Much at Stake for White House in Plame Leak Probe
By Mark Silva, Chicago Tribune
Oct. 19–WASHINGTON — A White House already besieged with political difficulties is now struggling to confront the distracting legal entanglement of two of its top figures in a leak investigation apparently nearing its end.
Karl Rove, the president’s political strategist and deputy chief of staff, and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, have been central to the management and message of the Bush White House for almost five years.
Both were sources for reporters who wrote about, or at least knew of, the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to accounts of the reporters. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating whether any government official improperly revealed the name of a covert CIA operative, which is a crime under certain circumstances.
Attorneys for Rove and Libby maintain their clients never directly identified Plame in discussions with reporters.
The 18-month investigation by Fitzgerald, who is the U.S. attorney in Chicago, is scheduled to end by Oct. 28, unless the grand jury’s term is extended. That has White House staffers braced for any action he may take.
If either Rove or Libby were to be indicted, it would almost certainly force that person to depart, and the White House would have lost one of its most important members. Lengthy legal proceedings could follow.
These fears come as Bush’s approval rating has reached an all-time low–39 percent in a new Gallup Poll on Tuesday–and as he grapples with criticism of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina as well as his nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, all against the backdrop of public skepticism about the war in Iraq.
Already, the investigation of Rove’s involvement in the CIA leak has occupied critical time of one of Bush’s top lieutenants. Rove has appeared before the grand jury four times and has canceled recent appearances at two Republican Party fundraisers and a speech to the conservative Hudson Institute.
“It’s a heavy burden,” said Abner Mikva, a former federal judge and Democratic congressman from Illinois who was White House counsel for President Bill Clinton in 1994-95, referring to the effect of scandal on White House operations.
“We had three separate special counsel investigations of Cabinet officers, plus the ongoing investigation by Ken Starr of what was then Whitewater,” recalled Mikva, now a law professor at the University of Chicago. “Whether they come out all right at the end or not, they are just incredibly distracting.”
“This is the crucial time in the second term,” said Darrell West, professor of political science at Brown University. “Either Bush is going to become another Jimmy Carter and be seen as a failed president or somehow he needs to turn things around. He is standing on the edge of a precipice.”
Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, investigated and publicly criticized the administration’s claims that Iraq tried to obtain African uranium for nuclear weapons. Democrats say the leaking of his wife’s CIA role was a way to discredit his findings and punish him for going public.
Inside the White House, one senior administration official said, reports of the prosecutor homing in on Rove and Libby have had an effect “like Novocain.” The official said: “Everyone’s trying to act like normal, but it’s not.”
The White House has a lot at stake. “Losing one or both of them would be devastating,” West said.
Mary Matalin, a former aide to Cheney, said Libby is more than a chief of staff.
“He’s almost a principal . . . not a staff guy,” Matalin said. “Part of his influence is his deep knowledge in foreign affairs. . . . I have been describing him as Cheney’s Cheney. He does for the vice president what the vice president does for the president.”
Libby, 55, graduated from the same New England preparatory school, Andover, and same Ivy League college, Yale, that produced both Presidents Bush.
As Rove has served Bush and his father for nearly three decades, starting as a political operative for the elder Bush in the late 1970s, Libby’s long career in public service started with President Ronald Reagan’s State Department in 1981. Libby served President George H.W. Bush at the Defense Department, where he grew close to then-Defense Secretary Cheney, and moved into the vice president’s office after Bush and Cheney won election in 2000.
If Rove’s blood runs political — authors have dubbed him “Bush’s brain”–Libby is steeped in national security.
Under Reagan, Libby was among the chief architects of U.S. foreign policy after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the Defense Department adopted the aim of making America so strong militarily that no country would dare confront it.
Under the first President Bush, Libby was disappointed with the early termination of the 1991 Persian Gulf war. Under the current president, Libby was among the first to advocate a strike against Iraq after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter, spent 85 days in jail this year for initially refusing to testify about meetings she had with Libby before columnist Robert Novak revealed Plame’s identity and her connection to Wilson in July 2003.
Miller relented after, she said, getting Libby’s personal assurance that a waiver of confidentiality he had offered more than a year before was not coerced, and she was freed from jail.
Both Libby and Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper have told the grand jury that Libby never named Plame in their conversations but said that Wilson’s wife worked at the agency. Cooper said the same of his discussions with Rove.
“It’s not beyond the realm [of possibilities] that nobody’s in trouble for anything,” said Matalin, who also has testified before the grand jury. “One of the possibilities in these things is that everybody is exonerated.”
UNDERSTANDING THE CIA LEAK CASE
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who is U.S. attorney in Chicago, has been investigating whether any laws were broken when a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, was publicly identified after a leak to news media, apparently by someone in the Bush administration.
A WAR OVER INTELLIGENCE
THE PROBE BEGINS
February 2002
The CIA sends former Ambassador Joseph Wilson to the African nation of Niger to check out a report that it had sold uranium to Iraq for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson is unable to verify the report.
Jan. 28, 2003
Despite Wilson’s findings, President Bush says in his State of the Union address that Britain “has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
March 19, 2003
The U.S. and its allies invade Iraq.
July 6, 2003
With no evidence of an active weapons of mass destruction program found in Iraq, Wilson writes an essay in The New York Times titled “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.” The piece says that U.S. officials have twisted intelligence on Iraq.
Within days, the Bush administration conceded that it shouldn’t have cited the African uranium report.
AN AGENT ‘OUTED’
July 14, 2003
Newspaper columnist Robert Novak writes that “two senior administration officials” told him that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative and that she had suggested Wilson go to Niger. Bush supporters say the report shows Wilson was chosen for the Niger mission because of connections, not expertise. Bush foes say Plame was “outed” to punish Wilson for his criticism of Bush’s rationale for war.
THE PROBE BEGINS
Sept. 29-30, 2003
The Justice Department tells the White House it is investigating the leak of Plame’s identity. It is a felony to knowingly reveal the name of a covert CIA official.
Dec. 30, 2003
Chicago’s U.S. attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, is named special prosecutor for the case.
PRESSURE ON THE PRESS
Mid-2004
The grand jury subpoenas Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper and The New York Times’ Judith Miller, seeking to find out whom they talked to about Plame. Other reporters are also called before the grand jury. Cooper had written about the case; Miller had looked into it but had not written about it. Miller’s pre-war stories about Iraqi weapons were widely cited as bolstering the administration’s case, but her own newspaper later reported that some of them contained “misinformation.”
October 2004
Cooper and Miller face contempt-of-court charges for not testifying.
July 6, 2005
Cooper agrees to name his source after the source gives permission.
Miller still refuses to testify and is sent to jail.
Sept. 29, 2005
After 85 days behind bars, Miller agrees to testify when her source “personally released me from my promise of confidentiality.” At least one of the sources for both Miller and Cooper was Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. Karl Rove, Bush’s deputy chief of staff, spoke with both Novak and Cooper.
FAQ
–Who is targeted in the probe?
This is unclear. Key White House figures have been questioned, including Bush and Cheney, though neither was under oath. A grand jury’s proceedings are secret, but it is known that sworn testimony has been given by both Rove and Libby.
–Has Novak testified?
He refuses to say.
–What charges could be filed?
Observers say any charge of identifying a covert operative might be difficult to prove because the leaker or leakers would be guilty only if they knew Plame was covert. Prosecutors are believed to be considering charges of conspiracy or perjury.
–When will the grand jury decide whether to charge anyone?
Its term runs out Oct. 28, so a decision could come soon.
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