This ought to be interesting… AP reports that “Vice President Dick Cheney will be called as a defense witness in the CIA leak case.”

“We’re calling the vice president,” attorney Ted Wells said in court. Wells represents defendant I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who is charged with perjury and obstruction.

Early last week, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said he did not expect the White House to resist if Cheney or other administration officials are called to testify in Libby’s trial, expected to begin in January.

Cheney is believed to be the first vice president in history to be called to tesitfy in a criminal case:

Sitting presidents, including Clinton and Ford, have testified in criminal cases, but presidential historians and separation-of-powers experts said they knew of no vice president who has done so. The first President Bush was subpoenaed to testify in the Iran-Contra trial of Oliver North. At the time, Bush was Reagan’s vice president, but Bush was president by the time a judge ruled he did not need to testify.

Speculation is that Cheney could “help prosecutors undermine Libby’s defense that he was so preoccupied with national security matters, he forgot details about the less-important Plame issue.”

One of Libby’s attorneys, William Jeffress, “would not say whether Cheney is under a subpoena to testify.”

Issuing a court order to a sitting vice president could raise separation-of-powers concerns, but Jeffress said it was not an issue.

“We don’t expect him to resist,” Jeffress said.

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