Bush Reserves Judgment on Rove Amid Probe

President Bush said Wednesday he would not judge the role that senior aide Karl Rove might have played in revealing the identity of a CIA agent until a federal criminal investigator had finished his work.

Citing the continuing probe, Bush declined to defend Rove or to weigh in on the politically charged case, which had prompted Democrats to call for Bush to fire the White House deputy chief of staff or to curb his role.

“We’re in the midst of an ongoing investigation, and this is a serious investigation,” Bush told reporters after a morning meeting with his Cabinet.

“And it is very important for people not to prejudge the investigation based on media reports. And again, I will be more than happy to comment on this matter once the investigation is complete.”

Bush’s comments came as Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, was giving testimony to a federal grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of the undercover CIA operative, Valerie Plame.

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has said that Cooper is a key figure in wrapping up his nearly two-year investigation into whether any members of the Bush administration violated federal law in the unmasking of the CIA operative.

Cooper, who was before the grand jury for 2 1/2 hours, was called to testify about a conversation he had in July 2003 with Rove in which the two discussed the CIA operative. Days later, her name surfaced in a column by Robert Novak and, after that, in an article that Cooper helped write for the Time website.

“I testified openly and honestly,” Cooper told reporters afterward, adding that he had “no idea” whether Rove or any other administration official had committed crimes. “That’s something the special counsel’s going to have to determine,” he said.

Cooper declined to discuss the specifics of his testimony, saying that he intended to tell the story himself in an upcoming article for Time.

Cooper said after Wednesday’s appearance that he had no reason to believe he would be recalled to give further testimony. He previously had spoken with Fitzgerald about conversations he had with I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.

Fitzgerald has said that the testimony of New York Times reporter Judith Miller is also crucial to completing the investigation. Miller spent her eighth day in jail Wednesday after being held in contempt last week for refusing to cooperate.

Cooper agreed to cooperate after being threatened with jail and receiving what his lawyer said were last-minute assurances from Rove that allowed him to testify about their conversation.

At the White House, Bush was asked twice by reporters about Rove at the end of a Cabinet meeting. Both times, the president declined to address the substance of the case.

About two hours later, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan rejected suggestions that the president had failed to defend Rove.

“He wasn’t asked about his support or confidence for Karl.... Every person who works here at the White House, including Karl Rove, has the confidence of the president,” McClellan said.

A lawyer for Rove, Robert Luskin, has said his client did not engage in any wrongdoing and that Rove never disclosed Plame by name to Cooper or anyone else.

In a written statement Wednesday, Luskin noted that Rove had testified several times in the case.

“If the prosecutor seeks additional information from Rove in light of Cooper’s testimony, Rove will promptly supply it at Mr. Fitzgerald’s convenience,” Luskin said.

“Rove has cooperated completely with the special prosecutor, and he has been repeatedly assured he is not a target of the investigation. Rove has done nothing wrong. We’re confident that he will not become a target after the special prosecutor has reviewed all evidence.”

Congressional Republicans stepped up their efforts Wednesday to defend Rove.

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) issued a statement calling on Democrats to “cool the rhetoric” on Rove and allow the investigation to run its course.

“My Democratic friends would be doing the nation a great service if they spent half as much time getting legislation passed that will benefit the country as they do in attacking Karl Rove,” he said.

Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.), leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, assailed the “partisan attacks” against Rove, saying it was “incredibly irresponsible for individuals and organizations to make accusations based on rumor and innuendo. It is unfair to the investigation and even more unfair to Karl Rove.”

Democrats, meanwhile, tried to keep the heat on the White House.

All nine Democratic members of the House Intelligence Committee sent Bush a letter Wednesday calling on him to suspend Rove’s security clearance until Fitzgerald completed his investigation. “There is ample precedent for suspending the security clearances of people under suspicion of leaking classified information,” the Democrats wrote.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and three fellow Democratic senators called on White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., to conduct an internal investigation of any White House involvement and make public the results.

“We hope that the current inconsistencies and failure to answer questions by the White House press secretary are not indicative of the president’s often-stated commitment to get to the bottom of this incident,” the Democratic senators said.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) called on Bush to fire Rove. Other Democratic lawmakers had made similar statements this week.

The conversation between Cooper and Rove occurred days after Plame’s husband, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV, wrote an opinion article in the New York Times that was critical of intelligence the administration was using to justify the war in Iraq. Wilson’s critique was based on a CIA-authorized trip he made to Africa in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq was trying to acquire weapons-grade uranium in Niger.

Luskin has said Rove was not intending to publicly reveal the identity of Plame but rather was providing off-the-record guidance to a reporter trying to assess the merits of a story.

Under certain narrow circumstances, it is a violation of federal law to disclose the identity of a covert agent, and Rove’s own legal exposure, if any, under the law, is not clear.

Among other things, for example, it is not known whether Rove knew of Plame’s status as a covert agent.

Rove testified before the grand jury on three occasions. People close to the case said Fitzgerald’s examination of Cooper before the grand jury was an opportunity to determine whether the reporter’s version of their conversation squared with Rove’s previous statements.

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Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this report.