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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/31/MNGG7415D61.DTL Special prosecutor named in CIA probe Ashcroft bows out of blown-cover investigationEric Lichtblau, New York Times Wednesday, December 31, 2003 Washington -- Attorney General John Ashcroft disqualified himself Tuesday from any involvement in the investigation into whether Bush administration officials illegally disclosed the identity of an undercover CIA officer. At the same time, the Justice Department brought in a special counsel to lead the politically charged case. The two steps suggested that the 3-month-old investigation had reached a crucial juncture at which Ashcroft's continued involvement was considered politically untenable, officials said. Leading Democrats had pushed for months for Ashcroft to remove himself from the case because of his close ties to the White House, but he had consistently resisted those demands until Tuesday. Federal investigators have been examining whether officials at the White House or in other federal offices leaked the identity of the CIA officer, Valerie Plame, to Robert Novak, a syndicated columnist. Novak included the information in a column published last July. The White House has denied that top officials there, including the president's top political adviser, Karl Rove, had any role in leaking the information to Novak. The FBI interviewed Rove in October, officials said, and his relationship to the attorney general has been a source of concern for some Justice Department officials because he was a paid adviser to Ashcroft on several of Ashcroft's political campaigns in Missouri. James Comey, a former Manhattan prosecutor who was installed just three weeks ago as deputy attorney general, will oversee the investigation following Ashcroft's withdrawal. His first decision in that role was to name Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago and a friend and former colleague of Comey's, as a special counsel who will direct the investigation. "The attorney general, in an abundance of caution, believed that his recusal was appropriate based on the totality of the circumstances and the facts and evidence developed at this stage of the investigation," Comey said. "I agree with that judgment. And I also agree that he made it at the appropriate time, the appropriate point in this investigation." Comey added that the attorney general did not believe that he had a conflict of interest that would have prevented him from fairly overseeing the case. "The issue that he was concerned about was one of appearance," Comey said. Fitzgerald will have the authority to make all prosecutorial decisions -- including issuing subpoenas, granting immunity to witnesses, or bringing charges -- without first consulting his bosses at the Justice Department, Comey said. "I told him my mandate was very simple: follow the facts wherever they lead and do the right thing all of the time," Comey said. White House officials said that President Bush had been informed of the decision several hours before Comey announced it but that the White House had played no role in it. Indeed, the decision appeared to surprise both political figures in the White House and law enforcement officials at the Justice Department, leaving many to speculate about what led Ashcroft to disqualify himself from the case now after months of political pressure. Some officials suggested the move was driven largely by political factors and that the Democrats' near-constant criticism over the pace of the investigation and Ashcroft's role in it could hurt Bush as he campaigns for re- election next year. By this theory, Comey's confirmation as deputy attorney general three weeks ago may have allowed Ashcroft a relatively smooth way by which to extricate himself from the case. "The Justice Department and Ashcroft in particular have been in an impossible situation," one White House adviser said. "Unless he finds everybody at the White House guilty, his critics will charge that he was soft." But some Democrats said they believed Ashcroft's decision was evidence that the FBI's investigation into the leak could be moving closer to key White House personnel with whom the attorney general is closely aligned. The Justice Department's investigation centers on accusations that unnamed Bush administration officials disclosed the identity of Plame to Novak last summer to punish the CIA officer's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his criticism of Bush's policies in Iraq. Days before his wife's role with the CIA was disclosed, Wilson wrote a New York Times op-ed piece saying that a government fact-finding trip he took to Niger in 2002 had found nothing to substantiate the accusation that Iraq had imported uranium ore from Niger. In his State of the Union address in January, Bush said Iraq had been seeking to buy uranium in Africa, although he did not specifically mention Niger. Disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer is a felony under federal law. Republicans were largely silent on Ashcroft's decision, but Democrats in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail were quick to praise it, although some saw it as belated. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who led the push for Ashcroft's withdrawal and the appointment of an outside counsel, said, "This isn't everything that I asked for, but it's damn close." On the appointment of Fitzgerald to lead the investigation, Schumer said: "I would have preferred to have someone outside the government altogether, but given Fitzgerald's reputation for integrity and ability -- similar to Comey's -- the glass is three-quarters full." Attorneys who have worked alongside Fitzgerald described him as a fiercely independent prosecutor and a workaholic, even by the driven standards of his profession. He is described as someone who has never been reluctant to go after the powerful, be they mobsters, terrorists or politicians. "He's a dogged prosecutor who is blinded by nothing," said David Kelley, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. "He takes the facts and follows them where they lead him." Howard Dean, who leads in polls for the Democratic presidential nomination, said that while he was encouraged by Ashcroft's decision, "it is too little, too late." Dean suggested that because Comey and Fitzgerald were political appointees named to their jobs by Bush, the Justice Department should appoint an independent counsel to investigate the case. In the last three months, the leak investigation has been run out of the Justice Department by John Dion, a lawyer who leads the department's counterespionage unit. While Ashcroft has been briefed occasionally on the progress of the investigation, Justice Department officials have stressed that the unfettered authority of Dion and his staff were critical to ensuring the fairness and independence of the investigation. Chronicle news services contributed to this report. -__ ___ _ ___ __ ___ _ _ _ __ /-_|-0-\-V-/-\|-|-__|-|-|-/-_| \_-\--_/\-/|-\\-|-_||-V-V-\_-\ |__/_|--//-|_|\_|___|\_A_/|__/ SPY NEWS is OSINT newsletter and discussion list associated to Mario's Cyberspace Station - The Global Intelligence News Portal http://mprofaca.cro.net ######## CAUTION! ######### Since you are receiving and reading documents, news stories, comments and opinions not only from so called (or self-proclaimed) "reliable sources", but also a lot of possible misinformation collected by Spy News moderator and subscribers and posted to Spy News for OSINT purposes - it should be a serious reason (particularly to journalists and web publishers) to think twice before using it for their story writing, further publishing or forwarding throughout Cyberspace. 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