CIA Leak Scandal Criminal Investigation - CIA Calls For Leak Investigation

CIA Calls For Leak Investigation

On September 26, 2003, the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate what is now known as the Plame affair. Then-Attorney General of the United States John Ashcroft initially headed up the investigation. On 13 August 2005 journalist Murray Waas reported that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (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. A 2 October 2003 New York Times article similarly connected Rove to the matter and highlighted his prior employment in three previous political campaigns for Ashcroft. Ashcroft subsequently recused himself from the investigation.

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed Special Counsel on 30 December 2003 (Comey names Fitzgerald). Fitzgerald began investigations into the leak working from White House telephone records turned over to the FBI in October 2003. In March 2004, the Special Counsel subpoenaed the telephone records of Air Force One.