Leak Prosecutor: 'It's Not Over'

Libby Indicted In CIA Leak Case; Rove Still Under Investigation

(CBS/AP)  Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said the CIA leak investigation is substantially complete, though "it's not over."

Fitzgerald spoke to reporters at the Justice Department, following the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, after a two-year investigation. Fitzgerald wouldn't comment about the possible involvement of President Bush's closest adviser, Karl Rove, who remains under investigation.

CBS News chief White House correspondent John Roberts reports that Fitzgerald wants to know why Rove didn't tell the grand jury about a telephone conversation with Time reporter Matt Cooper in which he identified CIA agent, Valerie Plame. Rove's legal team hopes to convince the prosecutor it was an honest omission.

Libby resigned Friday after he was indicted by a grand jury, accused of obstructing its investigation and lying about an effort to blow the cover of Plame.

CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen reports the indictment "makes it very likely, almost a certainty" that Cheney will have to testify in the criminal trial against Libby.

If so, Cheney, who prizes secrecy, will be called upon as a witness to explain why the administration launched a campaign against Plame's husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson, a critic of the war who questioned Mr. Bush's assertion that Iraq had sought nuclear material.

Wilson, who spoke to 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley in his first interview since Libby's indictment, said that his wife has been threatened.

"There have been specific threats [against Plame]. Beyond that, I just can’t go," Wilson tells Bradley.

Libby became the first high-ranking White House official in decades to be criminally charged while still in office. Rove was spared from criminal charges for the time being.

Cohen said that for Rove, the president's right-hand man, it was a day of relief tempered by angst.

"Fitzgerald's investigation into the disclosure of the identity of a CIA agent is not over, and Rove and his lawyer know it, and now both have to contend with the idea that Libby, who presumably talked with Rove regularly about things large and small, now has great incentive to share whatever he hasn't already shared with Fitzgerald and Company," Cohen said.

Libby wasn't indicted specifically for the leak, but Fitzgerald left little doubt that he believed Cheney's top aide learned Plame's classified identity from the CIA, State Department and his own boss and then revealed it to reporters.

"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."

CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger reports that for Cheney, Libby's resignation is a loss, but some say its not a fatal blow.

"My sense is that although he has enormous regard for Scooter Libby and vice versa, that the relationship is not quite as central to his political life as the relationship of the president to Karl Rove," said former congressman Vin Weber.

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

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 embarrassing withdrawal of Harriet Miers as Mr. Bush's Supreme Court nominee.

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Read the Libby Indictment (.pdf) and
the Special Counsel's statement (.pdf).

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Mr. 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.