Prosecutors investigating the leak of a CIA operative’s identity returned their attention to White House adviser Karl Rove on Tuesday, questioning a former West Wing colleague about contacts Rove had with reporters in the days leading up to the outing of a covert CIA officer.
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald also has dispatched FBI agents to comb the CIA operative’s residential neighborhood in Washington, asking neighbors again whether they were aware–before her name appeared in a syndicated column–that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.
The questioning, described by lawyers familiar with the case and by the neighbors, occurred as Fitzgerald was thought to be readying indictments in the long-running inquiry into the leak of Plame’s identity.
It is a felony to knowingly identify an undercover agent.
The inquiry focused initially on determining who leaked her name to reporters. Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, were called before the grand jury along with numerous other senior White House staffers.
Lawyers familiar with the prosecutors’ questions say Fitzgerald appears to be exploring charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, or conspiracy to violate laws prohibiting the distribution of classified secrets.
In recent days, attention has centered on Libby, who witnesses have said was intent on discrediting the CIA operative’s husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson. Wilson upset the White House in mid-2003 when he publicly accused the administration of “twisting” intelligence information to justify going to war in Iraq.
The former diplomat had been sent by the CIA to investigate claims that Iraq sought uranium from the African nation of Niger–an allegation President Bush referred to in his Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address. Wilson found little evidence to support the claims.
On Tuesday, Fitzgerald’s investigators asked the former colleague about comments Rove may have made about his conversations with journalists before Plame’s name was made public by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
“It appeared to me the prosecutor was trying to button up any holes that were remaining,” said a lawyer who asked not to be identified.
A spokesman for Fitzgerald declined to comment Tuesday.
White House officials have declined to comment on the investigation and on recent reports that Fitzgerald was focusing at least in part on Cheney’s office.
On Monday, two FBI agents combed the Northwest Washington neighborhood where Wilson and Plame live, questioning neighbors about whether they knew about her affiliation with the CIA before she was exposed in an article by Novak in July 2003.
Critics of the leak investigation have argued that it was an open secret that Plame worked for the CIA.
But neighbors contacted by the Times said they told the FBI that they had no idea of her agency life.
The agents “made clear they were part of the Fitzgerald investigation, and they were basically tying up loose ends,” said David Tillotson, a Washington lawyer and neighbor, who was among those interviewed.
“They basically asked me if I knew what she did prior to the leak,” said Marc Lefkowitz, another neighbor. The answer, he said, was an unambiguous “no.”
“I knew he was a former ambassador. We had dinner at their house,” Lefkowitz said. “She was just a normal mother of twins.”
