The perjury trial of Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, began explosively on Tuesday as his lawyers argued he was the victim of CIA incompetence and that the White House wanted to scapegoat him in order to protect Karl Rove, the strategist seen as key to keeping the Republican party in office.

Both legal teams used audio and visual props in their opening statements to the jury on how the name of a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame, was leaked to the press. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, played tapes of Mr Libby’s soft-spoken testimony before the grand jury and charged that he had “knowingly and intentionally lied”.