Fitzgerald Will Seek New White House Indictments

29 March 2006

Fitzgerald Will Seek New White HouseIndictments By JasonLeopold t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report From:http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/032806Z.shtml Tuesday 28 March 2006

It mayseem as though it's been moving along at a snail's pace, butthe second part of the federal investigation into the leakof covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson is nearly complete,with attorneys and government officials who have remainedclose to the probe saying that a grand jury will likelyreturn an indictment against one or two senior Bushadministration officials.

These sources work orworked at the State Department, the CIA and the NationalSecurity Council. Some of these sources are attorneys closeto the case. They requested anonymity because they were notpermitted to speak publicly about the details of theinvestigation.

In lengthy interviews over the weekendand on Monday, they said that Special Prosecutor PatrickFitzgerald has started to prepare the paperwork to presentto the grand jury seeking an indictment against White HouseDeputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove or National Security AdviserStephen Hadley.

Although the situation remains fluid,it's possible, these sources said, that Fitzgerald may seekto indict both Rove and Hadley, charging them with perjury,obstruction of justice, and conspiracy related to theirroles in the leak of Plame Wilson's identity and theireffort to cover up their involvement following a JusticeDepartment investigation.

The sources said lateMonday that it may take more than a month before Fitzgeraldpresents the paperwork outlining the government's caseagainst one or both of the officials and asks the grand juryto return an indictment, because he is currently jugglingquite a few high-profile criminal cases and will need tocarve out time to write up the indictment and prepare theevidence.

In addition to responding to discoveryrequests from Libby's defense team and appearing in courtwith his attorneys, who are trying to obtain additionalevidence, such as top-secret documents, from Fitzgerald'sprobe, the special prosecutor is also prosecuting LordConrad Black, the newspaper magnate, has recently chargednumerous individuals in a child pornography ring, and iswrestling with other lawsuits in his home city of Chicago.

Details about the latest stage of the investigationbegan to take shape a few weeks ago when the lead FBIinvestigator on the leak case, John C. Eckenrode, retiredfrom the agency and indicated to several colleagues that theinvestigation is about to wrap up with indictments handed upby the grand jury against Rove or Hadley or both officials,the sources said.

The Philadelphia-based Eckenrode isfinished with his work on the case; however, he is expectedto testify as a witness for the prosecution next yearagainst I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President DickCheney's former chief of staff who was indicted in Octoberon five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lyingto investigators regarding his role in the leak.

Hadley and Rove remain under intense scrutiny, but sourcessaid Fitzgerald has not yet decided whether to seek chargesagainst one or both of them.

Libby and otherofficials in Cheney's office used the information theyobtained about Plame Wilson to undermine the credibility ofher husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson was anoutspoken critic of the Iraq war. He had alleged thatPresident Bush misspoke when he said, in his January 2003State of the Union address, that Iraq had tried to acquireyellow-cake uranium, the key component used to build anuclear bomb, from Niger.

The uranium claim was thesilver bullet in getting Congress to support military actiontwo months later. To date, no weapons of mass destructionhave been found in Iraq, and the country barely had afunctional weapons program, according to a report from theIraq Survey Group.

Wilson had traveled to Niger morethan a year earlier to investigate the yellow-cake claimsand reported back to the CIA that intelligence reportssaying Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger werefalse.

On Monday, though, attorneys close to the leakcase confirmed that Fitzgerald had met with the grand juryhalf a dozen times since January and recently told thejurors that he planned to present them with the government'scase against Rove or Hadley, which stems from an email Rovehad sent to Hadley in July of 2003 indicating that he had aconversation about Plame Wilson with Time magazine reporterMatthew Cooper.

Neither Hadley nor Rove disclosed theexistence of the email when they were questioned by FBIinvestigators or when they testified before a grand jury,the sources said, adding that Rove testified he found outabout Plame Wilson from reporters and Hadley testified thathe recalled learning about Plame Wilson when her name waspublished in a newspaper column.

Rove testifiedbefore the grand jury four times. Rove testified before thegrand jury four times. He did not disclose the existence ofthe email during his first two appearances before the grandjury, claiming he simply forgot about it because he wasenmeshed with the 2004 Presidential election, travelingaround the country attending fundraisers and meetings,working more than 15 hours a day on the campaign, and justforgot that he spoke with Cooper three months earlier,sources familiar with his testimony said.

But Roveand Libby had been the subject of dozens of news storiesabout the possibility that they played a role in the leak,and had faced dozens of questions as early as August 2003 -one month after Plame Wilson was outed - about whether theywere the administration officials responsible for leakingher identity.

The story Rove and his attorney, RobertLuskin, provided to Fitzgerald in order to explain why Rovedid not disclose the existence of the email is "less thansatisfactory and entirely unconvincing to the specialcounsel," one of the attorneys close to the case said.

Luskin did not return numerous calls for comment. Aspokeswoman for the National Security Council said she couldnot comment on an ongoing investigation and has vehementlydenied that Hadley was involved in the leak "because Mr.Hadley told us he wasn't involved."

In December,Luskin made a desperate attempt to keep his client out ofFitzgerald's crosshairs.

Luskin had revealed toFitzgerald that Viveca Novak - a reporter working for Timemagazine who wrote several stories about the Plame Wilsoncase - inadvertently tipped him off in early 2004 that hercolleague at the magazine, Matt Cooper, would be forced totestify that Rove was his source who told him about PlameWilson's CIA status.

Novak - who bears no relation tosyndicated columnist Robert Novak, the journalist who firstpublished Plame Wilson's name and CIA status in a July 14,2003, column - met Luskin in Washington DC in the summer of2004, and over drinks, the two discussed Fitzgerald'sinvestigation into the Plame Wilson leak.

Luskin hadassured Novak that Rove learned Plame Wilson's name and CIAstatus after it was published in news accounts and that onlythen did he phone other journalists to draw their attentionto it. But Novak told Luskin that everyone in the Timenewsroom knew Rove was Cooper's source and that he wouldtestify to that in an upcoming grand jury appearance, thesesources said.

According to Luskin's account, after hemet with Viveca Novak he contacted Rove and told him abouthis conversation with her. The two of them then began anexhaustive search through White House phone logs and emailsfor any evidence that proved that Rove had spoken withCooper. Luskin said that during this search an email wasfound that Rove had sent to then-Deputy National SecurityAdviser Stephen Hadley immediately after Rove's conversationwith Cooper, and it was subsequently turned over toFitzgerald.

"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote inthe email to Hadley immediately following his conversationwith Cooper on July 11, 2003. "Matt Cooper called to give mea heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming. Whenhe finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched intoNiger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt?I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn'tget Time far out in front on this."

Luskin wound upbecoming a witness in the case and testified about hisconversation with Viveca Novak that Luskin said would provehis client didn't knowingly lie to FBI investigators when hewas questioned about the leak in October 2003, just threemonths after Rove told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked forthe CIA.

The email Rove sent to Hadley, which Luskinsaid he found, helped Rove recall his conversation withCooper a year earlier. Rove then returned to the grand juryto clarify his previous testimonies in which he did notdisclose that he spoke with journalists.

Still,Rove's account of his conversation with Cooper went nothinglike he had described in his email to Hadley, according toan email Cooper sent to his editor at Time magazinefollowing his conversation with Rove in July 2003.

"It was, KR said, [former Ambassador Joseph] Wilson's wife,who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of massdestruction] issues who authorized [Wilson's] trip,"Cooper's July 11, 2003, email to his editor said. "Wilson'swife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as ananalyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operationscounterproliferation division. (Cooper later included theessence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The emailcharacterizing the conversation continues: "not only thegenesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is thereport. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty toimplicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m]Niger... "

It is unclear whether Rove was misleadingHadley about his conversation with Cooper, perhaps, becauseWhite House officials told their staff not to engagereporters in any questions posed about Wilson's Nigerclaims.

But Fitzgerald's investigation has turned upadditional evidence over the past few months that convincedhim that Luskin's eleventh-hour revelation about the chainof events that led to the discovery of the email is notcredible. Fitzgerald believes that Rove changed his storyonce it became clear that Cooper would be compelled totestify about the source - Rove - who revealed PlameWilson's CIA status to him, sources close to the case said.

If any of the people named in this story believe theyhave been unfairly portrayed or that what was written inthis story is untrue, they will have an opportunity torespond in this space.

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Jason Leopold spent two years coveringCalifornia's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chiefof Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last yearcultivating sources close to the CIA leak invesigation, andwill be a regular contributer to t r u t h o u t.

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