From the Minneapolis Star Tribune ...
Top White House aide Karl Rove prepared to testify Wednesday for a fifth time before the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity, two people familiar with the case said.
Rove consulted with his private lawyers before a scheduled afternoon court appearance and was to answer questions about evidence that emerged since his last grand jury appearance last fall, the people said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy rules.
That new evidence includes information that emerged late last year that Rove's attorney had conversations with Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak during a critical time in the case.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury Wednesday. Among other things he is investigating why Rove originally failed to disclose to prosecutors that he had talked to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about the outed CIA operative, Valerie Plame, back in 2003.
Months before Rove acknowledged speaking to Cooper about the CIA status of Plame, Novak told Rove's lawyer the White House aide might have disclosed Plame's CIA work to Cooper.
Fitzgerald has told Rove's legal team recently that he has not made any decision on whether to charge the presidential aide and Rove hasn't received a target notification that would indicate he is likely to be indicted, the people said.
His grand jury appearance comes a week after Rove, the architect of Bush's election victories, gave up his policy duties at the White House as part of an administration remake to return him to a fulltime focus on politics.
Wednesday's session is believed to be only the second time Fitzgerald has met with the grand jury which is examining questions left unanswered in the Plame affair. The only other time Fitzgerald was seen going before the new panel was Dec. 7.
An earlier grand jury expired Oct. 28, the day it handed up an indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI. Libby is scheduled to go on trial next January.
Rove's legal problems stem from the fact that it was not until more than a year into Fitzgerald's criminal investigation that the White House adviser told the prosecutor about his contact with Cooper about Plame.
Rove says he had forgotten the Cooper conversation, which occurred several days before Plame's identity was revealed in a column by Robert Novak.
Rove and Novak, who is not related to Viveca Novak, also had discussed the CIA status of Wilson's wife.
Other unfinished business in the probe focuses on the source who provided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward information about Plame, whose CIA identity was leaked to Novak in July 2003.
Plame's identity was exposed eight days after her husband, Bush administration critic and former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleged that the U.S. government had manipulated prewar intelligence to exaggerate an Iraqi nuclear threat.
Woodward says his source, who he has not publicly identified, provided the information about Wilson's wife, several weeks before Novak learned of Plame's identity. The Post reporter, who never wrote a story, was interviewed by Fitzgerald late last year.
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