Former CIA spy Valerie Plame and her husband are to sue US vice president Dick Cheney, top White House aide Karl Rove and others for their role in disclosing her classified CIA employment.
The lawsuit filed yesterday alleges "a conspiracy among current and former high-level officials in the White House" to "discredit, punish and seek revenge" against Ms Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for publicly disputing statements made by Bush justifying the war in Iraq.
Valerie Plame and husband Joseph Wilson
The legal action is the latest twist in a saga over the public exposure of Ms Plame that put President Bush on the defensive over his campaign to justify the war and reached into the highest levels of the White House.
The lawsuit comes at a time when Mr Rove, Mr Bush's top political aide, seeks to keep the US Congress in Republican hands in November elections. Mr Rove learnt last month he would not face criminal charges in the CIA leak investigation.
Ms Plame and Mr Wilson's suit said the couple suffered violations of their constitutional and legal rights, including an invasion of their privacy, and that the disclosure of her name destroyed her CIA career.
The suit said the couple fear for their safety and that of their children because disclosure of Ms Plame's covert identity made the family a potential target for people or groups hostile to the United States or its intelligence officers.
The CIA-leak case flared after Mr Wilson accused the administration of leaking his wife's name to punish him for writing in the New York Timesthat the Bush administration twisted intelligence about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war launched by Washington in 2003.
An investigation led to the indictment of a top Cheney aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, last year on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury. He is the only person charged in the case.
The 23-page lawsuit said the defendants "embarked on an anonymous 'whispering campaign' designed to discredit and injure the plaintiffs and to deter other critics from publicly speaking out."
While no specific monetary amount is requested, the legal action sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages and lawyers' fees and costs.