Waxman Asks Mukasey To Help Secure CIA Leak Records

House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) urged Attorney General Michael Mukasey Monday to help him secure interview records from the CIA leak investigation.

Waxman complained in a letter to the attorney general that the White House has blocked Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald from giving his committee documents and interview records from his investigation into the leak of former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's name to the media.

Waxman asked Mukasey to intervene with the White House in order to help him secure those documents, arguing that former Attorney General Janet Reno gave the government reform panel FBI reports during its lengthy investigation of Bill Clinton during the latter's presidency.

"I ask that you personally look into this matter and authorize the production of the documents to the committee without further delay." Waxman wrote Mukasey.

The oversight chairman told the attorney general that Fitzgerald has agreed to provide information based on the limited request Waxman made over the summer for documents regarding the investigation.

Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan has suggested that he inadvertently lied to the media about the leak investigation because top presidential counselors, including Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush himself, were conspiring to control the story and keep facts from their spokesman.

The oversight committee has been investigating the leak for much of this year.