WASHINGTON — Prosecutors investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity returned their attention to White House advisor Karl Rove on Tuesday, questioning a former West Wing colleague about contacts Rove had with reporters in the days leading to the naming of the covert operative.
Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald also dispatched FBI agents this week to the CIA officer's neighborhood in Washington, asking neighbors whether they had been aware -- before her name appeared in a syndicated column -- that the operative, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.
The questioning, described by lawyers familiar with the case and by neighbors, occurred as Fitzgerald was thought to be preparing indictments in the long-running investigation into the leak of Plame's identity.
The inquiry, which has reached deep into the White House and could come to an end this week, focused initially on determining who leaked the agent's name to reporters. More recently, Fitzgerald has appeared to turn his attention to possible perjury, obstruction of justice or conspiracy to violate laws prohibiting the distribution of classified secrets.
Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were called before the grand jury hearing the case, along with numerous other senior White House staffers. Rove and Libby have been described as intent on discrediting the CIA operative's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a critic of the war in Iraq.
In recent days, attention has centered on Libby and the vice president's office. On Tuesday, the focus appeared to shift again to Rove, a White House deputy chief of staff who has been called before the grand jury four times. Fitzgerald's investigators asked the former colleague about any comments Rove might have made about his conversations with journalists in the days before Plame's name was made public by columnist Robert Novak.
"It appeared to me the prosecutor was trying to button up any holes that were remaining," a lawyer familiar with the case said. The lawyer asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the ongoing inquiry.
Specifically, investigators asked about Rove's July 2003 conversations with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, the lawyer said.
Cooper had contacted Rove and asked about Wilson, who angered the White House in mid-2003 when he accused the administration of "twisting" intelligence information to justify going to war in Iraq.
