And Which Of bushs' Personal Buddies Is This ?

Top Bush adviser Rove testifies again on CIA leak
Oct 14 6:22 PM US/Eastern
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President George W. Bush's top aide Karl Rove testified for a fourth time before a grand jury about the leaked identity of a CIA agent, which opponents call politically motivated.

Rove entered a federal courtroom in Washington early Friday and left in the early afternoon after four hours with a prosecutor specially assigned to the case, Patrick Fitzgerald.


Rove declined to speak to a crowd of reporters waiting outside.

"The special counsel has not advised Mr. Rove that he is a target of the investigation and affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges," Rove's attorney Robert Luskin said in a statement.

"The special counsel has indicated that he does not anticipate the need for Mr. Rove's further cooperation," the statement said.

Fitzgerald has tried for two years to find out who in the Bush administration leaked the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, and the grand jury will decide whether a federal crime was committed.

With suspense building as to whether Rove or other top officials will be indicted, a White House spokesman was asked if the case had become a distraction for the Bush administration.

The president and his team of advisers were focused on priorities such as Iraq and the economy, spokesman Scott McClellan said at a news conference.

"And while there are other things going on, the White House doesn't have time to let those things distract from the important work at hand," McClellan said.

The case dates back to July 2003, when a conservative commentator with close ties to the Republican party, Robert Novak, published Plame's name.


The CIA agent is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador who publicly questioned the Bush administration's justification for the war in Iraq.

Under US law, knowingly revealing the identity of an undercover CIA agent is a federal crime, though it remains unclear if the Plame case fell into that category.

The opposition Democrats called the leak an act of political revenge and demanded the White House reveal who had divulged the agent's name.

Wilson promptly pointed to Rove as the likely source.

"At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs," Wilson said.

"And trust me when I use that name, I measure my words."

Speculation is mounting over whether Rove, known as the mastermind behind Bush's political strategy and election campaigns, will be indicted or emerge unscathed.

The prosecutor has called in numerous officials from the Bush administration to testify and sent a journalist from The New York Times to prison for refusing to reveal who she spoke to in the White House.

The reporter, Judith Miller, who never wrote a story, was freed last month after 85 days in jail. She said her source gave her permission to discuss their conversation before a grand jury.

Miller has identified one of her sources as Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, said in July that Karl Rove told him Wilson's wife was a CIA agent.

Bush has described Rove, 54, as the "architect" of his victorious re-election campaign last year. He has earned a reputation for political savvy and for employing sometimes ruthless tactics against his opponents.

Any indictment of Rove would deliver a damaging blow to Bush, who is already facing the lowest approval ratings of his presidency.