Comey's letter says:
At your request, I am writing to clarify that my December 30, 2003, delegation to you of "all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity" is plenary and includes the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation...<more>http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.htmlJust five weeks earlier, Fitzgerald was given the case by Comey (that letter is also at Fitzgerald's site), but without explicitly stating Fitzgerald could investigate and prosecute violations of
any federal laws relating to the outing of Plame. It seems to me that during that five weeks Fitzgerald had already discovered that the criminal conspiracy might be much larger and deeper than just the vengeful outing of Plame. He thus asked Comey to clarify that he does indeed have the authority to conduct a wide-ranging investigation (rather than just one narrowly focused on the Plame outing).
In other words, while the mainstream media has only in recent days reported that Fitzgerald may be widening his probe beyond the outing of Plame, Fitzgerald may have actually have done so almost two years ago. I wonder what he's found out.