Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Web site adds to buzz around leak inquiry

By wire services
Published October 22, 2005

There were no indictments Friday from special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the White House leaks on CIA operative Valerie Plame. But there was a hint something may be coming: Fitzgerald has launched a Web site.

The bare-bones site, http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html debuted Wednesday. It has some of the documents authorizing Fitzgerald to investigate. But there's no mention of indictments.

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn said people should not draw any conclusions from the creation of the site.

"It's something I've been intending to do for some time," he said. The office has been getting a growing number of requests for the documents and now they are available in one place.

"I just think it's helpful for us to have a place where people can go for information," he said.

Meanwhile, New York Times reporter Judith Miller's boss declared Friday that she appeared to have misled the newspaper about her role in the case.

In an e-mail, executive editor Bill Keller wrote New York Times' employees that he wished he had more carefully interviewed Miller. He also wrote that he had "missed what should have been significant alarm bells" that she had been the recipient of leaked information about Plame.

"Judy seems to have misled (New York Times Washington bureau chief) Phil Taubman about the extent of her involvement," Keller wrote in what he described as a lessons-learned e-mail. "This alone should have been enough to make me probe deeper."

[Last modified October 22, 2005, 01:14:12]