CIA leak inquiry probes delay
Gonzales and Card spoke hours before all White House staff told
Dafna Linzer, Washington Post
Monday, July 25, 2005
Washington -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday that he spoke with White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card immediately after learning that the Justice Department had begun a criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. But Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time, waited 12 hours before officially notifying the rest of the staff of the inquiry.
Many details of the investigation led by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald are unknown. Sources close to the case have said Fitzgerald is looking into possible conflicts between what President Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove and vice presidential staff chief Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury, and the accounts of reporters who spoke with the two men.
Gonzales said Sunday on "Fox News Sunday" that he is among the group of top current and former Bush administration officials who have testified to the grand jury about the unmasking of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative. Gonzales, who has recused himself from the case, would not discuss details of his testimony but said he learned about Plame's work from newspaper accounts.
In the Sunday New York Times, columnist Frank Rich reported that when Gonzales was notified about the investigation on the evening of Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, he waited 12 hours before telling the White House staff about the inquiry. Official notification to staff is meant to quickly alert anyone who might have pertinent records to make sure they are preserved and safeguarded.
Asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" about the report, Gonzales said the Justice Department had informed his office around 8 p.m. and that White House lawyers said he could wait until the next morning before notifying the staff. He did not say why he called Card.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/25/MNGU2DT0EF1.DTL FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 3, 2003
SCHUMER: JUSTICE DEPT MISSTEPS AGAIN IN CIA LEAK PROBE BY TELEGRAPHING TO POTENTIAL CULPRITS THAT IT WILL SEEK RECORDS
Justice Dept made public its plans to notify Defense & State Dept officials to preserve records before it actually did so, giving potential targets time to destroy evidence
Schumer: Justice Dept's week of errors enhances case for special counsel
US Senator Charles E. Schumer today said the Justice Department had made another mistake in its investigation into whether Administration officials illegally disclosed a covert CIA operative's identity by leaking its intent to require the Defense and State Departments to preserve all relevant documents and records. Schumer said that by giving advance notice that it would expand its probe to target those Departments, the Justice Department gave potential targets of the investigation time to destroy evidence.
"There have been a series of serious mistakes in how this matter has been handled this week by the Justice Department," Schumer said. "First, the Department waited four days to tell the White House to preserve documents and then allowed another delay in actually notifying the staff. Yesterday, we heard about the intimate ties between the Attorney General and the White House. Now we're learning that the Justice Department telegraphed its plans to expand the probe to the Defense and State Departments, allowing potential culprits to get rid of anything incriminating. If there are this many questions just in the first week of this investigation, it makes you wonder what's next."
Yesterday's news accounts quoted Justice Department officials saying that they plan to notify Defense and State Department employees to preserve documents and records relating to Ambassador Wilson's wife. They also said that they had already asked CIA employees to do so. Schumer said by telegraphing their plans, the Justice Department appears, for the second time this week, to have done a poor job of preventing the destruction of evidence in this investigation.
In a letter being sent to the Justice Department today, Schumer wrote that he did not understand why "the Department of Justice
not immediately send evidence preservation requests to the handful of agencies where individuals have access to this kind of sensitive classified information. If it was not the first step taken, at a minimum the evidence preservation requests to State and DOD should have gone out when the White House requests were issued."
http://schumer.senate.gov/SchumerWebsite/pressroom/press_releases/PR02081.html
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