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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: American Spirit who wrote (27918)	6/2/2004 9:04:27 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

Bush Consults Lawyer in CIA Leak Case Bush Consults Outside Lawyer in Case He Needs One for Investigation of CIA Leak WASHINGTON June 2, 2004 — President Bush has consulted an outside lawyer in case he needs to retain him in the grand jury investigation of who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year, the White House said Wednesday. There was no indication that Bush is a target of the leak investigation, but the president has decided that in the event he needs an attorney's advice, "he would retain him," White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said. The lawyer is Jim Sharp, Buchan said, confirming a report by CBS News. "The president has said that everyone should cooperate in this matter and that would include himself," the spokeswoman said. She deflected questions about whether Bush had been asked to appear before a grand jury in the case. A federal grand jury in Washington is investigating who leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the news media. Plame was first identified by syndicated columnist and TV commentator Robert Novak in a column last July. Novak said his information came from administration sources. Wilson has said he believes his wife's name was leaked because of his criticism of Bush administration claims that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger, which Wilson investigated for the CIA and found to be untrue. Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime. The grand jury has heard from witnesses and combed through thousands of pages of documents turned over by the White House, but returned no indictments. The probe is being handled by Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, appointed after Attorney General John Ashcroft stepped aside from case because of his political ties to the White House. Absent a breakthrough from the documents or a cooperating witness, prosecutors may be forced to try to identify the leaker through Novak or other reporters. However, journalists pressed by the prosecution could assert a First Amendment privilege to protect their sources. Wilson has suggested in a book that the leaker was Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. But Wilson's book, "The Politics of Truth," give no conclusive evidence for the claim. The White House denies the claim and accuses Wilson of seeking to bolster the campaign of Democrat John Kerry, for whom he has acted as a foreign policy adviser. Wilson also said it's possible the leak came from Elliott Abrams, a figure in the Reagan administration Iran-Contra affair and now a member of Bush's National Security Council. And Karl Rove, Bush's chief political adviser, may have circulated information about Wilson and Plame "in administration and neoconservative circles" even if Rove was not himself the leaker, Wilson writes. Another possibility is that two lower-level officials in Cheney's office John Hannah or David Wurmser leaked Plame's identity at the behest of higher-ups "to keep their fingerprints off the crime," Wilson speculates. abcnews.go.com