WASHINGTON - Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald huddled with his legal team Thursday as two key White House aides awaited on whether they would be implicated in the CIA leak investigation.
A spokesman for the prosecutor said there would be no public announcements Thursday. The term of the grand jury that could bring indictments expires today. The White House braced for the possibility that Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, could become a criminal defendant by week's end. President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, has been questioned in the case, as well.
Libby and Rove arrived for work at the White House Thursday as usual. Rove attended the daily meeting of the senior staff, but Libby did not and was said to be in a security briefing. Libby misses meeting about half of the time because of intelligence briefings and other issues on Cheney's schedule, an official said.
Rove's legal team made contingency plans, consulting with former Justice Department official Mark Corallo about what defenses could be mounted in court and in public.
Fitzgerald met with Rove attorney Robert Luskin at a private law firm office Tuesday, heightening White House fears for Rove's future.
In 2003, eight days after former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat, columnist Robert Novak disclosed the identity of Wilson's wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.
After checking with Rove and Libby, the White House denied that either aide was involved in leaking Plame's identity.
Fitzgerald was appointed nearly two years ago to determine whether any presidential aides violated a federal law that prohibits the intentional unmasking of an undercover CIA officer.
