By JASON LEOPOLD
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury investigating the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson for several hours Friday. Short of a last minute intervention by Rove’s attorney, Fitzgerald is expected to ask a grand jury-possibly as soon as next week–the to indict Rove for making false statements to the FBI and Justice Department investigators in October 2003, lawyers close to the case say.
Moreover, Fitzgerald is said to believe that there is a possibility Rove either hid or destroyed evidence related to his role in the leak, lawyers close to the case said.
A few weeks after he took over the investigation into the leak of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson in early 2004, Fitzgerald had already become suspicious that Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney’s then-chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were hindering his investigation.
In late January 2004, Fitzgerald sent a letter to his boss, then acting Attorney General James Comey, seeking confirmation that he had the authority to investigate and prosecute individuals for additional crimes, including obstruction of justice, perjury, and destroying evidence. The leak investigation had been centered up to that point on an obscure law making it a felony for any government official to knowingly disclose the identity of an undercover CIA officer.
Comey responded to Fitzgerald in writing Feb. 6, 2004, confirming that Fitzgerald had the authority to prosecute those crimes, including “perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses.”
Fitzgerald was concerned that Rove had hidden or destroyed a very important document tying him to the leak. His suspicions may have been right: an email he sent to then Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley in early July 2003 later proved Rove had spoken to Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about Plame-a fact that Rove omitted when he was first interviewed by the FBI.
The same day Fitzgerald received the response letter from Comey the White House faced a deadline of turning over administration contacts with 25 journalists to the grand jury investigating the leak. One of the journalists cited in the subpoena sent to the White House Jan. 22, 2004 was Cooper. Three months earlier, in late 2003, then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales enjoined all White House staff to turn over any communication about Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband. Gonzales’ request came 12 hours after senior White House officials had been told of the pending investigation. The email Rove sent to Hadley which specifically cited “Matt Cooper from Time” never turned up in that request either, people close to the investigation said.
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This is actually old news but WHAT!?! is this country coming to! How are these people so conservative that they can not stand to look at the naked breasts of a national monument symbolizing our nation’s mantra of freedom and justice for all? How is this pornographic? Maybe if the lady justice had nipple clamps, a sex toy in one hand and a tube o lube in the other (for Ashcroft’s ass) but come on! The European community, have been and are still, laughing their ass off at how critical this country is about the human form. Ashcroft: “Yes they are breasts! Everyone has them, and you should try to take your mouth off you’re mom’s and go find a few to play with yourself!”