Fitzgerald Focuses Again on Rove (new!)

Fitzgerald Focuses Again on Rove
By Tom Hamburger, Richard B. Schmitt and Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON -- As his investigation nears a conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has returned his attention to White House adviser Karl Rove, interviewing a Rove colleague with detailed questions about contacts that President Bush's close aide had with reporters in the days leading up to the outing of a covert CIA officer.

Fitzgerald has also dispatched FBI agents to comb the CIA agent's residential neighborhood in Washington, asking neighbors again whether they were aware — before her name appeared in a syndicated column — that the agent, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.

The questioning, described by lawyers familiar with the case and by the neighbors, occurred as Fitzgerald was thought to be readying indictments in the long-running inquiry into the leak of Plame's identity. It is a felony to knowingly identify an undercover agent, and the renewed questions this week suggested that the prosecutor remained focused on the breach of that secrecy.

The inquiry has reached deep into the White House and focuses on Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby.

A deputy prosecutor called Rove's colleague this afternoon and interviewed him in depth about statements Rove may have made to reporters about the case, a lawyer familiar with the case said.

"It appeared to me the prosecutor was trying to button up any holes that were remaining," the lawyer said....