Nerves frazzled over CIA probe
2005-10-28 08:41
Washington - An independent prosecutor is expected to engineer a dramatic denouement on Friday to a CIA leak probe, which could end with top White House powerbrokers on trial and taint President George W. Bush's legacy.
A jittery United States capital was waiting to find out whether prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald would indict key figures including Bush's political guru Karl Rove and vice-president Dick Cheney's top aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Alternatively, in a move that would also spark political shock waves, Fitzgerald may decide to lay no charges over the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and head home to Chicago.
Any indictment would be a blow to Bush as he copes with the withdrawal of his Supreme Court pick, high gasoline prices, falling public approval numbers, questions about his leadership during flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina and the marking this week of the 2 000th US military death in Iraq.
Frenzied speculation
Fitzgerald met the grand jury he has used to delve deep into the White House power structure on Wednesday, but did not make any public statements, stirring another two days of frenzied speculation.
His spokesperson Randall Samborn said there would be no announcement on Thursday, as Fitzgerald consulted his legal team, a day before the mandate of the grand jury that would hand up any indictment expires.
Fitzgerald could apply for an extension or impanel a new grand jury, but both scenarios were considered unlikely.
The drama arose from the Bush administration's drive to war with Iraq and claims that top officials "twisted" intelligence to justify a conflict.
The political storm over the affair stilled slightly on Thursday as attention shifted to the withdrawal of Bush's Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.
Resignations expected
Anyone indicted at the White House is considered likely to resign. Bush would then be expected to follow up with a short televised statement to the American people in a bid to shake a whiff of scandal.
Fitzgerald may seek indictments under a law which makes it a crime to knowingly out an undercover CIA agent, and consider perjury or obstruction of justice charges.
Plame's husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, has accused top Bush aides of blowing her cover to discredit his fierce criticisms of intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq.
Fitzgerald was spotted at the offices of Rove's lawyer on Wednesday, according to Roll Call, a newspaper that covers Congress, and FBI agents were reported to be questioning Wilson's and Plame's neighbours.
The FBI refused to comment on the reports, which could be a sign that Fitzgerald is trying to prove Plame's CIA work was secret until her name was splashed across newspapers in 2003.
Bracing for at least one indictment
Various reports said the White House was braced for at least one indictment, which would require a formal vote by the grand jury.
John Kerry, Bush's vanquished 2004 election rival, on Wednesday rammed home the most intense Democratic Party attack yet on the case.
"We don't know yet whether this will prove to be an indictable offence in a court of law, but for it, and for misleading a nation into war, they will be indicted in the high court of history," Kerry said at Georgetown University.
On Tuesday, The New York Times reported it was Cheney himself who told Libby about Plame, in apparent contradiction of Libby's reported grand jury testimony that he had learned about her from journalists.
That put Cheney closer to the centre of the case than ever before.
It was also intriguing because Cheney had said in a television interview in September 2003, weeks after his conversation with Libby, he did not know Wilson, a former US ambassador to Gabon who was sent to Niger in February 2002 to investigate claims that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium for nuclear bombs, one of Bush's justifications for the war.