President Bush’s press secretary and a former White House press aide have testified to a federal grand jury investigating who leaked the identity of a CIA agent, it was disclosed Monday.
Press secretary Scott McClellan said he appeared before the panel in Washington last week.
“I’m doing my part to cooperate, as the president directed all of us to do,” McClellan said aboard Air Force One during Bush’s trip to Springfield, Mo. He gave no details.
Daniel French, a lawyer for former press aide Adam Levine, said Monday his client had appeared before the grand jury on Friday. Levine left the administration in December.
The Justice Department is trying to determine who leaked the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July.
Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, says the disclosure may have been intended to discredit his assertions that the White House exaggerated Iraq’s nuclear capabilities to build a case for war.
Whoever leaked Plame’s name could be charged with a felony.
