Late Monday the Justice Department notified the White House via e-mail that it was moving from a "preliminary probe" to opening a full-blown investigation into the alleged leak by Administration officials of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambasador Joseph Wilson.

The White House staff was notified of the investigation by e-mail after the Justice Department decided late Monday to move from a preliminary investigation into a full probe. It is rare that the department decides to conduct a full investigation of the alleged leak of classified information.

White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales told the staff: "You must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the department's investigation." Presumably that would include telephone logs, e-mails, notes and other documents.

Stay tuned....

Here's a current link to Robert Novak's July 14 column outing Valerie Plame, wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, as a CIA operative.

Among those in Congress calling for a special prosecutor (already rejected by the White House as we reported earlier): Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman John D. "Jay" Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, both of whom wrote letters Monday to Bush and Ashcroft.

The White House today rejected calls for an Independent Counsel to investigate leaks in the Plame affair. Both Wesley Clark and Howard Dean have rightly pointed out that the Justice Department is not the appropriate agency to conduct an impartial, independent investigation.

The White House says Justice will determine whether an investigation is warranted. So there are no plans at this point for the launching of an investigation--there will only be an " preliminary inquiry."

Officials said the Justice Department began a preliminary inquiry to determine if there should be a full-blown probe based on a memo from the CIA stating a leak had occurred.

We anticipate a whitewash.

Update: Maybe not.

Max has announced the "MAXSPEAK DEAD POOL"--on who takes the fall as a result of the alleged CIA leak of the identity of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.

Taking the fall" means resignation, arrest, or indictment, whichever two come first.

Update: Via Calpundit, we learn Drudge has a response by Novak up on his site. It's unsourced as of now:

'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives'...

Update: 9/29 at 1pm MT:

The White House has denied Karl Rove was behind the leak.

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New reaction to the announcement of a Justice Department probe of the intelligence leak surrounding Joseph Wilson's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame:

Retired Gen. Wesley Clark, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, said a Justice Department probe would be inadequate. "This is too much for (Attorney General) John Ashcroft," he said. "It strikes right at the heart of our ability to gather intelligence."

Contacted by phone, Wilson said Sunday he thinks it's safe to assume that the CIA would not refer the matter to the Justice Department unless it thought a crime might have been committed. He said if White House officials were to blame, their motives were easy to decipher.

"It's pretty clear to me that, knowing that they could not shut me up because I had already told my story, the purpose for doing this was to intimidate others and keep others from stepping forward," Wilson said.

Back in July, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) called upon FBI Director Mueller to investigate the source of the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. The press release on his Senate website says:

News reports suggest that Administration could have leaked the identity of a CIA agent to discredit a critic of the President and intimidate others from speaking out

US Senator Charles Schumer today asked FBI Director Robert Mueller to open an investigation into reports that two senior members of the Bush Administration illegally disclosed the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative. According to Section 421a of the Intelligence Identities and Protection Act, the unauthorized identification of a CIA operative is a criminal act punishable by up to ten years in federal prison.

"This is one of the most reckless and nasty things I’ve seen in all my years of government," Schumer said. "Leaking the name of a CIA agent is tantamount to putting a gun to that agent’s head. It compromises her safety and the safety of her loved ones, not to mention those in her network and other operatives she may have dealt with. On top of that, the officials who have done it may have also seriously jeopardized the national security of this nation."

Here is the text of the letter Schumer sent to Mueller. Does anyone know what, if anything, Mueller or the FBI did in response? We suspect the answer is "nothing," but we'll be pleased to learn we are wrong.

Six telephone calls to journalists, all of whom must have told their editors, and possibly colleagues....this should hardly be the mystery of the year. We won't be surprised if by tomorrow morning, some enterprising journalist has uncovered it.

The Washington Post reports that a "senior administration official" has confirmed that "two top White House officials" called at least six journalists and diclosed the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

The operative's identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

...."Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

This is major because federal law prohibits the intentional disclosure of an operative's identity.

So, who could the two top officials be? Daily Kos thinks one is Ari Fleischer and the other may be Karl Rove. We haven't a clue, so stay tuned.

Update: Here is the law at issue: The Intelligence Protection Act (50 U.S.C. Sec. 421). Different sections of the act provide for penalties ranging from three years to ten years.

Update: Atrios on the import of the budding scandal:

MSNBC and NBC report that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to open an investigation of the White House regarding leaks in the Valerie Plame case:

The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman's husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush's since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.

Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo and Mark Kleiman has been covering the story since the beginning. Steve Perry's Bush Wars has a lot of related links.

Received by e-mail from The Nation:

Yesterday, Senator Charles Schumer called for an FBI investigation into who illegally leaked information to columnist Bob Novak that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent. Newsday and the Palm Beach Post ran their own stories on the matter, the Washington Post buried it in a piece on the former CIA director, and a few small newspapers carried the AP story.

If Novak's reporting is correct, this is a blatant attempt to smear a Gerald Ford appointed, career diplomat and his wife. It's also a federal crime. Joseph Wilson spoke truth to power in his New York Times op-ed which rekindled interest in the Niger/uranium lies, and now he is being punished by the White House in an act to intimidate other people from speaking up.

Please do not let this abuse of power go under-reported. For background.....

• David Corn's original report which pointed out the illegal activity

• Corn's follow-up

• Schumer's press release calling for an investigation

• Wilson's New York Times op-ed

This is turning into a big story. Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the man who debunked the Iraq-Niger Uranium connection, has been outed as a CIA operative, jeopardizing all of the projects she worked on during her career. Wilson was on the Today show today, blaming Administration officials for the leak. The Bush Wars has all the details and pertinent links.

Here's the Bob Novak column in the Chicago Sun Times that started it all. [link updated 9/30]

Update: This is our first post on Valerie Plame. For all of TalkLeft's Valerie Plame coverage, go here.