Cheney may be entangled in CIA leak investigation
A special counsel is focusing on whether Vice President Dick Cheney played a role in leaking a covert CIA agent’s name, according to people familiar with the probe that already threatens top White House aides Karl Rove and Lewis Libby.
The special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, has questioned current and former officials of President George W. Bush’s administration about whether Cheney was involved in an effort to discredit the agent’s husband, Iraq war critic and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, according to the people.
Fitzgerald has questioned Cheney’s communications adviser Catherine Martin and former spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise and ex-White House aide Jim Wilkinson about the vice president’s knowledge of the anti-Wilson campaign and his dealings on it with Libby, his chief of staff, the people said. The information came from multiple sources, who requested anonymity because of the secrecy and political sensitivity of the investigation.
New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has now testified twice before a federal grand jury probing the case after spending 85 days in jail for refusing to cooperate with Fitzgerald, wrote in yesterday’s New York Times that Fitzgerald asked her whether the vice president “had known what his chief aide,” Libby, “was doing and saying” regarding Wilson, a critic of the war in Iraq.
Fitzgerald has told lawyers involved in the case that he hopes to conclude soon — the grand jury’s term expires Oct. 28, although it could be extended — and there is a growing sense among knowledgeable observers that the outcome will involve serious criminal charges. “Fitzgerald is putting together a big case,” Washington attorney Robert Bennett, who represents Miller, said on the ABC-TV program “This Week” yesterday.
The charges could range from a broad conspiracy case to more narrowly drawn indictments for obstruction of justice or perjury, according to lawyers involved in the case. Charges are considered less likely on the law that initially triggered Fitzgerald’s probe, which makes it illegal to deliberately unmask an undercover intelligence agent, because of the difficulty in meeting that statute’s exacting standards for prosecution.
Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokesman, declined to comment yesterday on whether the vice president, 64, has been contacted by Fitzgerald about his status in the case, except to say: “This is an ongoing investigation, and we are fully cooperating.” Randall Samborn, a Fitzgerald spokesman, declined to comment. Calls to Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, and Joseph Tate, Libby’s lawyer, weren’t returned.
There’s no indication Fitzgerald is considering criminal charges against the vice president, who gave unsworn testimony to investigators last year. One option for Fitzgerald is to outline his findings about Cheney’s role if he files a final report on the investigation.
Fitzgerald, 45, has also questioned administration officials about any knowledge Bush may have had of the campaign against Wilson. Yet most administration observers have noted that on Iraq, as with most matters, it’s Cheney who has played the more hands-on role.
One lawyer intimately involved in the case, who like the others demanded anonymity, said one reason Fitzgerald was willing to send Miller to jail to compel testimony was because he was pursuing evidence the vice president may have been aware of the specifics of the anti-Wilson strategy.
And both U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Hogan and an appellate-court panel — including David Tatel, a First Amendment advocate — said they ruled in Fitzgerald’s favor because of the gravity of the case.
