Bush says he may hire lawyer for leak case
WASHINGTON -- President Bush said yesterday he has consulted with a private attorney and is willing to cooperate with the grand jury investigation into who leaked the name of a covert CIA operative last year.
The attorney is Jim Sharp, a Washington trial lawyer and former federal prosecutor.
''If I deem I need his advice, I'll probably hire him," Bush told reporters in the Rose Garden. ''This is a criminal matter; it's a serious matter.
''I want to know the truth. I'm willing to cooperate myself."
Bush has expressed doubts in the past that the government's investigation will pinpoint who was responsible for the leak.
A federal grand jury in recent months has questioned numerous White House and administration officials to learn who passed along the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to the news media.
Disclosure of an undercover officer's identity can be a federal crime.
Wilson has said he thinks his wife's identity was disclosed to attack his credibility because he criticized Bush administration statements that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. Wilson went to Niger for the CIA to investigate the information about Iraq and he found the allegation to be highly unlikely.
Sharp has been an attorney in the nation's capital for the better part of three decades.
''I practiced law with Jim for many years, and he's a very talented and experienced lawyer and will serve the president well," said Tom Green, a longtime criminal defense attorney whose clients have included figures in major Washington controversies, including the Iran-contra affair.
Asked about the leak investigation, Vice President Dick Cheney's office said that if Cheney were to seek counsel on any issue, he would do so with Terrence O'Donnell, a senior partner in the Washington law firm of Williams & Connelly. Cheney has consulted with O'Donnell for years.
Plame's work for the CIA was first disclosed by syndicated newspaper columnist Robert Novak, who wrote that two administration officials said Wilson's wife suggested sending Wilson on the Niger trip.
