Grand Jury Update

Fitz has called for a new grand jury. New indictments expected.

Legal experts said Fitzgerald's decision to call upon a new grand jury is all but certainly because he is considering additional criminal charges in the case.

Two sources close to Karl Rove, the top Bush aide still under investigation in the case, said they have reason to believe Fitzgerald does not anticipate presenting additional evidence against the White House deputy chief of staff. Instead, lawyers involved in the case expect the prosecutor to focus on Woodward's admission that an official other than Libby told him about Plame one month before her identity was publicly disclosed in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak.

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Fitzgerald's decision to present information to a new grand jury, contained in a court filing and announced publicly at a court hearing on the Libby case yesterday, is the latest twist in an investigation that has rattled the White House and threatens top administration officials. "The investigation will involve proceedings before a different grand jury" from the one that indicted Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, on perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges, Fitzgerald said. "The investigation is continuing."

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... most lawyers interviewed for this article said Fitzgerald would not go through the trouble of calling upon a new grand jury -- after gathering so much testimony from and about Rove -- unless he is exploring new territory uncovered since the Oct. 28 Libby indictment.

"Whoever's Woodward's source probably feels terribly uncomfortable right now," said E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., a Washington defense lawyer and former prosecutor.

Randall D. Eliason, a law professor who formerly ran the public corruption section of the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, said Fitzgerald is clearly "looking at new defendants or new charges." That is not good news for anybody concerned about their role in Plame's identity being leaked, Eliason added.

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Experts said that Fitzgerald is not trying to shore up his case on Libby. Under court rules, Fitzgerald cannot use a new grand jury to gather additional evidence for an indictment he has already brought, or to wrap up unanswered questions in preparation for Libby's trial. He can only call on a grand jury to hear evidence if he is considering new charges against another person or additional charges against Libby.

One mystery for the public -- but not for Fitzgerald -- is the identity of Woodward's source. Woodward said he contacted the source late last month for an article on the CIA leak case and discussed notes showing that the source had mentioned Plame in mid-June 2003. The source then went to Fitzgerald.

The source's situation appears not unlike Rove's. In his initial testimony, Rove did not reveal his conversation about Plame with Time magazine's Matthew Cooper. Only after an e-mail surfaced showing that Rove had discussed the issue with Cooper did the top Bush aide tell the grand jury about it. Sources close to Rove said he is under investigation for possibly providing misleading statements about the Cooper conversation.

Lawyers in the case say Woodward's source must not have initially mentioned the 2003 contact with him and told Fitzgerald about it only after talking to Woodward last month.

"None of this would be a news flash if this person had previously been interviewed or testified and had previously disclosed this information to investigators," Barcella said. "You have to assume they didn't disclose this interview with Woodward. Now the prosecutor has to investigate why they didn't."