are pressing for a copy of the referral, which is in the sealed records of an appeals court in Washington, but it’s not clear when or whether the request will be granted.
Given all that we already know about Plame’s career (mostly via various leaks from people sympathetic to the Wilsons), what grounds could the government possibly have for keeping that document a secret?