[A-List] US state: Iraq scandal

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Grand Jury questions White House aides over outing of undercover CIA agent
Valerie Plame
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
The Independent, 11 February 2004

The controversy over the outing of an undercover CIA agent continued to
threaten President George Bush yesterday when it was revealed that some of
his most senior officials had been questioned by FBI investigators looking
into the leak. Senior officials from the Vice-President's office have also
testified as part of the criminal inquiry.

Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, and Karl Rove, Mr Bush's chief
political adviser, are among the officials who have been questioned. Mr
McClellan said that he gave evidence before a grand jury last week - a
process in which witnesses are questioned before a jury panel which decides
whether there is sufficient evidence to proceed. Mr Rove, considered one of
the most powerful figures in the Bush administration, was also questioned
recently.

Mr McClellan said: "[I was] doing my part to co-operate as the President
asked us all to do."

The FBI inquiry relates to the leaking of the identity of the CIA operative
Valerie Plame, the wife of a former US ambassador, Joseph Wilson. It is
alleged that the leak was an act of retaliation against the diplomat, who
had exposed one of the Bush administration's false claims about Iraq's
efforts to produce nuclear weapons.
Her identity as a weapons expert was leaked to a right-wing newspaper
columnist after Mr Wilson revealed that a fact-finding trip he carried out
to Niger in 2002 at the behest of the government proved that claims made by
the President that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium from the West African
nation were false. The White House was forced to admit that the claim should
not have been included in the President's 2003 State of the Union address.

The affair has the potential to be hugely damaging to Mr Bush as he
campaigns for re-election. Having repeatedly argued that he is a president
who has stood up for national security, it would be greatly embarrassing to
have one of his senior officials accused of ruining Ms Plame's career and
potentially threatening the safety of some of those she had worked with
overseas.

The leaking of the name of an undercover officer is a criminal offence and,
under sustained pressure from both Democrats and Republicans, the
administration appointed a special prosecutor in December to lead the FBI's
inquiry into the incident.

Reports published yesterday said that agents had gathered scores of e-mails
and phone records and interviewed numerous senior officials including the
Vice-President Dick Cheney's former adviser Mary Matalin, Adam Levine, a
former White House press official, Dan Bartlett, the White House
communications director, Catherine Martin, an aide to Mr Cheney and Ari
Fleischer, the former White House spokesman. Some of the meetings were said
to be "tense and combative".

The investigators have also questioned Mr Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, and during their interviews with other officials the FBI
has repeatedly referred to "copious" notes compiled by him. It is believed
that the FBI officers have also interviewed John Hannah, another aide to Mr
Cheney, and may be offering an incentive to him to reveal what he knows
about other officials. Some reports have suggested that Mr Libby could be
charged.

Larry Johnson, a former CIA operative and a long-time friend of Ms Plame,
said he had been told that a number of other advisers to the White House
were also at the centre of the FBI inquiry. "This is really beginning to
heat up," he said.

Ms Plame's identity was revealed last summer by the veteran conservative
columnist Robert Novak. It is believed that at least six other journalists
in Washington were contacted by two White House officials who disclosed the
operative's details. Mr Novak - who has refused to reveal his sources - and
the other journalists could find themselves subpoenaed to appear before the
inquiry.

The inquiry into the leak of Ms Plame's identity is being headed by Patrick
Fitzgerald, the US attorney in Chicago. A spokesman for Mr Fitzgerald
refused to comment on those questioned, saying he was not legally permitted
to talk about them. Mr Cheney's office has also declined to comment.

It was reported yesterday by the The Washington Post that a parallel FBI
inquiry is investigating the forgery of documents suggesting that Iraq was
seeking to buy the uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.

That inquiry, which is being carried out by FBI counter-intelligence agents,
was launched last spring after experts at the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) revealed that the documents obtained by the US were fake.

------

Anxiety Takes Hold of Presidential Aides Caught Up in Leak Inquiry
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DAVID JOHNSTON
New York Times: February 12, 2004

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 - It started almost casually last fall, with F.B.I.
agents leaving business cards under doors around the White House, politely
calling for appointments and even meeting some officials, without any
lawyers present, over a few beers at a nearby bar.

But the investigation into who at the White House leaked the name of an
undercover C.I.A. officer has become much more intense in the last few
weeks. Some administration officials have been summoned for confrontational
interviews. Current and former members of the White House's communications
and foreign policy teams have hired lawyers. At least a handful of White
House aides have had to appear before a federal grand jury.

At the White House, the topic is rarely discussed openly among those who
have already been drawn into the investigation and those who think they may
be, people who have been questioned in the case said. The result, they said,
is an information vacuum that is being filled to some extent by fear of what
current or former colleagues may be telling investigators.

Some officials now find themselves in a bind borne of the potentially huge
political stakes of the case. Since the investigation began in September,
President Bush has said repeatedly that he wants to get to the bottom of the
matter and that he has directed everyone on his staff to cooperate fully.
Some lawyers involved in the case said White House officials were now
trapped between that direction from the president and legal advice that they
aggressively assert their own rights.

So although White House officials have publicly pledged to help
investigators, there is some resistance just beneath the surface. Some
people who have spoken with investigators say they have refused to sign
statements that would waive any promise of confidentiality they received
from reporters. The effort to obtain the statements is apparently intended
to deprive journalists who wrote about the leak an ability, if questioned or
subpoenaed, to cite the need to protect anonymous sources.

Some people questioned in the case say they have also declined to sign
agreements that they will not disclose any information about their
encounters with investigators.

At a White House that has largely avoided scandal - and one that has been
distinguished by remarkable internal cohesion - the escalating investigation
has brought unusual personal stress and the uncertainties that afflict
anyone caught up in a full-scale criminal inquiry.

Some White House officials, concerned about what the investigation might
mean for themselves or their bosses, have been pumping reporters for
information about what they know. Others, so far untouched by the
investigation, are sighing with relief.

But like any institution caught up in a criminal inquiry, this one appears
intent on getting on with business as usual, and avoiding the spectacle of
colleagues' turning on colleagues, even as investigators turn up the
pressure.

"The mood is concern, not worry," said one Republican with close ties to the
White House. "It's attention, not fear. And so far it hasn't caused any
dysfunctional relationships to crop up."

The investigation has already spread through much of the White House. Among
those who have been interviewed by the F.B.I. are Karl Rove, the president's
senior adviser, and powerful behind-the-scenes figures like I. Lewis Libby,
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Those who have trooped in to
answer questions from the grand jury include Scott McClellan, Mr. Bush's
press secretary; Claire Buchan, a deputy press secretary; Mary Matalin, a
former top adviser to Mr. Cheney; and Adam Levine, a former White House
communications aide.

Investigators appear to be amassing as much information as they can about
how the White House press and political operations work and asking those
they question about specific conversations with other White House aides and
with reporters.

The goal of the inquiry is to determine who told the syndicated columnist
Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C.
Wilson IV, was an undercover C.I.A. officer. In a column that appeared in
The Washington Post on July 14, Mr. Novak attributed the information to two
"senior administration officials." Disclosure of an undercover officer's
identity can be a crime.

The case has heated up since December, when Attorney General John Ashcroft
removed himself from it and the Justice Department put the matter in the
hands of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago. Soon
afterward, some administration officials were summoned to interviews at an
office building a few blocks from the White House that is customarily used
for investigations of national security breaches.

There, a two-member team of prosecutors, referring to specific e-mail
messages, notes and phone calls, started asking tough, confrontational
questions about the leak and who might have been behind it. Then came the
grand jury, where as usual witnesses must answer questions without a lawyer
present, not knowing what their colleagues have testified.

-----

Top Bush Aide Is Questioned in C.I.A. Leak
By DAVID JOHNSTON
New York Times: February 10 2004

WASHINGTON, Feb. 9 - President Bush's press secretary and a former White
House press aide testified on Friday to a federal grand jury investigating
who improperly disclosed the identity of a C.I.A. officer, the press
secretary and a lawyer for the aide said on Monday.

The appearances of the press secretary, Scott McClellan, and the press aide,
Adam Levine, reflected what lawyers in the case said was the quickening pace
of a criminal inquiry in which a special prosecutor is examining
conversations between journalists and the White House.

When he was asked by reporters on Monday whether he had been questioned in
the case, Mr. McClellan said he had been filmed by news organizations as he
emerged from the federal courthouse. "I think that confirms it for you," he
said.

On Monday, a lawyer for Mr. Levine said the White House aide had also
appeared on Friday.

Mr. Levine left the Bush administration in December after working as the
principal liaison between the White House and television networks. Mr.
Levine's lawyer, Daniel J. French, said, "In keeping with the president's
request, Mr. Levine is cooperating with the Justice Department's
investigation and in doing so appeared before the grand jury on Friday."

In addition to the grand jury appearances, which are believed to include
other Bush administration officials, prosecutors have conducted meetings
with presidential aides that lawyers in the case described as tense and
sometimes combative.

Armed with handwritten White House notes, detailed cellphone logs and copies
of e-mail messages between White House aides and reporters, prosecutors have
demanded explanations of conversations between aides and reporters for some
of the country's largest news organizations that under ordinary
circumstances would never be publicly discussed. So far, no reporter has
been questioned or subpoenaed.

One set of documents that prosecutors repeatedly referred to in their
meetings with White House aides are extensive notes compiled by I. Lewis
Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff and national security
adviser. Prosecutors have described the notes as "copious," the lawyers
said. In addition, the prosecutors have asked about cellphone calls made
last July to and from Catherine J. Martin, a press secretary for Mr. Cheney.

In their discussions with White House aides, prosecutors have been careful
to avoid signaling their overall theory of the case. Nor have they given
hints about who they suspect leaked the information to Robert Novak, who
wrote in a Washington Post column last July 14 that the wife of former
Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a critic of the administration's Iraq
policy, was Valerie Plame, a C.I.A. undercover officer.

Mr. Wilson traveled to Africa in February 2002 at the C.I.A.'s request, but
found no evidence to support the conclusion that Niger may have supplied raw
uranium ore to Iraq in the 1990's. In an opinion article published in The
New York Times on July 6, 2003, Mr. Wilson wrote, "It did not take long to
conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever
taken place."

The lawyers said that prosecutors have cited evidence that White House
officials were extremely upset by Mr. Wilson's article and were angry at the
C.I.A. for sending him to Africa, in contrast to the White House's effort to
portray the reaction as only mildly concerned.

Even so, the lawyers said, the prosecutors have not indicated whether they
have any evidence that White House aides planned to take concerted action
against Mr. Wilson by disclosing his wife's name and job.

But prosecutors have said they would charge White House aides with
obstruction of justice or false statements if they failed to provide
truthful statements about specific conversations that some aides could not
clearly recall among the hundreds of conversations with some White House
reporters, the lawyers said.

Prosecutors have emphasized the seriousness of the case, informing the White
House employees that they are "subjects" of the inquiry. In legal
terminology, a subject is in potentially greater jeopardy of being accused
of a crime than a witness. But a subject is in a less threatening situation
than a target, someone who may expect to be charged.

The grand jury inquiry has accelerated at the same time that a group of
former C.I.A. officers and some lawmakers have demanded a Congressional
investigation into the leak. But so far, Republican leaders in the House and
Senate have not initiated the inquiry.

The case began last year when the C.I.A. referred the matter to the Justice
Department, which conducted a three-month preliminary investigation into
whether anyone in the Bush administration violated a federal law by
intentionally revealing the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

In December, Attorney General John Ashcroft removed himself from the case
after months of complaints by Democrats who said he could not fairly
supervise an inquiry into Republican political allies at the White House.

At the time, James Comey, the deputy attorney general, referred the case to
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney in Chicago. Mr. Fitzgerald
has brought in as his deputy Ron Roos, a career prosecutor in the Justice
Department's national security section, and Peter Zeidenberg, a prosecutor
in the public integrity section, which investigates political corruption
cases.

Mr. Fitzgerald has sought to conduct the inquiry in secrecy. He has asked
each White House employee to sign a confidentiality agreement promising not
to disclose the questions asked by prosecutors.

Several lawyers said they had refused to let their clients sign the
agreements, unwilling to create an additional legal liability voluntarily.
Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Mr. Fitzgerald, declined to discuss the
inquiry.

At first, the investigation seemed narrowly focused on trying to identify
who at the White House provided the information about Ms. Plame to Mr.
Novak. But more recently, prosecutors have focused on a Sept. 28, 2003,
article in The Washington Post, which said the newspaper had been told that
"yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column
ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington
journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."

Prosecutors, referring to the story as "one by two by six," have sought to
learn the identity of the senior administration official or the two top
White House officials, believing that whoever provided the information to
the Post knew who spoke with Mr. Novak.