WASHINGTON — The former CIA operative at the center of a three-year federal leak investigation fought back Thursday, suing Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential counselor Karl Rove -- accusing them of ruining her career and seeking revenge against her husband, an administration critic.
The onetime operative, Valerie Plame, and her husband, former envoy Joseph C. Wilson IV, alleged in a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court that administration officials illegally conspired to violate their constitutional rights and other laws by leaking Plame's identity to reporters.
The civil suit -- filed almost three years to the day after syndicated columnist Robert Novak publicly identified Plame -- seeks unspecified financial damages.
Wilson and Plame announced Thursday that they were setting up a fund to pay the costs of the litigation and a website for contributions. Any money obtained from the suit above and beyond their legal bills will go to charity, they said.
But they and their lawyers said they would not comment about the suit until a news conference scheduled for today. Their legal team includes Erwin Chemerinsky, a professor at Duke University law school and a widely respected authority on constitutional law.
The suit marks a new front in a Washington scandal that only a month ago seemed to have run its course -- after a federal prosecutor said he had decided not to bring charges against Rove, a primary focus of the three-year probe.
In addition to Rove and Cheney, the suit names former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who faces a trial early next year on charges of perjury and obstruction in connection with his role in the case.
"The lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of one such human source at the CIA, Valerie Plame Wilson, whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer, and who risked her life for her country," according to the complaint.
A spokesman for Rove, Mark Corallo, called the allegations "absolutely and utterly without merit."
Lea Anne McBride, Cheney's spokeswoman, said her boss would have no comment. "It relates to a matter that is already before the courts, so we are just going to follow standard policy and not comment on a matter that is in litigation," she said.
A lawyer for Libby, William Jeffress, also declined to comment.
