Prosecutor in Leak
Inquiry Orders Rove
to Return Again
By DAVID JOHNSTON,
NYTimes on theWeb, October 7, 2005
WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 -- The
special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case has summoned Karl Rove, the senior
White House adviser, to return next week to testify to a federal grand jury in a
step that could mean charges will be filed in the case, lawyers in the case said
Thursday.
The prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has held discussions in recent days with
lawyers for several administration officials suggesting that he is considering
whether to charge them with a crime over the disclosure of an intelligence
operative's identity in a 2003 newspaper column.
Mr. Fitzgerald is said by some of the lawyers to have indicated that he has not
made up his mind about whether to accuse anyone of wrongdoing and will use the
remaining days before the grand jury's term expires on Oct. 28 to decide.
Mr. Rove has appeared before the grand jury on three previous occasions.
Meanwhile, Mr. Fitzgerald has indicated that he is not entirely finished with
Judith Miller, the reporter for The New York Times who recently testified before
the grand jury after serving 85 days in jail. According to a lawyer
familiar with the case, Mr. Fitzgerald has asked Ms. Miller to meet him next
Tuesday to further discuss her conversations with I. Lewis Libby, the vice
president's chief of staff.
Ms. Miller went to jail rather than divulge the identity of her source, but
agreed to testify after Mr. Libby released her from a pledge of confidentiality.
Mr. Fitzgerald has not indicated whether he plans to summon Ms. Miller for
further testimony before the grand jury.
Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for Mr. Rove, said that Mr. Rove has not received a
target letter, which are sometimes used by prosecutors to advise people that
they are likely to be charged with a crime. Mr. Luskin said Thursday that
"the special counsel has said that he has made no charging decision."
Mr. Fitzgerald's conversations with lawyers in recent days have cast a cloud
over the inquiry, sweeping away the confidence once expressed by a number of
officials and their lawyers who have said that he was unlikely to find any
illegality.
In coming days, the lawyers said, Mr. Fitzgerald is likely to request that
several other White House officials return to the grand jury to testify about
their actions in the case -- appearances that are believed to be pivotal as the
prosecutor proceeds toward a charging decision.
Mr. Fitzgerald is also re-examining grand jury testimony by Mr. Libby, the
lawyers said, but it is unknown whether he has been asked to appear again before
the grand jury. Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, did not respond to
telephone messages left on Thursday at his office.
Mr. Luskin said that he had offered to have Mr. Rove return to the grand jury if
needed to clarify any questions that were raised by the testimony in July by
Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine who was questioned about a
conversation that he had with Mr. Rove in July 2003.
"Karl's consistent position is that he will cooperate any time, any place," Mr.
Luskin said.
Mr. Rove has been caught up in the inquiry since the F.B.I. began investigating
the matter in 2003. He has told investigators that he spoke with the
columnist Robert D. Novak a few days after the operative's husband wrote an
Op-Ed article for The Times, a lawyer in the case has said. In that
conversation, Mr. Rove said that he learned the operative's name from the
columnist and the circumstances in which her husband traveled to Africa.
But at the end of that conversation, Mr. Rove told Mr. Novak that he had already
heard the outlines of the columnist's account.
The conversation with Mr. Novak took place several days before Mr. Rove spoke
with a second reporter, Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper said later in an e-mail
message to his editors that Mr. Rove had talked about the operative, although
not by name.
In recent days, Mr. Rove has been less visible than usual at the White House,
fueling speculation that he is distancing himself from Mr. Bush or has been
sidelined. But according to a senior administration official, Mr. Rove and his
wife are on a long-planned trip visiting colleges with their teenage son.
Several lawyers who have been involved in the case expressed surprise and
concern over the recent turn of events and are increasingly convinced that Mr.
Fitzgerald could be poised to charge someone with a crime for discussing with
journalists the identity of a C.I.A. officer.
The C.I.A operative was Valerie Wilson, also known by her maiden name, Valerie
Plame. Her identity was first publicly disclosed in a July 14, 2003, newspaper
column by Mr. Novak, which suggested that she had a role in arranging a 2002
trip to Africa by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador. The
purpose of the trip was to look into intelligence reports that Iraq had sought
nuclear fuel from Niger.
Mr. Novak's column was published a week after Mr. Wilson wrote an Op-Ed article
in The Times on July 6, 2003, discussing his trip. Mr. Wilson wrote that
he traveled to Africa at the request of the C.I.A. after the office of Vice
President Dick Cheney had raised questions about the possible uranium sales.
Mr. Wilson wrote that he concluded that it was "highly doubtful" that Iraq had
tried to buy nuclear material from Niger.
Mr. Fitzgerald has focused on whether there was a deliberate effort to retaliate
against Mr. Wilson for his column and its criticism of the Bush administration's
Iraq policy. Recently lawyers said that they believed the prosecutor may
be applying new legal theories to bring charges in the case.
One new approach appears to involve the possible use of Chapter 37 of the
federal espionage and censorship law, which makes it a crime for anyone who
"willfully communicates, delivers, transfers or causes to be communicated" to
someone "not entitled to receive it" classified information relating the
national defense matters.
Under this broad statute, a government official or a private citizen who passed
classified information to anyone else in or outside the government could
potentially be charged with a felony, if they transferred the information to
someone without a security clearance to receive it.
The lawyers who discussed the investigation declined to be identified by name
citing the ongoing nature of the inquiry and Mr. Fitzgerald's requests not to
talk about it.
Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times, said Ms. Miller had been
cautioned by her lawyers not to discuss the substance of her grand jury
testimony until Mr. Fitzgerald finished questioning her.
"We have launched a vigorous reporting effort that I hope will answer
outstanding questions about Judy's part in this drama," Mr. Keller said.
"This development may slow things down a little, but we owe our readers as full
a story as we can tell, as soon as we can tell it."
Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting for this article.
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