Cheney Aide Libby Is Indicted

But in his 2003 State of the Union speech, Bush used the allegation as part of an effort to show that Iraq was actively pursuing weapons of mass destruction. Shocked and angered, Wilson set out to challenge the claim, starting with private conversations with reporters and culminating with a column in the New York Times, an on-the-record interview with The Washington Post and an appearance on "Meet the Press" on July 6, 2003. Eight days later, his wife's identity was revealed.

The White House originally said Libby and Rove had nothing to do with leaking Plame's name, but the indictment tells a dramatically different story -- especially involving Libby. The following account is taken from the narrative of Fitzgerald's charges:

On or about May 29, 2003 -- more than one month before Wilson went public -- Libby asked a State Department official identified by government sources as Marc Grossman about the CIA mission to Niger. A little more than a week later, a number of classified CIA documents were faxed to Libby's attention, but they did not mention Wilson by name. Libby and someone else in the vice president's office wrote "Wilson" and "Joe Wilson" on one of them.

Soon afterward, Grossman reported to Libby that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and that some people at State believed she helped arrange the Niger mission. Libby secured similar information from a CIA official around this time. He had two sources -- and was about to get a third at the highest levels of government.

On June 12, concerned about a Post report on the Niger trip, Cheney told Libby that Plame worked at the CIA in the Counterproliferation Division. The indictment does not say whether Libby knew that Plame was a covert operative and that leaking her name would be illegal.

But it describes an aide well aware of the sensitive nature of the material he had assembled. He told one aide that there would be complications if the information was leaked, and said he could not discuss the issue on a "non-secure telephone line." All of these conversations could haunt Libby in the course of the investigation.

The indictment also characterizes Libby as singularly brazen in his willingness to concoct a story when later questioned by the FBI. He told FBI agents and the grand jury that he did not know about Wilson's wife until mid-July, and that he thought he learned about it in conversations from reporters.

Libby appears to be the first person to disclose Plame's name to a reporter -- on June 23, at a breakfast meeting with Times reporter Judith Miller, who spent 85 days in jail for refusing to testify about her conversations with him. Miller, in testimony that damaged Libby, said the two discussed Plame three times. Libby also talked with Time magazine's Matthew Cooper about Wilson's wife.

Libby was allegedly spreading the word about Plame inside the White House, too. He told White House spokesman Ari Fleischer about it over lunch, the indictment says, and mentioned it to other officials aboard Air Force Two.

On at least one occasion, Libby and Rove chatted about Plame, too. Rove -- described as "Official A" in the indictment -- told Libby that columnist Robert D. Novak was planning to write about Wilson's wife. A few days later, the column ran -- setting off the political firestorm that brought down Libby and still threatens Rove.