The CIA leak grand jury investigation (related to the "CIA leak scandal", also known as the "Plame affair") was a federal inquiry "into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee's identity", a possible violation of criminal statutes, including the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, and Title 18, United States Code, Section 793.
CIA leak scandal ("Plame affair")
The "CIA leak scandal", or the "Plame affair", refers to a dispute stemming from allegations that one or more White House officials revealed Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity as "Valerie Plame" to reporters.
In his July 14, 2003 Washington Post column, Robert Novak revealed the name of CIA employee Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had covert status. Wilson, a former U.S. Ambassador, had criticized the Bush Administration in a July 6, 2003, editorial in The New York Times. Wilson argued that the Bush Administration misrepresented intelligence prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In his column, Novak diminished Wilson's claims:
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate ...
On October 1, 2003, Richard Armitage told both Secretary of State Colin Powell and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that he "was the inadvertent leak".
Appointment of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
On September 26, 2003, at the request of the CIA, the Department of Justice and the FBI began a criminal investigation into the possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Valerie Wilson's CIA affiliation to various reporters in the spring of 2003. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft initially headed up the investigation. On August 13, 2005, journalist Murray Waas reported that Justice Department and FBI officials had recommended appointing a special prosecutor to the case because they felt that Karl Rove had not been truthful in early interviews, withholding from FBI investigators his conversation with Cooper about Plame and maintaining that he had first learned of Plame's CIA identity from a journalist whose name Rove could not recall. In addition, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, from whose prior campaigns Rove had been paid $746,000 in consulting fees, had been briefed on the contents of at least one of Rove's interviews with the FBI, raising concerns of a conflict of interest. An October 2, 2003 New York Times article similarly connected Karl Rove to the matter and highlighted his prior employment in three previous political campaigns for Ashcroft. Ashcroft subsequently recused himself from the investigation, apparently at the end of December 2003.
U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed Special Counsel on December 30, 2003.
Letter from James B. Comey, Acting Attorney General, to Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney:
By the authority vested in the Attorney General by law, including 28 U.S.C. 509, 510, and 515, and in my capacity as Acting Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 508, I hereby delegate to you all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity, and I direct you to exercise that authority as Special Counsel independent of the supervision or control of any officer of the Department.
Fitzgerald began investigations into the leak working from White House telephone records turned over to the FBI in October 2003.
Fitzgerald learned of Armitage's role in the leak "shortly after his appointment in 2003".
The investigation
The first grand jury
On October 31, 2003, a grand jury was sworn in and began taking testimony. A complete list of witnesses to testify there is not known, in part because Fitzgerald has conducted his investigation with much more discretion than previous presidential investigations.
Some individuals have acknowledged giving testimony, including White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, Deputy Press Secretary Claire Buchan, former press secretary Ari Fleischer, former special advisor to the president Karen Hughes, former White House communications aide Adam Levine, former advisor to the Vice President Mary Matalin, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Fitzgerald interviewed both Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush.