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Cheney adviser resigns after indictment
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-29 11:40
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff resigned Friday
after he was indicted on charges of obstructing a grand jury investigation and
lying about his actions that blew the CIA cover of an Iraq war critic's wife.
Vice President Dick
Cheney's chief of staff Lewis 'Scooter' Libby walks out of the West Wing
towards the Eisenhower Executive Office Building earlier Friday before
resigning from his position at the White House in Washington, D.C.,
October 28, 2005. [Reuters] | I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby became the first high-ranking White House
official in decades to be criminally charged while still in office. A second key
figure in the two-year CIA leak investigation, presidential strategist Karl
Rove, was spared from criminal charges for the time being.
Libby wasn't indicted specifically for the leak, but special prosecutor
Patrick Fitzgerald left little doubt that he believed Cheney's top aide learned
Valerie 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."
Though Cheney was one of the top government officials to tell Libby about
Plame's secret work for the CIA before it was leaked to reporters, Fitzgerald
said there was nothing wrong with that contact. "We make no allegation that the
vice president committed any criminal act," he said.
Libby promised to challenge the charges vigorously and said he was "confident
that at the end of this process, I will be completely and totally exonerated."
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 Bush's Supreme Court nominee.
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."
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