Lawyer: Rove won't be charged in CIA leak case

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- White House senior adviser Karl Rove has been told by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald that he will not be charged in the CIA leak case, according to Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer.

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

A grand jury has heard testimony from Rove in five appearances, most recently April 26.

After that appearance, Luskin issued a statement saying, "In connection with this appearance, the special counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he is not a target of the investigation."

A Rove spokesman said there would be no statement from Rove on Tuesday concerning the matter.

The White House said President Bush had been informed of the decision and expressed satisfaction.

"We are pleased that the special counsel has concluded his deliberations," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "Karl is, as he has been throughout the process, fully focused on the task at handcrafting and building support for the president's agenda." (Watch how Rove announcement helps the White House -- 2:17)

Asked if the CIA leak investigation is still continuing, Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, told The Associated Press there would be no comment.

At issue in the case has been how covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was disclosed to the media.

No one has been charged with actually leaking Plame's name.

On Monday, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former aide to Vice President Cheney, appeared in court to update a judge on preparations for his trial in the case.

Libby, who resigned in October as chief of staff to Cheney, is fighting charges he lied to investigators and a grand jury about his knowledge of Plame.

Plame's husband, U.S. diplomat Joe Wilson, had openly challenged part of the Bush administration's prewar rationale for waging war on Iraq. But Libby's defense counsel has asserted there was no sinister effort to punish the Wilsons by revealing the identity of his wife to several reporters.

Tuesday's announcement cheered Republicans and disappointed Democrats, according to Associated Press reports.

"The fact is this, I thought it was wrong when you had people like Howard Dean and (Sen.) Harry Reid presuming that he was guilty," Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman said on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends."

"He doesn't belong in the White House. If the president valued America more than he valued his connection to Karl Rove, Karl Rove would have been fired a long time ago," Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, said Tuesday on NBC's "Today" show. "So I think this is probably good news for the White House, but it's not very good news for America."

Plame's CIA status was publicly disclosed eight days after her husband, Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.

In 2002, the CIA dispatched Wilson to Africa to check out intelligence that Iraq had an agreement to acquire uranium yellowcake from Niger, and Wilson had concluded that there was no such arrangement.

Wilson alleges that the Bush administration leaked his wife's identity as a CIA employee in retaliation for his July 2003 op-ed in The New York Times disputing the claim that Iraq sought uranium in Niger.

Bush had cited the uranium claim in his 2003 State of the Union address as the invasion of Iraq loomed.

Fitzgerald was looking into why Rove initially did not disclose a conversation with Time magazine's Matt Cooper that included a discussion of the CIA job held by Plame.

Rove said he did not recall the conversation, and his team has noted repeatedly that he is the one who brought the information to the attention of prosecutors.

Copyright 2006 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Associated Press contributed to this report.


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