More on First Amendment Right, and leak in Cheney's office...someone had a moment of conscience? Or a plot?

Date:   10/17/2005 5:24:23 AM ( 19 y ago)

Cheney Aide May Still Be a Focus in Leak


By DAVID JOHNSTON
Published: October 17, 2005
WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 - The account of a New York Times reporter who has described more than four hours of her grand jury testimony in the C.I.A. leak case provides new indications that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, remains under scrutiny in the inquiry.

In her article in The Times on Sunday, which recounted two appearances before the grand jury, the reporter, Judith Miller, wrote that she was asked numerous highly detailed questions about what Mr. Libby told her in her three conversations with him in June and July 2003, as well as about sometimes cryptic notes she took during the conversations.


Timeline of the Leak: All Events
A trip by Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger nearly four years ago was the beginning of a series of events now being investigated by a special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

Ms. Miller's article appeared as the inquiry was entering a 10-day period in which the prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is expected to decide whether he will charge anyone with a crime before the term of the grand jury expires on Oct. 28.

Lawyers with clients in the case have said that the rapid flow of events and intensity of Mr. Fitzgerald's final push suggest that the prosecutor is preparing to accuse someone of wrongdoing. But it is not known who may be charged or what possible violations may be involved.

Given what is known about the questions Mr. Fitzgerald has asked witnesses, lawyers in the case believe he could be exploring a range of charges, including perjury, obstruction of justice or violation of the federal law that under some circumstances makes it a crime to disclose the identity of an undercover intelligence officer.

The lawyers who discussed the case did so on the condition of anonymity, saying Mr. Fitzgerald had urged them not to talk about the investigation.

Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, testified to the grand jury for the fourth time on Friday. His lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, said afterward that Mr. Fitzgerald had made no charging decisions about Mr. Rove and that he had not said Mr. Rove was a target in the inquiry.

Mr. Rove's testimony focused on a conversation with a Time magazine reporter in July 2003, lawyers in the case said. Initially Mr. Rove did not tell prosecutors about the conversation, but he later told them he had forgotten it until the discovery of an e-mail message that he had written that confirmed the discussion.

With Mr. Rove's testimony and the prosecutor's questions about Mr. Libby, it seemed that the prosecutor would center the final days of his inquiry on those two men, senior White House officials with broad influence in the capital whose activities in the case have been under scrutiny almost from the start.

Mr. Libby's status in the inquiry is not precisely known. In the past, his associates said they believed he had testified truthfully about his conversations with reporters, including Ms. Miller, in two grand jury appearances. As of Sunday, there was no indication that he had been asked to return to the grand jury for testimony. Mr. Libby's lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, declined to discuss the matter.

Ms. Miller wrote that in her interviews with Mr. Libby he seemed eager to criticize and dismiss the significance of Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who traveled in 2002 to Africa to examine intelligence reports that Iraq had sought uranium fuel from Niger.

On July 6, 2003, Mr. Wilson, who had already stirred anger within the administration, wrote an Op-Ed article in The Times about his trip. He wrote that the C.I.A. had sent him to Africa after Mr. Cheney's office raised questions about possible uranium sales. Mr. Wilson concluded that it was "highly doubtful" that any purchases had taken place.

A week later, on July 14, 2003, Mr. Wilson's wife was identified by Robert D. Novak, a syndicated columnist. Mr. Novak's column suggested that Ms. Wilson, who was identified by her unmarried name, Valerie Plame, had had a role in arranging Mr. Wilson's trip to Africa. Mr. Fitzgerald has been investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked Ms. Wilson's name.

Whether Ms. Miller said anything in her testimony that was damaging to Mr. Libby was unclear, partly because Ms. Miller said she could not recall specific details at the heart of the prosecutor's inquiry.

For example, in what may have been the most crucial exchange of her testimony, Ms. Miller wrote, Mr. Fitzgerald asked her to explain the words "Valerie Flame," an apparent reference to Valerie Plame, which she had jotted in the same notebook in which she had recorded an interview with Mr. Libby.



 

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