[Patrick J. Fitzgerald] is investigating whether [Bush] administration officials leaked the name of CIA covert officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak last July. Plame is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a public critic of the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. Wilson has suggested that administration officials disclosed his wife's identity as retaliation for his criticism.

The disclosure came in a column Novak published last July 14. He said that when he wondered why the CIA selected Wilson in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Niger, two administration officials told him that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and set up the trip.

This week, Fitzgerald took a tape-recorded deposition that will be played to the grand jury from Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler. Kessler said he agreed to be interviewed, at the urging of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to [Cheney], about two telephone conversations he had with Libby. Kessler said he told the prosecutors that in conversations last July 12 and July 18, Libby did not mention Plame or Wilson.