Ashcroft To Decide If Rove Should Face Charges

TIME -- The DOJ opens a preliminary probe into whether the White House illegally unmasked a CIA operative

UPDATE

Washington Post - White House Confirms Two Top Officials Leaked CIA Spy Name

A senior administration official said two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. That was shortly after Wilson revealed in July that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account eventually touched off a controversy over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

The official would not name the leakers for the record and would not name the journalists. The official said he had no indication that Bush knew about the calls. Columnist Robert Novak published the agent's name in a July column about Wilson's mission.

It is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another. Asked about the motive for describing the leaks, the senior official said the leaks were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility."

EL - A senior official should be at the Condi Rice level or above.

The Intelligence Protection Act, passed in 1982, imposes maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $50,000 fines for unauthorized disclosure by government employees with access to classified information.

Members of the administration, especially Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, have been harshly critical of unauthorized leakers, and White House spokesmen are often dismissive of questions about news reports based on unnamed sources. The FBI is investigating members of the Senate for possibly leaking intercept information about Osama bin Laden.

He said that if Novak's account is accurate, the leak was part of "a deliberate attempt on the part of the White House to intimidate others and make them think twice about coming forward."

"There is a whole group of intelligence analysts who have spoken anonymously to the press about such things as pressure they felt when Cheney and others may have come out there," Wilson said. "They have not attached their names to their stories, and this is clearly designed to let them know that if they were to come out publicly or if they were to respond to the various congressional statements that they wanted to hear from these people in hearings, that they can expect the same thing from the White House."

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been pushing the FBI to investigate the disclosure, said it "not only put an agent's life in danger, but many of that agent's sources and contacts."