NYT: Charges Shed Little Light on Underlying Questions

[DeepModem Mom]

Charges Shed Little Light on Underlying Questions
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: October 29, 2005


WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 - Among the questions left unanswered in the C.I.A. leak case are the two most basic ones: who first told the columnist Robert D. Novak that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV was a C.I.A. operative, and was her exposure a crime?

There was every indication on Friday that the special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, had resolved the first question, at least to his own satisfaction. (Lawyers in the case have said as much, and Mr. Fitzgerald, with a bit of bravado, said he did not expect that further investigation would produce revelations beyond what he already knows.)

But Mr. Fitzgerald refused to identify Mr. Novak's source, and his answers to that and other questions left an air of murkiness about the actions he was appointed to investigate.

Mr. Fitzgerald was asked in December 2003 to investigate "the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a C.I.A. employee's identity," which first occurred publicly in Mr. Novak's column of July 14, 2003. Mr. Fitzgerald said on Friday that there was no doubt that the identity of Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, had been classified information at the time it was disclosed.

But the indictment that Mr. Fitzgerald brought on Friday mentioned Mr. Novak's column only obliquely. It charged I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, with five felony counts, but all were related to lying to F.B.I. agents or the grand jury about his actions, and none dealt with the second question - whether he had broken the law by discussing Ms. Wilson's identity with three reporters before Mr. Novak's column appeared....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/29/politics/29legal.html