Reporter: Not Sure Libby Perjurer

Time's Cooper On His Conversation With Now Ex-Cheney Top Aide

(CBS)  A federal indictment alleges that Vice President Cheney's now-former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby committed perjury during, among other things, a conversation he had with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper.

Cooper says he's not so sure.

Libby resigned Friday after he was indicted by a grand jury, accused of obstructing its two-year investigation of the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame and lying about an effort to blow Plame's cover.

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

Fitzgerald wouldn't comment about the possible involvement in the case 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 Cooper in which he identified Plame. Rove's legal team hopes to convince the prosecutor it was an honest omission.

Cooper writes his personal experience in the current issue of Time.

He told The Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Monday that a conversation he had with Libby "was pretty short. I called him on July 12, 2003, just to set the scene a little bit.

"Ambassador Joseph Wilson had just written his now-famous op-ed piece criticizing the Bush administration, saying there had not been an effort by Saddam Hussein to buy uranium in Africa. And the administration was pushing back against Wilson.

"I was one of a number of Time reporters working on a big cover story that week, and I was trying to get in touch with Mr. Libby over at the White House. And we finally hooked up on July 12th (2003). And we talked a bit on the record. We talked a bit off the record.

"And I had heard the day before from the president's political advisor, Karl Rove, that Wilson's wife might have played a role in dispatching him to Africa, and that she worked at the CIA.

"So I asked Libby if he had heard anything like that. And he said, 'Yeah, I've heard that, too.'"