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Rove testifies again for grand jury

BY TOM BRUNE | Newsday Washington Bureau

April 27, 2006

WASHINGTON - Key presidential aide Karl Rove testified yesterday for the fifth time before a federal grand jury investigating the 2003 leak of a covert CIA officer's identity.

After a three-hour appearance in the federal courthouse here, Rove's attorney Robert Luskin issued a statement saying Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald "has advised Mr. Rove that he is not a target of the investigation."

But Luskin's statement indicated Rove is not off the hook yet. "Fitzgerald has affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges," it said.

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn declined to comment.

Rove has long been considered to be in legal jeopardy because he initially denied to a grand jury that he had talked about CIA officer Valerie Plame with any reporters before changing his testimony and conceding he had.

In October, Fitzgerald's grand jury indicted vice presidential aide I. Lewis Libby for obstructing justice and perjury for lying to the FBI and the grand jury in this case. At the time, Luskin said Fitzgerald had not decided whether to charge Rove.

Yesterday, Luskin said Rove testified "voluntarily and unconditionally" at Fitzgerald's request "to explore a matter raised since Mr. Rove's last appearance in October 2005."

That matter was the disclosure of conversations that Rove attorney Luskin had in 2003 and 2004 with Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak, a source close to Rove and the investigation said.

In a Time article in December, Novak wrote she testified last year that she inadvertently alerted Luskin over drinks that there was a buzz at her magazine that Rove was a source about Plame for her Time colleague Matthew Cooper - which Rove had denied.

That led Luskin to find an e-mail that Rove wrote about the Cooper interview in July 2003. In October 2004, Rove told the grand jury the e-mail jarred his memory and he changed his testimony.

Rove's grand jury appearance yesterday occurred a week after new White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten stripped Rove of domestic policy duties.

White House officials yesterday denied that had anything to do with Fitzgerald's continuing interest in Rove in the leak investigation. A White House spokeswoman said it was done so Rove could focus on politics.

Fitzgerald continues to investigate the leak with a second grand jury while sparring over evidence and procedure with lawyers for Libby, who is scheduled to go on trial in January.

Since January 2004, Fitzgerald has been probing the leak of Plame's identity, revealed in a column by Robert Novak in July 2003, in an apparent attempt to discredit her husband, who had challenged White House claims Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger.

Robert Novak is not related to Viveca Novak.