- WASHINGTON - White House
political adviser Karl Rove emerged Friday from a fourth appearance before
a federal grand jury with no word on whether he'd be charged in the leaking
of an undercover CIA officer's name to the press.
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- Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said in a statement that
the prosecutor who was leading the investigation hadn't advised Rove that
he was a target of the probe, but the prosecutor is under no legal obligation
to do so. Luskin also said the prosecutor said he hadn't decided whether
to press any charges in the case.
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- With just two weeks before the grand jury's term expires,
much about the investigation remains a mystery, including such pivotal
questions as whether a crime was committed and, if so, by whom.
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- Here's a look at what is known and not known:
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- Q: How did this start?
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- A: Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson was dispatched
to Africa in 2002 to check a report that Iraq had sought nuclear-weapons
material from Niger. On July 6, 2003, he wrote a newspaper column accusing
the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the threat
from Iraq.
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- Q: What did the White House do?
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- A: Aides apparently told some reporters that Wilson's
wife was a CIA officer whose maiden name was Valerie Plame, suggesting
that he wasn't selected for the Africa assignment on his merits. Wilson
and others took that "leak" of his wife's secret career role
as an effort to impugn his credibility as a critic of the administration.
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- Q: What's the crime?
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- A: It's not certain that a crime was committed.
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- Q; What crimes may have been committed?
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- A: The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it
a crime to intentionally identify a covert officer when one is aware that
the government was trying to conceal the officer's role.
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- Q: Who first reported it?
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- A: Newspaper columnist Robert Novak wrote in an article
published July 14, 2003, that Wilson was married to Valerie Plame, whom
he identified as a CIA "operative."
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- Q: Who told him that?
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- A: He wrote that his sources were "two senior administration
officials." He told Newsday at the time, "I didn't dig it out,
it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name
and I used it."
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- He later told CNN, "Nobody in the Bush administration
called me to leak this."
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- Novak refuses to say whether he's identified his sources
to the grand jury.
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- Q: Has Novak ever used Rove as a source before?
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- A: In 1992, the elder Bush's campaign fired Rove because
it suspected he'd leaked a story to Novak criticizing a fellow Republican.
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- Q: Did the White House talk to anyone else about Plame
and Wilson?
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- A: Karl Rove told Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper
that Wilson's wife "apparently works" for the CIA.
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- Q: Anyone else?
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- A: I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff
to Vice President Dick Cheney, spoke to New York Times reporter Judith
Miller about the matter. Miller didn't write an article on the topic and
hasn't revealed publicly what he told her.
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- She testified before the grand jury, but only after spending
85 days in jail for refusing to do so on the grounds that she'd given her
word to her government source that she wouldn't identify him. Miller agreed
to testify and was released from jail only after Libby personally released
her from her pledge not to reveal that he was her source.
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- Several other Washington journalists have testified about
similar contacts as well, including NBC's Tim Russert and Walter Pincus
of The Washington Post.
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- Q: Is it clear that when Rove or Libby discussed Plame,
they knew they were unmasking a secret CIA officer?
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- A: No. Plame's official status was still undercover,
even though by then she was working full time at CIA headquarters outside
Washington, according to two U.S. intelligence officials who declined to
be identified because, technically, she remains undercover. Still, it's
not clear that Rove, Libby or other White House aides knew her status when
they discussed her with reporters.
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- Cooper wrote after testifying that Rove had told him
Wilson's wife worked at the CIA on weapons of mass destruction but never
mentioned anything one way or the other about her covert status.
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- Q: Could the reporters be charged?
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- A: The law in question prohibits revelations by those
with "authorized access to classified information." That's government
employees with security clearance, not members of the news media.
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- Q: Any other laws about leaking?
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- A: The Espionage Act prohibits revealing classified "information
relating to the national defense." It's not known whether leaking
Plame's identity might qualify as a breach of that law.
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- Q: Are these possible legal violations difficult to prove?
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- A: They are. The prosecutor also could be looking at
whether Rove, Libby or others lied under oath before the grand jury. That
would be easier to prove.
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- Q: Who's investigating?
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- A: Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney
in Chicago. As a federal prosecutor in New York, he helped convict four
terrorists in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
He also helped prosecute suspected terrorists in the 1993 bombing of the
World Trade Center. Bush appointed him U.S. attorney.
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- Q: Who picked him for this job?
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- A: The CIA asked for the investigation. The Justice Department
named Fitzgerald as special counsel in December 2003 after then-Attorney
General John Ashcroft said he couldn't lead the inquiry himself, to avoid
the appearance of a conflict on interest as a Bush appointee investigating
the Bush White House.
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- Q: If Rove is indicted, will Bush fire him?
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- A: Bush has implied that he might wait for a conviction
before acting.
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- "If the person has violated the law, the person
will be taken care of," he said in September 2003. "If someone
committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration,"
he added last July.
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- But the political pressure for Rove to step aside, at
least until his case was resolved, would be enormous, to limit damage to
the president.
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- Q: Why does it matter?
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- A: If any senior White House official is indicted for
a criminal offense, it calls into question the integrity of government
and the standards of conduct at the White House.
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- The investigation by a Bush administration-appointed
lawyer already is sapping the president's political strength to some degree
in Washington. If Rove is indicted, he almost certainly will have to leave
the White House, which would deprive Bush of the aide on whom he's relied
most heavily throughout his political career.
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