Karl Rove Dodges A Bullet

(CBS/AP)  Top White House aide Karl Rove has been told by prosecutors he won't be charged with any crimes in the investigation into leak of a CIA officer's identity, his lawyer said Tuesday, lifting a heavy burden from one of President Bush's most trusted advisers.

Attorney Robert Luskin said that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald informed him of the decision on Monday, ending months of speculation about the fate of Rove, the architect of Mr. Bush's 2004 re-election now focused on stopping Democrats from capturing the House or Senate in this November's elections.

Fitzgerald has already secured a criminal indictment against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

The announcement cheered Republicans and a White House beleaguered by war and low approval ratings.

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, said the White House official "is elated" and said that "we're done."

CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante reports that the announcement lifts a huge burden — not only from Rove, but also from the President and the entire White House political operation.

Fitzgerald met with chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan before he notified Rove. Hogan has been overseeing the grand juries in the CIA leak case. Messages left with Fitzgerald's spokesman seeking comment were not immediately returned.

The prosecutor called Luskin late Monday afternoon to tell him he would not be seeking charges against Rove. Rove had just gotten on a plane, so his lawyer and spokesman did not reach him until he had landed in Manchester, N.H., where he was to give a speech to state GOP officials.

"In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation," Luskin said. "We believe the special counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct."

Fitzgerald has been investigating whether senior administration officials intentionally leaked the identity of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame in retribution because her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sharply criticized the administration's pursuit of war in Iraq.

"Prosecutors have ethical obligations not to indict someone when they don't think they can win at trial and I suspect that may be what happened here," CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen says. "For whatever reason Fitzgerald the prosecutor didn't believe he could take a case against Rove to a jury and win it."

Rove testified five times before a grand jury, most recently in April. He has admitted he spoke with columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper in the days before they published Plame's name in July 2003.

Rove, however, did not originally tell prosecutors about his conversation with Cooper, only revealing it after his lawyer discovered a White House e-mail that referred to it.

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