@@ JEW Irv Lewis "Scooter" Libby is going down @@
Arash
October 21, 2005
Cover-Up Issue Is Seen as Focus in Leak Inquiry
By David Johnston
Washington -- As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the CIA leak case,
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Fitzgerald), is focusing on whether Karl Rove,
the senior White House adviser, and Irv Lewis "Scooter" Libby
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/libby/libby.php), chief of staff for Vice
President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors,
lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.
Among the charges that Patrick Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of
justice and false statement - counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the
evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House
aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.
Karl Rove (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Rove) and Lewis Libby have been advised
that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has
Patrick Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he
will not make up his mind about any charges until next week, government officials
say.
With the term of the grand jury expiring in one week, though, some lawyers in the
case said they were persuaded that Patrick Fitzgerald had all but made up his mind to
seek indictments. None of the lawyers would speak on the record, citing the
prosecutor's requests not to talk about the case.
Associates of Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby continued to express hope that the
prosecutor would conclude that the evidence was too fragmentary and that it would be
difficult to prove Karl Rove or Lewis Libby had a clear-cut intention to misinform
the grand jury. Lawyers for the two men declined to comment on their legal status.
The case has cast a cloud over the White House, as has the Congressional criticism
over the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet E. Miers. On Thursday, responding to a
reporter's question, Bush said: "There's some background noise here, a lot of
chatter, a lot of speculation and opining. But the American people expect me to do my
job, and I'm going to".
The possible violations under consideration by Patrick Fitzgerald are peripheral to
the issue he was appointed in December 2003 to investigate: whether anyone in the
administration broke a federal law that makes it a crime, under certain
circumstances, to reveal the identity of a covert intelligence officer.
But Karl Rove and Lewis Libby may not be the only people at risk. There may be others
in the government who could be charged for violations of the disclosure law or of
other statutes, like the espionage act
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espionage_Act_of_1917), which makes it a crime to
transmit classified information to people not authorized to receive it.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000793----000-.html
It is still not publicly known who first told the columnist Robert D. Novak
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Novak) the identity of the CIA officer, Valerie
Wilson. Robert Novak identified her in a column on July 14, 2003, using her maiden
name, Valerie Plame (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame).
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald knows the identity of this source, a person who
is not believed to work at the White House, the lawyers said.
The accounts given by Karl Rove and Lewis Libby about their conversations with
reporters have been under investigation almost from the start. According to lawyers
in the case, the prosecutor has examined how each man learned of Valerie Plame
Wilson, and questioned them in grand jury appearances about their conversations with
reporters, how they learned Valerie Plame Wilson's name and her CIA employment and
whether the discussions were part of an effort to undermine the credibility of her
husband, a former ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson).
Ambassador Joseph Wilson had become an irritant to the administration in the late
spring and early summer of 2003 even before he went public as a critic of the war in
Iraq by writing a July 6, 2003 Op-Ed article in The New York Times, titled "What I
Didn't Find in Africa" (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm).
In that article he wrote that he had traveled to Africa in 2003 to explore the
accuracy of intelligence reports that suggested Iraq might have tried to purchase
uranium ore from Niger (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake_forgery). Ambassador
Joseph Wilson said that he had been sent on the trip by the CIA after Dick Cheney's
office raised questions about one such report, but that he found it unlikely that any
sale had taken place.
In Karl Rove's case, the prosecutor appears to have focused on two conversations with
reporters. The first was a July 9, 2003 discussion with Robert Novak in which, Karl
Rove has said, he first heard Valerie Plame Wilson's name
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_Affair).
The second conversation took place on July 11, 2003 with a Time magazine reporter,
Matthew Cooper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Cooper), who later wrote that
Karl Rove had not named Valerie Wilson but had told him that she worked at the CIA
and that she had been responsible for her husband being sent to Africa.
Karl Rove did not tell the grand jury about his phone conversation with Matthew
Cooper until months into the leak investigation, long after he had testified about
his conversation with Robert Novak, the lawyers said. Later, Karl Rove said he had
not recalled the conversation with Matthew Cooper until the discovery of an email
message about it that he sent to Stephen J. Hadley
(http://rightweb.irc-online.org/ind/hadley/hadley.php), then the deputy national
security adviser. But Patrick Fitzgerald has remained skeptical about the omission,
the lawyers said.
In Lewis "Scooter" Libby's case, Patrick Fitzgerald has focused on his statements
about how he first learned of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity, the lawyers said.
Lewis Libby has said that he learned of Valerie Plame Wilson from reporters. But
Patrick Fitzgerald may have doubts about his account because the journalists who have
been publicly identified as having talked to Lewis Libby have said that they did not
provide the name, that they could not recall what had been said or that they had
discussed unrelated subjects.
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/nyt014.html