http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8073edited to add this text:
. . .
Rove's interview with the FBI was highly significant, sources said, in that although Rove adamantly denied having leaked the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame, he admitted to having disseminated the information -- after it appeared in the news media -- to journalists, political activists, and other administration officials in an attempt to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. At the time, Wilson was raising questions about the veracity of intelligence information used by President Bush in making the case to go to war with Iraq. Rove, through an assistant, declined to comment for this story.
In addition, sources said, Ashcroft received a briefing regarding copious notes maintained by I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. The notes, later turned over to investigators, detailed the inner workings of the White House Iraq Group. The ad hoc group was set up by senior administration officials to devise strategies to win over U.S. and international public opinion to support going to war with Iraq. Besides Libby, other regular key participants included Rove; Nicholas E. Calio, who was at the time the White House legislative liaison; and Deputy National Security Council Advisor Stephen J. Hadley.
Some of those notes described efforts to discredit Wilson by the White House Iraq Group, including Rove, in July of last year as the group was struggling to counter Wilson's allegations that the White House had exaggerated the potential nuclear threat posed by Saddam Hussein to the United States. It was during that time that two senior administration officials leaked information to columnist Robert Novak that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative.
. . .
A recent flurry of activity by Fitzgerald has fueled speculation that the prosecutor is completing his work, either to bring criminal charges or close out his probe without seeking any criminal charges. On June 24, President Bush was interviewed in the Oval Office for more than an hour by Fitzgerald and several members of his staff. Vice President Cheney had earlier been interviewed at length by investigators. And on June 18, White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzalez testified for more than an hour before a federal grand jury empanelled to hear evidence in the case.
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Despite these developments, Fitzgerald's intentions currently remain one of the most tightly held secrets in Washington. There have been scant leaks to the media as to the findings of his investigation so far, and senior White House officials are reeling from the implication that they know nothing more than rank speculation about a highly charged criminal investigation during an election year. In my article that appeared on Alternet.org first disclosing that Ashcroft was being briefed about the Plame investigation, Mark Corallo, the director of public affairs at the Justice Department, confirmed Ashcroft had received "status updates" regarding the probe from John Dion, a career Justice Department prosecutor. Corallo defended the briefings at the time, telling me: "The attorney general wants this to be investigated thoroughly and promptly, and to that end, he wants to be informed of the progress of investigators."
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