Washington – With the clock running out on his investigation, the special counsel in the leak case continued to seek information on Tuesday about Karl Rove’s discussions with reporters in the days before a CIA officer’s identity was made public, lawyers and others involved in the investigation said.
Three days before the grand jury in the case expires and with the White House in a state of high anxiety, the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, appeared still to be trying to determine whether Rove had been fully forthcoming about his contacts with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Robert Novak, the syndicated columnist, in July 2003, they said.
Fitzgerald, who is the U.S. attorney in Chicago, spent the day in Washington and summoned his team, including his chief FBI investigator, Jack Eckenrode, for what appeared to be a final round of discussions about how to proceed. Lawyers involved in the case have said that Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, and Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, face the possibility of indictment for perjury or other charges related to covering up their actions.
The flurry of last-minute activity had White House officials anticipating an announcement as soon as today about whether the prosecutor would seek indictments.
Indictments of Libby or Rove or both would leave Bush a political crisis with the potential to reshape the remainder of his second term.