FBI opens probe of Bush staff on CIA leak ( 2003-10-01 10:48) (Agencies)
The FBI began a full-scale
criminal investigation Tuesday into whether White House officials illegally
leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer, and President
Bush ordered his staff to cooperate with the first major probe of his
administration.
Democrats demanded the appointment of a special outside counsel but Bush
resisted. "I'm absolutely confident that the Justice Department can do a
good job," he said on a re-election fund-raising stop in Chicago.
"If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it and we'll
take the appropriate action," Bush said. "And this investigation is a good
thing."
Democratic leaders said Attorney General John Ashcroft was too close to
the White House to conduct an impartial investigation. "We don't have confidence
in John Ashcroft ... and we know without a doubt that somebody broke the federal
law," Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle said.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said, "If there ever was a case for the
appointment of a special counsel, this is it."
With pressure building, the Justice Department alerted the White House late
Monday of the decision to move from a preliminary inquiry into a full
investigation, a step rarely taken with complaints involving leaks of classified
information.
The investigation is aimed at finding who leaked the name of the CIA
operative, possibly in an attempt to punish the officer's husband, former
Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who had accused the administration of manipulating
intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq.
Most White House employees discovered the probe was under way when they
turned on their computers and found an e-mail timed at 8:46 a.m. that said:
PLEASE READ: Important Message From Counsel's Office. It alerted the staff to
keep all documents that could be related to the investigation.
"I want to know the truth," Bush said. Anyone with information, inside or
outside the administration, should step forward, he said.
Although Bush said he welcomed the investigation, it was an embarrassing
development for a president who promised to bring integrity and leadership to
the White House after years of Republican criticism of the Clinton
administration.
While the administration appeared cool toward naming a special counsel,
Ashcroft has not ruled out that possibility, a senior law enforcement official
said.
That decision will depend on a number of factors, such as whether a suspect
is identified who presents a potential conflict for the Justice Department. For
now, the investigation is being done by FBI agents in the counterintelligence
division, based at the FBI Washington field office, and overseen by 11 career
prosecutors in the counterespionage section of the Justice Department's criminal
division.
In a follow-up staff message late Tuesday, White House counsel Alberto
Gonzales ordered the preservation of any documents such as phone logs, memos,
notes and calendar entries from Feb. 1, 2002, and later that relate to Wilson,
his fact-finding trip to Africa in February 2002 and his wife's purported
relationship with the CIA and any contacts with the anyone in the news media
about those subjects.
In particular, Gonzales cited any contacts with columnist Robert Novak and
Timothy M. Phelps, Washington bureau chief for Newsday newspaper, and Knut
Royce, a staff writer for the paper.
"You must preserve all documents relating, in any way, directly or
indirectly, to these subjects, even if there could be a question whether the
document would be a presidential or federal record or even if its destruction
might otherwise be permitted," Gonzales said.
Newsday Editor Howard Schneider said Tuesday evening his newspaper has had no
contact with the White House or Justice Department about the memo. He said,
however, that Newsday was probably singled out because the newspaper was the
first to report that a CIA officer revealed in a Novak column was an undercover
operative.
Republicans said Democrats were playing politics. "Surprise, surprise, they
are calling for a special counsel. My goodness," House Majority Leader Tom DeLay
said. "It must be in their political handbook, their campaign handbook."
Democrats tried to attach a resolution calling for a special counsel to a
spending bill for the District of Columbia but Republicans ruled it was not
relevant.
Federal law prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of a covert agent's name,
punishable by up to 10 years in prison. The CIA officer's name was published in
July by Novak, who said he based his report on two senior administration
officials.
Ashcroft, at a news conference, said the CIA also had been instructed to tell
employees to preserve relevant information.
"Such requests are standard procedures in investigations of this type,"
Ashcroft said. He declined to say why he hadn't sought an outside investigation.
"Because of an ongoing investigation of criminal violations, I will not be
making any further comment at this time," Ashcroft said.
News executives expressed concern that the investigation could lead to
subpoenas of reporters' notes and phone records — and the journalists
themselves. "The question really comes down to whether there are other ways to
do this that do less damage to the idea of the First Amendment, said Bill
Felber, editor of The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury, who handles freedom of
information issues for the Associated Press Managing Editors. "This ought to be
last resort, not a first resort."
Bush spent the day in Chicago and Cincinnati raising money for his
re-election campaign.
"Leaks of classified information are a bad thing ... There's too much leaking
in Washington," he said. "I want to know who the leakers are."
A day earlier, spokesman Scott McClellan said it was "ridiculous" to suggest
Karl Rove, Bush's chief political strategist, had played any role in disclosing
the name of the CIA officer, who is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C.
Wilson IV.
It was Wilson who traveled to Niger in 2002 to investigate allegations of
uranium sales to Iraq. He concluded the allegations were not credible.
Wilson said Monday, referring to the leaking of his wife's name, that people
in whom he had confidence have "indicated to me that he (Rove), at a minimum,
condoned it and certainly did nothing to put a stop to it for a week after it
was out there." In an interview with ABC's "Nightline," Wilson said he would
tell the FBI, if asked, the names of "everybody who called me and told me" about
conversations with Rove.
The focus on Rove brought an odd twist to Bush's travels. When the president
boarded Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, he walked
up the steps and waved — and not a single camera followed. He looked perplexed.
All lenses were trained on Rove at the bottom of the steps.
