A second reporter for Time magazine has been asked to testify under oath in the CIA leak case, about conversations she had last year with a lawyer for Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, the magazine reported on Sunday.
The reporter, Viveca Novak, who has written about the leak investigation, has been asked to testify by the special counsel in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, about her conversations with Robert Luskin, a lawyer for Rove, the magazine said.
The request for Novak's testimony is the first tangible sign in weeks that Fitzgerald has not yet completed his inquiry into Rove's actions and may still be considering charges against him.
Rove has long been under scrutiny in the case but has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
So far, Fitzgerald has brought one indictment, on perjury and obstruction of justice charges, against I. Lewis Libby Jr., the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby resigned after the indictment was announced and has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Fitzgerald's request for Novak's testimony follows a disclosure by the Washington Post on Nov. 16 that its best-known reporter, Bob Woodward, had testified under oath to Fitzgerald about matters that lawyers in the case said were unrelated to Rove.
In an article and a first-person account by Woodward, the paper reported that an unidentified administration official told Woodward about the CIA officer at the heart of the case in June 2003, making him the first reporter to have learned about the intelligence officer.
Time magazine did not make clear what information the prosecutor hoped to obtain from Novak, whose name has not previously surfaced in the case.
She has contributed to articles in which Luskin was quoted.
Another Time reporter, Matthew Cooper, testified this summer about a July 2003 conversation he had with Rove, but only after the magazine waged a lengthy legal battle.
Time disclosed the prosecutor's request in a two-paragraph article published on Sunday, reporting that Novak had been asked to discuss conversations she had had with Luskin, starting in May last year, when she was covering the investigation.
The article said Novak was cooperating with the inquiry. It is not known when she will testify; she has not been asked to appear before the grand jury but will instead give a deposition, said Ty Trippet, a Time spokesman.
On Sunday, Luskin declined to comment, but he has previously said he expects that Fitzgerald will decide not to prosecute Rove. Novak declined to comment, as did Randall Samborn, a spokesman for Fitzgerald.
The lawyers who discussed the case would do so only if they were not identified by name, citing Fitzgerald's requests to them not to publicly discuss matters that remain under investigation.
Novak is not known to have had discussions with Rove or other White House officials about the CIA officer during the midsummer of 2003, the time that has been the principal focus of Fitzgerald's inquiry.
Nevertheless, the summer and fall of last year was a significant time for Rove, according to lawyers in the case.
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