Former CIA officer
sues Cheney, Libby,
Rove over leak
Plame alleges Bush
administration officials ruined her career
By AP from CNN.com on
the Web, July 13, 2006
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| The identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame
was revealed in a column by Robert Novak in 2003. |
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WASHINGTON -- The CIA officer
whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his
former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them
and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career.
In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph
Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter"
Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for
criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq.
Several news organizations wrote about Plame after syndicated columnist Robert
Novak named her in a column on July 14, 2003. Novak's column appeared
eight days after Wilson alleged in an opinion piece in The New York Times that
the administration had twisted prewar intelligence on Iraq to justify going to
war.
The CIA had sent Wilson to Niger in early 2002 to determine whether there was
any truth to reports that Saddam Hussein's government had tried to buy
yellowcake uranium from Niger to make a nuclear weapon. Wilson discounted
the reports, but the allegation nevertheless wound up in President Bush's 2003
State of the Union address.
The lawsuit accuses Cheney, Libby, Rove and 10 unnamed administration officials
or political operatives of putting the Wilsons and their children's lives at
risk by exposing Plame.
"This lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior
officials of the federal government of ... (Plame), whose job it was to gather
intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country,"
the Wilsons' lawyers said in the lawsuit.
Libby is the only administration official charged in connection with the leak
investigation. He faces trial in January on perjury and
obstruction-of-justice charges, accused of lying to FBI agents and a federal
grand jury about when he learned Plame's identity and what he subsequently told
reporters.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald told Rove's lawyer last month that he had
decided not to seek criminal charges against Rove.
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