WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House staffers will be required to attend briefings next week on ethics and the handling of classified information after the indictment last week of a senior administration official in the CIA leak probe, the Washington Post reported on Saturday.
Quoting a memo from President George W. Bush sent to White House aides on Friday, the paper reported that the White House counsel's office will conduct a series of presentations next week for those aides with security clearances. The briefings with provide a refresher on general ethics rules, including the treatment of classified material, the paper wrote.
The mandatory ethics course comes after Vice President Dick Cheney's former aide, Lewis Libby, 55, was indicted last week on five counts of obstructing justice, perjury and lying in the two-year investigation into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
If convicted, Libby, who resigned from his post in the White House, faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
The five-count indictment against Libby maintains that other government officials were aware of, if not involved in, leaking the identity of Plame to the media.
According to the Washington Post, a senior aide said Bush had decided to mandate the ethics course during private meetings last weekend with Chief of Staff Andrew Card and counsel Harriet Miers, whose office will conduct the ethics briefings.
The ethics briefings come amid pressure from congressional Democrats to fire top White House aide Karl Rove, who has been accused of having a role in the CIA leak.
Democrats have called on Bush to fire Rove, and Republican Sen. Trent Lott (news, bio, voting record) of Mississippi has questioned whether Rove should retain his policy-making role at the White House.
Bush refused to comment on Friday on whether Rove would keep his job, saying he wanted to wait until an investigation was completed into his role in the leak.