Cheney aide charged in leak case, resigns

~ A second key figure in the investigation, presidential strategist Karl Rove, was not charged.

WASHINGTON -- The CIA leak case underscores a basic truth about Washington scandals: It's not who did what to whom, it's the cover-up.

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, resigned Friday after a grand jury indicted him on charges of obstructing its investigation and lying about a weeks-long effort in 2003 to learn a CIA officer's secret identity and divulge it to reporters.

Libby wasn't charged for the original leak that prompted the two-year probe, an inquiry that raised questions about President Bush's reasons for invading Iraq and whether retribution drove his most senior officials.

But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald left little doubt that he believed Cheney's top aide learned Valerie Plame's classified identity from the CIA, State Department and his own boss and then revealed it to reporters. Plame, the CIA operative, is married to Joseph Wilson, an administration critic.

"It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security," the prosecutor said. "Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter."

A second key figure in the two-year CIA leak investigation, presidential strategist Karl Rove, was spared from criminal charges for the time being.

Though Cheney was one of the officials who told Libby about Plame's secret work for the CIA before it was leaked to reporters, Fitzgerald said he wasn't alleging any wrongdoing by the vice president.

"I'm not making allegations about anyone not charged in the indictment," he said.

Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, promised to vigorously challenge the charges.

The 22-page indictment was the latest blow in one of the darkest weeks of the Bush presidency, which also saw the 2,000th U.S. military death in Iraq and the withdrawal of Harriet Miers as Bush's Supreme Court nominee.

Bush, whose approval rating is near the lowest point of his presidency, praised Libby's years of government service but acknowledged the "ongoing legal proceedings are serious."

"In our system, each individual is presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial," the president said.

Fitzgerald's investigation is nearing an end, and the grand jury he used for the past two years expired Friday. But he said, "It's not over," declining to address Rove's fate. The prosecutor is still weighing whether to charge Bush's closest adviser with false statements, lawyers said.

Friday's charges stemmed from a two-year investigation into whether Rove, Libby or any other administration officials knowingly revealed Plame's identity in summer 2003 to punish her husband, Joseph Wilson, for his criticism of the Bush administration's use of prewar Iraq intelligence.

In the end, like so many other Washington scandals, prosecutors zeroed in on an alleged cover-up.

Libby, 55, was charged with five felonies alleging obstruction of justice, perjury to a grand jury and making false statements to FBI agents. He could face a maximum of 30 years in prison and $1.25 million fines if convicted.

Fitzgerald suggested that proving Libby lied to the grand jury would be an easier case to make than showing he intentionally revealed a secret officer's cover. Specifically, the prosecutors alleged Libby concocted a false story that he got Plame's name from reporters and passed it on to others when in fact he got the information from classified sources.

"Mr. Libby's story that he was at the tail end of a chain of phone calls, passing on from one reporter what he heard from another, was not true. It was false," the prosecutor said. "And he lied about it afterward, under oath, repeatedly."

Cheney said he accepted the resignation with regret because Libby is "one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known."

The closest to bright news Friday for the White House was the word from Rove's attorney that the presidential confidant was not being indicted along with Libby.

Fitzgerald has been looking for weeks at whether Rove gave false testimony during his four grand jury appearances. Rove's lawyer waged a furious effort in recent weeks to convince the prosecutor that any misstatements were unintentional or were corrected.

"The special counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he has made no decision about whether or not to bring charges," attorney Robert Luskin said. "We are confident that when the special counsel finishes his work, he will conclude that Mr. Rove has done nothing wrong."

Libby's indictment paves the way for a trial that could renew the focus on the administration's faulty rationale for going to war against Iraq -- the erroneous assertion that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Libby is considered Cheney's alter ego, a chief architect of the war with Iraq. A trial would give the public a rare glimpse into Cheney's influential role in the West Wing and his behind-the-scenes lobbying for the war. The vice president, who prizes secrecy, could be called as a witness.

Democrats suggested the indictment was just the tip of the iceberg. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the case was "about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president."

Hoping to contain the damage, some Republicans distanced themselves from Libby. Others said the legal system should run its course.

"It's time to stop the leaks and spin and turn Washington into one big recovery meeting where people say what they mean and mean what they say," said Rep. Jim Ramstad, R-Minn.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said through a spokesman that the Senate won't investigate the CIA leak.

Bush ordered U.S. troops to war in March 2003, saying Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program posed a grave and immediate threat to the United States. When no such weapons were found, the administration came under increased criticism for using faulty intelligence to make its case for war.

It was during the height of that debate that Plame's identity as a covert CIA officer was leaked in July 2003.

Her name was published just a little over a week after her husband wrote a newspaper opinion piece suggesting the administration had twisted prewar intelligence, and describing how he had gone to Africa in 2002 to check on claims Saddam had tried to buy nuclear materials.

Wilson said he couldn't validate the uranium claim but Bush later used it anyway.

Wilson alleged the leak of his wife's name was retaliation for his criticism, and he said Friday that "when an indictment is delivered to the front door of the White House, the office of the president is defiled."

The indictment alleges Libby began digging for details about Wilson well before the former ambassador went public July 6, 2003.

Libby made his first inquiries about Wilson's travel to Niger in late May 2003, and by June 11 Libby was informed by a CIA official that Wilson's wife worked for the agency and might have sent him on the trip. Libby also heard it from Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, the indictment said.

On June 12, 2003, the indictment alleged, Libby heard directly from Cheney that Plame worked for the spy agency.

A short time later, the indictment said, Libby began spreading information to reporters, starting with The New York Times' Judith Miller on June 23.

The indictment said a substantial number of people in the White House knew about Plame's CIA status before the publication of Robert Novak's column on July 14, 2003 -- the first public mention -- including former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who was mentioned by title but not name in the legal filing.

Among the false statements Libby is accused of making is that he learned of Plame's identity from NBC reporter Tim Russert. In fact, Fitzgerald said, Libby knew it long before that conversation and Russert didn't even discuss it with him.

One of the dramatic parts of the two-year investigation was Fitzgerald's successful attempt -- which reached all the way to the Supreme Court -- to force several reporters to reveal their confidential sources. Miller, in fact, spent more than 80 days in jail before agreeing to testify.

Fitzgerald said Friday he wasn't spoiling for a "First Amendment showdown" with the news media but believed reporters were essential witnesses in this case.

"I do not think that a reporter should be subpoenaed anything close to routinely. It should be an extraordinary case," he said. "But if you're dealing with a crime, and what's different here is the transaction is between a person and a reporter, they're the eyewitness to the crime."