Leak indictments may come today

WASHINGTON — The prosecutor in the CIA leak case was preparing to outline possible charges before a federal grand jury as early as today, even as the FBI conducted last-minute interviews in the high-profile investigation, according to people familiar with the case.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was seen in Washington on Tuesday with lawyers in the case, and some White House officials braced for at least one indictment when the grand jury meets today. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is said by several people in the case to be a main focus, but not the only one.

In a possible sign that Fitzgerald may charge one or more officials with illegally disclosing Valerie Plame's CIA affiliation, FBI agents as recently as Monday night interviewed at least two people in her D.C. neighborhood to determine whether they knew she worked for the CIA before she was unmasked with the help of senior Bush administration officials. Two neighbors told the FBI they were shocked to learn she was a CIA agent.

The FBI interviews suggested the prosecutor wanted to show that Plame's status was covert, and that there was damage from the revelation that she worked at the CIA.

Underscoring the uncertainty surrounding the investigation, two Republican officials said Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, the president's top strategist, is not sure whether he will face indictment as the case winds down. Rove was said to be awaiting word from Fitzgerald, even as prosecutors questioned at least one former Rove associate about Rove's contacts with reporters before Plame's name was disclosed. The White House expects indictments to come today, according to a senior administration official.

The news of the 11th-hour moves came on the same day that Cheney himself was implicated in the chain of events that led to Plame's being revealed. In a report in The New York Times that the White House did not dispute, Fitzgerald was said to have notes taken by Libby showing that he learned about Plame from the vice president a month before her name appeared in a column by Robert Novak.

There is no indication that Cheney did anything illegal or improper, but the report is the first evidence to indicate he knew of Plame well before she became a household name.

Fitzgerald's investigation has centered on whether senior administration officials knowingly revealed Plame's identity in an effort to discredit a Bush administration critic — her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. On July 6, 2003, Wilson accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Eight days later, Novak revealed Plame's name and her identity as a CIA agent.

The grand jury, whose term expires Friday, is scheduled for a session today. Unlike the jury in a criminal trial, grand jurors are not weighing proof of guilt or innocence. They decide whether there is probable cause to charge someone with a crime, and they must agree unanimously to indict. The prosecutor could seek to seal any indictments until he announces the charges.

It is not clear what charges Fitzgerald will seek, if any. After setting out on his original investigation, he won explicit authority to also consider perjury and other crimes that government officials might have committed during the nearly two-year investigation.

Fitzgerald and his investigative team have questioned more than two dozen officials from the White House, the vice president's office, the CIA and the State Department, as well as residents of Wilson's neighborhood.

Fitzgerald has looked closely not only at the possible crimes, but also at the context in which they would have been committed. This search, say lawyers in the case, has provided him a rare, perhaps even unprecedented, glimpse into the White House effort to justify the Iraq war — and rebut its critics.

The trail often has led to Cheney's office, which officials describe as ground zero in the effort in promote, execute and defend the Iraq war and the campaign to convince the American people and the world that Saddam Hussein had amassed a stockpile of the most dangerous kinds of weapons. According to the report in Tuesday's New York Times, the investigation also led to Cheney himself.

Cheney has the security clearance to review and discuss classified material, and no evidence has been made public to suggest he did anything illegal. But this is the first time the vice president has been directly linked to the chain of events that eventually led to Plame's identity being disclosed.

McClellan said Cheney has always been honest with the American people. He dismissed as "ridiculous" a question about whether Bush stood by Cheney's account of his role in the matter.

In an interview in September 2003, Cheney told NBC's Tim Russert that he did not know Wilson or who sent him to Africa. Officials said Cheney was careful to distance himself from Wilson in the interview without telling a lie about what he knew about the diplomat and his wife.

Two lawyers involved in the case said that based on Fitzgerald's questions, the prosecutor has been aware of Libby's June 12 conversation with Cheney since the early days of his investigation. The lawyers said Libby did record in his notes that Cheney relayed to him that Plame may have had a role in Wilson's taking the CIA-sponsored mission to Niger. According to a source familiar with Libby's testimony, he previously told the grand jury he believed he heard of Plame first from reporters.