Free Republic

WASHINGTON - Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald on Friday disputed the claim of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide that the prosecutor lacks legal authority to indict him in the CIA leak investigation. Fitzgerald opposed the move of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby asking a judge to dismiss the five-count indictment against him in the Valerie Plame affair. In court papers, the prosecutor argued that being allowed to operate outside any control of the Justice Department is constitutional and in accordance with federal law. The prosecutor, who is investigating the disclosure of Plame's CIA undercover status, is not supervised by the...

WASHINGTON - The prosecutor in the CIA leak probe repeatedly asked New York Times reporter Judith Miller how Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff handled classified information in their discussions, and asked whether Cheney knew of their conversations. In a first-person account released Saturday on The Times' Web site, Miller recounted her recent grand jury testimony, which focused on her conversations in 2003 with Cheney's closest aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Miller said she "didn't think" she heard covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's name from Libby. "I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could...