US: When Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, walked into a federal courthouse early yesterday morning, the fever of political speculation in Washington rose by a few degrees.
It was Mr Rove's fourth appearance before a grand jury investigating the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent two years ago, apparently in an effort to discredit her husband, a critic of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq.
Until recently, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation was considered unlikely to produce criminal charges, not least because the crime of knowingly revealing an intelligence officer's identity is hard to prove.
But the decision to recall Mr Rove for questioning has increased speculation that he could be charged with conspiracy, making false statements or perjury.
Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is also in Mr Fitzgerald's sights, raising the prospect of two of the White House's key figures having to leave their posts within the next two weeks.
The special prosecutor has revealed little about his investigation into whether Ms Plame's name was leaked in an attempt to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who cast doubt on White House claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to import nuclear weapons material from Niger.
When Ms Plame's name was released two years ago, White House spokesman Scott McClennan issued an emphatic denial that Mr Rove or Mr Libby were involved.
"They are good individuals. They are important members of our White House team. And that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved.
"I had no doubt with that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did," he said.
Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper has told the grand jury that Mr Rove and Mr Libby were among the sources for a story he wrote that identified Ms Plame.
Mr Libby also spoke to New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who did not write a story about the affair but spent 85 days in jail for contempt of court before Mr Libby released her from her promise of confidentiality.
New York Times editor Bill Keller and publisher Arthur Sulzberger jnr have offered strong support to Ms Miller, but the paper is under growing pressure to answer important questions about her role in the affair.
The atmosphere within the paper is said to be more tense than at any time since the 2003 scandal over Jayson Blair, a reporter who plagiarised and invented news stories.
Mr Keller said earlier this week that, now that the contempt of court order against Ms Miller has been lifted, the New York Times will tell the full story of its own role in the CIA leak.
Byron Calame, the paper's public editor or readers' representative, said this week there was no longer any excuse for not telling the whole story.
"As public editor, I have been asking some basic questions of the key players at the Times since July 12th. But they declined to fully respond to my fundamental questions because, they said, of the legal entanglements of Ms Miller and the paper.
"With Ms Miller in jail and the legal situation unclear, I felt it would be unfair to publicly castigate them for their caution. At the same time, I decided my lack of information made it impossible to fairly evaluate for readers Ms Miller's refusal to identify confidential sources and how the Times was handling the matter.
"The absence of complete answers to my fundamental questions also prevented me from publicly rising to Ms Miller's defence, despite the initial burst of First Amendment fervour among some journalists supporting her," he wrote in his weblog.
Mr Calame wants to know if Ms Miller's contact with Mr Libby was "initiated and conducted in genuine pursuit of a news article for Times readers"; why she did not write an article; what kind of notes she has; and why she did not seek a confidentiality waiver from Mr Libby earlier. He also wants to know more about Ms Miller's belated discovery of notes of an earlier discussion with Mr Libby about Mr Wilson and Ms Plame.
Ms Miller is a controversial figure, whose reputation has been damaged by a series of inaccurate reports about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq war.
The suspicion that she became too close to her contacts in the Bush administration deepened with the publication of Mr Libby's letter releasing her from her promise of confidentiality.
Its closing passage is unusually intimate for a communication between a political official and a journalist: "You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover - Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program.
"Out west, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work - and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers. With admiration, Scooter Libby."
Mr Fitzgerald's investigation is due to end on October 28th, by which time he is expected to outline any charges against individuals and publish a report on how Ms Plame's name was leaked.
