Top Cheney Aide Indicted Libby Resigns; Rove Spared For Now

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was indicted yesterday on charges of lying to federal investigators and obstructing justice in the 22-month CIA leak investigation. Libby, the first sitting White House aide charged with a crime in recent history, resigned.

Karl Rove, the president's top strategist, narrowly escaped indictment after providing new information during eleventh-hour negotiations with Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald but could still be charged in the case, according to three people familiar with the talks. A source close to Rove said the senior strategist's fate will be known soon.

Libby was one of the most powerful staff members in government and Cheney's closest adviser. Libby faces a possible prison sentence after being charged with two counts of making false statements, two counts of perjury and one count of obstructing justice in the secretive probe that rattled the White House and rekindled the debate over the Iraq war.

Libby issued a statement through his attorney, Joseph Tate, in which he said: "I am confident that at the end of this process I will be completely and totally exonerated." But Fitzgerald's indictment depicts Libby as concocting scenarios that never occurred. In one instance, Libby said he first learned of Valerie Plame's role as a covert CIA operative from NBC's Tim Russert in early July. But Russert and Libby never discussed the operative, according to the indictment. In fact, it says, he learned of her from Cheney, State Department officials and a CIA briefer more than a month earlier.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802306.html