Testimony and documents implicated several other Bush administration officials in the leaking of Plame Wilson’s identity – including Bush’s chief political adviser Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney – but Fitzgerald has brought no one else to trial and has refused to publicly discuss his prosecutorial judgments.
It is unclear if the possibility of missing e-mails impaired Fitzgerald’s inquiry. Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW, told me that she believes there “are unanswered questions about what the special counsel knew, particularly as to scope of e-mail problem.”
”We wrote Fitzgerald a letter last April … suggesting that he reopen the investigation,” Weismann said in an e-mail to me. “To date, we have heard nothing. We have also written to Attorney General Michael Mukasey requesting that he appoint a special prosecutor to investigate and likewise have heard nothing.”
CREW filed a federal court motion earlier this month asking that Payton be held in civil contempt for knowingly submitting false, misleading and incomplete testimony in an affidavit filed with a federal court on Jan. 15.
In that affidavit, Payton said one employee in the Office of Administration — Steve McDevitt, who worked with Payton from 2002 to 2006 — conducted the internal e-mail probe and that the findings are in dispute. She added that she was unaware whether e-mails were properly archived.
CREW said Payton’s responses in her affidavit are “false and appear designed to mislead the court into believing that both discovery and any additional interim relief are unnecessary.”
Investigative reporter Jason Leopold is the author of News Junkie, a memoir. Visit http://www.newsjunkiebook.com for a preview.
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