Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer

As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally indicated.

With New York Times reporter Judith Miller's release from jail Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, came into clearer focus. Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.

His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President subtittle: Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House Statement

Bush's top political adviser. Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied her name or CIA role.

Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a few months after Plame's CIA job became public.

And that DOJ referral contends that she was covert.

It is uncontested that she was at some point. But it is contested, by at least 36 media outlets, whether she had any covert status that would support a violation of 50 USC 421 et seq by anybody, in 2002.

March 23, 2005 Amici Brief of 36 News Organizations

That brief also describes the CIA referral to the DOJ, but does not contain a copy of it.

Agreed ... everything I've read about Fitzgerald .. from both Republican and Dim colleagues ... describes him as an exemplary and relentless apolitical straight shooter, loyal to the law. If that's the case, I tend to believe that if there was a crime committed, he'll find it .. and if there wasn't, he won't contrive one.

Patrick J. Fitzgerald

"According to an October 24, 2001, press release (http://fitzgerald.senate.gov/usattorney/confirm-patfitz.htm) by U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL): "Patrick J. Fitzgerald, 40, began his prosecutorial career in 1988 by handling significant drug trafficking cases, and prosecuting major heroin smuggling rings. In 1993 he and another lawyer prosecuted, and won convictions against, John Gambino, a capo of the Gambino Crime Family and three other members of the Gambino Crime Family crew for a variety of charges, including murder and racketeering.

"In June of 1994, he became counsel in the prosecution of the 'blind sheik', Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 other defendants, who were accused of a seditious conspiracy involving the bombing of the World Trade Center and a plot to bomb the United Nations, the FBI Building in New York, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt. The nine-month trial resulted in convictions.

"The following year, Fitzgerald was named Co-Chief of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Section of the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Shortly thereafter he became National Security Coordinator for the Office. In these capacities, he was responsible for supervising the investigation and development and prosecution of the case against Osama bin Laden. He was the chief counsel in the prosecution of those alleged to have perpetrated the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania."

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