A text of the statement by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
at Friday’s news conference on the CIA leak investigation, as
transcribed by CQ Transcriptions:
FITZGERALD: Good afternoon. I’m Pat Fitzgerald. I’m the United
States attorney in Chicago, but I’m appearing before you today as
the Department of Justice special counsel in the CIA leak
investigation.
Joining me, to my left, is Jack Eckenrode, the special agent in
charge of the FBI office in Chicago, who has led the team of
investigators and prosecutors from day one in this investigation.
A few hours ago, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of
Columbia returned a five-count indictment against I. Lewis Libby,
also known as Scooter Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff.
The grand jury’s indictment charges that Mr. Libby committed
five crimes. The indictment charges one count of obstruction of
justice of the federal grand jury, two counts of perjury and two
counts of false statements.
Before I talk about those charges and what the indictment
alleges, I’d like to put the investigation into a little context.
Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that
Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it
classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence
community.
Valerie Wilson’s friends, neighbors, college classmates had no
idea she had another life.
The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well-known, for her
protection or for the benefit of all us. It’s important that a CIA
officer’s identity be protected, that it be protected not just for
the officer, but for the nation’s security.
Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of
that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on
July 14th, 2003.
But Mr. Novak was not the first reporter to be told that
Wilson’s wife, Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Wilson’s wife, Valerie,
worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told.
In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a
reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about
Valerie Wilson.
Now, something needs to be borne in mind about a criminal
investigation.
I recognize that there’s been very little information about this
criminal investigation, but for a very good reason.
It may be frustrating when investigations are conducted in
secret. When investigations use grand juries, it’s important that
the information be closely held.
So let me tell you a little bit about how an investigation
works.
Investigators do not set out to investigate the statute, they
set out to gather the facts.
It’s critical that when an investigation is conducted by
prosecutors, agents and a grand jury they learn who, what, when,
where and why. And then they decide, based upon accurate facts,
whether a crime has been committed, who has committed the crime,
whether you can prove the crime and whether the crime should be
charged.
Agent Eckenrode doesn’t send people out when $1 million is
missing from a bank and tell them, “Just come back if you find
wire fraud.” If the agent finds embezzlement, they follow through
on that.
That’s the way this investigation was conducted. It was known
that a CIA officer’s identity was blown, it was known that there
was a leak. We needed to figure out how that happened, who did it,
why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it,
whether we should prove it.
And, given that national security was at stake, it was
especially important that we find out accurate facts.
There’s another thing about a grand jury investigation. One of
the obligations of the prosecutors and the grand juries is to keep
the information obtained in the investigation secret, not to share
it with the public.
And, as frustrating as that may be for the public, that is
important because, the way our system of justice works, if
information is gathered about people and they’re not charged with a
crime, we don’t hold up that information for the public to look at.
We either charge them with a crime or we don’t.
And that’s why we’ve safeguarded information here to date.
But as important as it is for the grand jury to follow the rules
and follow the safeguards to make sure information doesn’t get out,
it’s equally important that the witnesses who come before a grand
jury, especially the witnesses who come before a grand jury who may
be under investigation, tell the complete truth.
It’s especially important in the national security area. The
laws involving disclosure of classified information in some places
are very clear, in some places they’re not so clear.
And grand jurors and prosecutors making decisions about who
should be charged, whether anyone should be charged, what should be
charged, need to make fine distinctions about what people knew, why
they knew it, what they exactly said, why they said it, what they
were trying to do, what appreciation they had for the information
and whether it was classified at the time.
Those fine distinctions are important in determining what to do.
That’s why it’s essential when a witness comes forward and gives
their account of how they came across classified information and
what they did with it that it be accurate.
That brings us to the fall of 2003. When it was clear that
Valerie Wilson’s cover had been blown, investigation began. And in
October 2003, the FBI interviewed Mr. Libby. Mr. Libby is the vice
president’s chief of staff. He’s also an assistant to the president
and an assistant to the vice president for national security
affairs.
The focus of the interview was what it that he had known about
Wilson’s wife, Valerie Wilson, what he knew about Ms. Wilson, what
he said to people, why he said it, and how he learned it.
And, to be frank, Mr. Libby gave the FBI a compelling story.
What he told the FBI is that essentially he was at the end of a
long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter Tim Russert, and
during the conversation Mr. Russert told him that, “Hey, do you
know that all the reporters know that Mr. Wilson’s wife works at
the CIA?”
And he told the FBI that he learned that information as if it
were new, and it struck him. So he took this information from Mr.
Russert and later on he passed it on to other reporters, including
reporter Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, reporter Judith Miller of
The New York Times.
And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on on
July 12th, 2003, two days before Mr. Novak’s column, that he passed
it on understanding that this was information he had gotten from a
reporter, that he didn’t even know if it was true.
And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to
the reporters he made clear that he did know if this were true.
This was something that all the reporters were saying and, in fact,
he just didn’t know and he wanted to be clear about it.
Later, Mr. Libby went before the grand jury on two occasions in
March of 2004. He took an oath and he testified. And he essentially
said the same thing.
He said that, in fact, he had learned from the vice president
earlier in June 2003 information about Wilson’s wife, but he had
forgotten it, and that when he learned the information from Mr.
Russert during this phone call he learned it as if it were new.
When he passed the information on to reporters Cooper and Miller
late in the week, he passed it on thinking it was just information
he received from reporters; that he told reporters that, in fact,
he didn’t even know if it were true. He was just passing gossip
from one reporter to another at the long end of a chain of phone
calls.
It would be a compelling story that will lead the FBI to go
away, if only it were true. It is not true, according to the
indictment.
In fact, Mr. Libby discussed the information about Valerie
Wilson at least half a dozen times before this conversation with
Mr. Russert ever took place, not to mention that when he spoke to
Mr. Russert, Mr. Russert and he never discussed Valerie Wilson or
Wilson’s wife.
He didn’t learn it from Mr. Russert. But if he had, it would not
have been new at the time.
Let me talk you through what the indictment alleges.
The indictment alleges that Mr. Libby learned the information
about Valerie Wilson at least three times in June of 2003 from
government officials.
Let me make clear there was nothing wrong with government
officials discussing Valerie Wilson or Mr. Wilson or his wife and
imparting the information to Mr. Libby.
But in early June, Mr. Libby learned about Valerie Wilson and
the role she was believed to play in having sent Mr. Wilson on a
trip overseas from a senior CIA officer on or around June 11th,
from an undersecretary of state on or around June 11th, and from
the vice president on or about June 12th.
It’s also clear, as set forth in the indictment, that some time
prior to July 8th he also learned it from somebody else working in
the Vice President’s Office.
So at least four people within the government told Mr. Libby
about Valerie Wilson, often referred to as Wilson’s wife, working
at the CIA and believed to be responsible for helping organize a
trip that Mr. Wilson took overseas.
In addition to hearing it from government officials, it’s also
alleged in the indictment that at least three times Mr. Libby
discussed this information with other government officials.
It’s alleged in the indictment that on June 14th of 2003, a full
month before Mr. Novak’s column, Mr. Libby discussed it in a
conversation with a CIA briefer in which he was complaining to the
CIA briefer his belief that the CIA was leaking information about
something or making critical comments, and he brought up Joe Wilson
and Valerie Wilson.
It’s also alleged in the indictment that Mr. Libby discussed it
with the White House press secretary on July 7th, 2003, over lunch.
What’s important about that is that Mr. Libby, the indictment
alleges, was telling Mr. Fleischer something on Monday that he
claims to have learned on Thursday.
In addition to discussing it with the press secretary on July
7th, there was also a discussion on or about July 8th in which
counsel for the vice president was asked a question by Mr. Libby as
to what paperwork the Central Intelligence Agency would have if an
employee had a spouse go on a trip.
So that at least seven discussions involving government
officials prior to the day when Mr. Libby claims he learned this
information as if it were new from Mr. Russert. And, in fact, when
he spoke to Mr. Russert, they never discussed it.
But in addition to focusing on how it is that Mr. Libby learned
this information and what he thought about it, it’s important to
focus on what it is that Mr. Libby said to the reporters.
In the account he gave to the FBI and to the grand jury was that
he told reporters Cooper and Miller at the end of the week, on July
12th. And that what he told them was he gave them information that
he got from other reporters; other reporters were saying this, and
Mr. Libby did not know if it were true. And in fact, Mr. Libby
testified that he told the reporters he did not even know if Mr.
Wilson had a wife.
And, in fact, we now know that Mr. Libby discussed this
information about Valerie Wilson at least four times prior to July
14th, 2003: on three occasions with Judith Miller of The New York
Times and on one occasion with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine.
The first occasion in which Mr. Libby discussed it with Judith
Miller was back in June 23rd of 2003, just days after an article
appeared online in The New Republic which quoted some critical
commentary from Mr. Wilson.
After that discussion with Judith Miller on June 23rd, 2003, Mr.
Libby also discussed Valerie Wilson on July 8th of 2003.
During that discussion, Mr. Libby talked about Mr. Wilson in a
conversation that was on background as a senior administration
official. And when Mr. Libby talked about Wilson, he changed the
attribution to a former Hill staffer.
During that discussion, which was to be attributed to a former
Hill staffer, Mr. Libby also discussed Wilson’s wife, Valerie
Wilson, working at the CIA and then, finally, again, on July
12th.
In short and in those conversations, Mr. Libby never said,
“This is something that other reporters are saying”; Mr. Libby
never said, “This is something that I don’t know if it’s true”;
Mr. Libby never said, “I don’t even know if he had a wife.”
At the end of the day, what appears is that Mr. Libby’s story
that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on
from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true.
It was false. He was at the beginning of the chain of phone
calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the
government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards,
under oath and repeatedly.
Now, as I said before, this grand jury investigation has been
conducted in secret. I believe it should have been conducted in
secret, not only because it’s required by those rules, but because
the rules are wise. Those rules protect all of us.
We are now going from a grand jury investigation to an
indictment, a public charge and a public trial. The rules will be
different.
But I think what we see here today, when a vice president’s
chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice,
it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law
seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.
But what we need to also show the world is that we can also
apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high
officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow
the same rules.
So I ask everyone involved in this process, anyone who
participates in this trial, anyone who covers this trial, anyone
sitting home watching these proceedings to follow this process with
an American appreciation for our values and our dignity.
Let’s let the process take place. Let’s take a deep breath and
let justice process the system.
I would be remiss at this point if I didn’t thank the team of
investigators and prosecutors who worked on it, led by Agent
Eckenrode, or particularly the staff under John Dion from the
counterespionage section in the Department of Justice; Mr. (Peter)
Zeidenberg from Public Integrity, as well as the agents from the
Washington field office and my close friends in the Chicago U.S.
attorney’s office, all of whom contributed to a joint effort.
