Prosecutor in Leak Case Keeps Focus on Rove

The special prosecutor investigating the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson is trying to determine whether Rove lied to the FBI when he was first interviewed by agents about his role in the case in October 2003, attorneys close to the case said.

News reports in recent weeks have suggested that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has narrowed his criminal inquiry into whether Rove purposely failed to tell the grand jury hearing evidence in the case that he spoke with Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003 and revealed the identity of the undercover CIA agent.

But Fitzgerald hasn’t resolved another important element in the case: what appears to be misleading statements Rove made to FBI investigators on Oct. 8, 2003, less than two weeks after the Justice Department announced that it had launched a criminal probe into Plame’s outing, the attorneys said.

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