Bush's aide not to be charged in CIA leak case

White House senior adviser Karl Rove had been assured by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald that he would not be charged in the CIA leak case, CNN Television reported on Tuesday.

"We believe that the special counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct," Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer, was quoted as saying.

He also said Rove would not make any further public statements on the case.

Rove, the top political advisor to President George W Bush, was told that he was not a target of the investigation of the leak case, which focused on how covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name had been disclosed to the media, said Luskin, on April 26, after Rove's latest appearance before a grand jury.

Plame's CIA identity was publicly disclosed soon after her husband, former U.S. diplomat Joe Wilson, accused the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction threat in an article published in The New York Times in July 2003.

In the article, Wilson said he had been sent by the CIA to Africa in 2003 to check out intelligence that Iraq had an agreement to acquire uranium yellowcake from Niger. He found out that there was no such arrangement.

He also indicated that Bush's claim on Iraq's uranium deal in his State of the Union address in January 2003 was based on fake intelligence.

Since Plame's CIA identity was leaked, Wilson has been alleging that the Bush administration leaked his wife's identity in retaliation for his article.

Two and a half years ago, the U.S. Justice Department assigned Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to launch an investigation into the leak case, leading to the questioning of a number of White House aides and reporters.

Last October, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was charged with lying to investigators and a grand jury about his knowledge of Plame.

Rove has made five appearances before a grand jury for explaining his connection to the case.

His exemption from being charged leaves Libby the only one standing trial in the case.

Source: Xinhua