Free Republic

Libby Explains Faulty Recollections By MATT APUZZO WASHINGTON - On grand jury audiotapes played at his trial on Tuesday, former White House aide I. Lewis Libby said he learned about a CIA officer from Vice President Dick Cheney, forgot it, then learned it again from NBC News reporter Tim Russert a month later. The complicated history of Libby's recollections is at the heart of his perjury and obstruction trial in the exposing the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA employee. She is married to war critic and former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Libby's eight hours of grand jury testimony in 2004...

WASHINGTON -- The prosecutor in the CIA leak case is exploring a range of possible crimes, lawyers in the case say, suggesting that the investigation has moved well beyond its initial focus on whether anyone in the Bush administration illegally disclosed the identity of a CIA operative. In recent days, the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has accelerated the pace of his inquiry in an apparent effort to conclude the case before the grand jury's term expires on Oct. 28. He has indicated to several lawyers that he might be preparing to bring charges. Fitzgerald has asked to meet Tuesday with...

...Rove is identified in Cooper's notes from that time period, which Time turned over Friday to special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald -- under court order. Fitzgerald is investigating whether senior administration officials leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to reporters in July 2003 as retaliation after her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify a war with Iraq... Plame's name first appeared in Robert D. Novak's syndicated column in July 2003, eight days after Wilson's opinion piece critical of the Bush administration appeared in the Times. Wilson was sent by...