Fitzgerald Presents New Information to Grand Jury
First Appearance in Probe Since Libby Indictment
By Carol Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; 9:48 AM
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald appeared this morning to present information to a new grand jury in the CIA leak investigation.
Fitzgerald has been probing for two years what role senior Bush administration officials have played in leaking a CIA operative name to the media in 2003.
Today's appearance was the first time that Fitzgerald has gone back to a grand jury since the Oct. 28 indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
At that time, the original grand jury probing the case expired.
With the new grand jury, Fitzgerald continues to consider charges against White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who failed to reveal to the FBI and the grand jury in the early days of the investigation that he had provided information about CIA analyst Valerie Plame to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
Fitzgerald has spent the past two years investigating whether any Bush administration officials disclosed Plame's name and employment at the CIA as part of an effort to discredit allegations by her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, that President Bush had twisted intelligence to justify the Iraq war.
Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with the crime he originally set out to investigate: the illegal disclosure of a covert CIA operative's identity. Instead, he has focused on alleged wrongdoing in the course of the investigation.
The most recent new twist involves Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward. Woodward told Fitzgerald last month that he had discussed Plame with a senior administration official -- and that the official was someone other than Libby -- before Libby's first conversation with another reporter about Plame.
The Libby legal team cheered Woodward's testimony, calling it "a bombshell" and contending that it undercut Fitzgerald's case that Libby was the first official known to have talked about Plame and her CIA status with a reporter.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
By Carol Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; 9:48 AM
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald appeared this morning to present information to a new grand jury in the CIA leak investigation.
Fitzgerald has been probing for two years what role senior Bush administration officials have played in leaking a CIA operative name to the media in 2003.
Today's appearance was the first time that Fitzgerald has gone back to a grand jury since the Oct. 28 indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
At that time, the original grand jury probing the case expired.
With the new grand jury, Fitzgerald continues to consider charges against White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who failed to reveal to the FBI and the grand jury in the early days of the investigation that he had provided information about CIA analyst Valerie Plame to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
Fitzgerald has spent the past two years investigating whether any Bush administration officials disclosed Plame's name and employment at the CIA as part of an effort to discredit allegations by her husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, that President Bush had twisted intelligence to justify the Iraq war.
Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with the crime he originally set out to investigate: the illegal disclosure of a covert CIA operative's identity. Instead, he has focused on alleged wrongdoing in the course of the investigation.
The most recent new twist involves Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward. Woodward told Fitzgerald last month that he had discussed Plame with a senior administration official -- and that the official was someone other than Libby -- before Libby's first conversation with another reporter about Plame.
The Libby legal team cheered Woodward's testimony, calling it "a bombshell" and contending that it undercut Fitzgerald's case that Libby was the first official known to have talked about Plame and her CIA status with a reporter.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
posted by Jamie @ 10:32 AM
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