House panel subpoenas FBI interviews with Bush

June 17, 2008|Pete Yost, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A House committee has issued a subpoena for FBI reports from interviews with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the CIA leak investigation.

The subpoena to Attorney General Michael Mukasey from the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is the latest move by Congress to shed light on Cheney's precise role in the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA identity.

On Friday, former White House press secretary Scott McClellan is scheduled to testify to the House Judiciary Committee.

He is expected to talk about White House higher-ups directing him to deny publicly that Cheney's chief of staff and White House political adviser Karl Rove played any role in leaking knowledge of the CIA employment of Plame Wilson, who is married to Bush administration war critic Joseph Wilson.

Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Rove were among the leakers of Plame Wilson's identity. Both have since left the White House.

In publicly released grand jury testimony, Libby acknowledged having told the FBI early in the Plame Wilson probe that "it's possible" he spoke to Cheney about whether to share information with the media about Wilson's wife.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chaired by Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, has been trying to get FBI interviews of Bush and Cheney since last year.

Waxman renewed the request June 3, and Mukasey said the department is considering a response.