Leopold: Congress Says Prepared to Act in Plame Affair

And it is about time!

Aides to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Congressman John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said they were engaged in discussions Tuesday about the possibility of holding immediate hearings and subpoenaing Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to provide details of his nearly four-year-old investigation, and the evidence he obtained regarding the role Vice President Dick Cheney and other White House officials played in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson. The aides requested anonymity because they were not yet permitted to discuss Congress's course of action in the matter publicly.

The news came on the heels of a verdict Tuesday in which a jury found former vice presidential staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby guilty on four counts of obstruction of justice, perjury and lying to federal investigators for his role in the Plame leak. Plame is married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a fierce critic of the Iraq war who accused the administration of "twisting" pre-war intelligence. The verdict against Libby was rendered nearly four years to the day that the US invaded Iraq.

An aide to Senator Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that the senator is still determined to investigate the flawed intelligence that the administration used to convince Congress and the public to back the Iraq war. The Levin aide said the senator will likely seek testimony from Libby, Cheney, and senior members of the White House who played a role in the Plame leak, and that it "makes sense" to fold the issues surrounding the CIA leak case into the hearings about pre-war intelligence since they overlap with the leak case.

Fitzgerald said if new information materializes he will "take action." However, at this point, he plans on returning to his "day job."

In the meantime, if Congress decides to hold hearings or further investigate the roles of other administration officials who were involved in the leak, such as White House political consultant Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney, Fitzgerald said he may be inclined to share the evidence he collected over the course of three years with lawmakers if they ask for his documents.

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