A Leak, Then a Deluge

On Sept. 26, 2003, the FBI launched an inquiry into who leaked Plame's name and occupation.

'If Only It Were True'

Justice Department lawyers notified then-White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales at about 8 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, that the investigation had begun. Gonzales, now attorney general, has said he alerted Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. at once. But he did not tell anyone else -- or instruct White House employees to preserve all evidence -- until the following morning. According to Gonzales, lawyers at Justice said it would be fine to wait.

John Dion, a veteran counter-espionage prosecutor, ran the initial investigation with a team of FBI agents at his disposal. They soon brought in Rove and other top aides for questioning.

But early signals from the White House suggested the probe might come to nothing. Bush expressed doubts on Oct. 7. "I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official," he said. "Now, this is a large administration, and there's a lot of senior officials."

Three days later, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters he had talked to three officials -- Libby, Rove and Elliot Abrams -- and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."

The following Tuesday, Oct. 14, Libby reached a decision point. The FBI asked whether he had disclosed Plame's job or identity to any reporter, and he said he had not even known those details until July 10 or 11. His source, he asserted, was NBC's Tim Russert. According to the indictment, he said he passed along Russert's information as gossip to Cooper of Time. He told the FBI that he did not discuss Plame with Miller at all when they met on July 8.

Current and former officials said they did not know why Libby made those statements. Perhaps, they said, Libby believed the reporters would never be forced to testify, or that the statements from Bush and McClellan encouraged him to believe the inquiry would reach no result. Whatever his reasons, Libby had committed himself. He would give much the same account to agents again in November, and repeated them twice in sworn testimony before a grand jury.

"It would be a compelling story that will lead the FBI to go away, if only it were true," Fitzgerald said in his Friday news conference. "It is not true, according to the indictment."

Libby's attorney, Joseph Tate, has said Libby testified to the best of his recollection. "We are quite distressed the special counsel has now sought to pursue alleged inconsistencies in Mr. Libby's recollection and those of others and to charge such inconsistencies as false statements," Tate said in a statement Friday.

'Eliot Ness With a Harvard Law Degree'

On the next to last day of 2003, John D. Ashcroft, then attorney general, abruptly recused himself from the case. He had ignored months of complaints from Democrats that his political ties to potential suspects should disqualify him from supervising the investigation. Rove, in particular, was a longtime friend and paid adviser to Ashcroft's campaigns for Missouri governor and the U.S. Senate.

Through the fall and winter, officials said, Ashcroft received periodic briefings on the case. In the last week of December, about a month after Libby's second interview with the FBI, then-Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey had multiple discussions with Ashcroft about whether it was time for a change, Comey has said.

Comey told reporters on Dec. 30 that an "accumulation of facts" in the investigation had brought about Ashcroft's recusal. Details of their conversations have not been made public, and it is not known who initiated them.

"The issue surrounding the attorney general's recusal is not one of actual conflict of interest," Comey said, but "one of appearance."

Juleanna Glover Weiss, a spokesman for Ashcroft's Washington consulting firm, said yesterday that the former attorney general would not discuss the decision.

Republican officials expressed the hope at that time that Ashcroft's recusal would provide political cover for the White House if no indictment resulted. One said the move would "depoliticize" the case on the eve of presidential campaign season.

Ashcroft's departure brought to the probe a man Comey described as "Eliot Ness with a Harvard law degree." Fitzgerald, an old colleague of Comey who had recently become U.S. attorney in Chicago, asked for and received the full delegated powers of the attorney general. A month later, Comey clarified in writing that Fitzgerald could pursue any violation of criminal law associated with the case -- including perjury and obstruction of justice, the heart of the indictment handed up Friday against the vice president's chief of staff.

Indictment and Resignation

After a year-long struggle with journalists, who resisted demands to disclose their sources, Fitzgerald persuaded Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan -- and the appellate judges above him -- that reporters were the only available "eyewitness[es] to the crime." Pincus, Cooper and Russert gave testimony under negotiated limits after receiving the consent of their sources. Miller went to jail for 85 days, then testified after Libby gave her his direct consent, by letter and telephone. Novak has never disclosed whether he spoke to Fitzgerald's grand jury.

The denouement came Friday. Just after noon, six men and 13 women filed silently into Courtroom Four in the E. Barrett Prettyman federal courthouse. They had served on Fitzgerald's grand jury for two years. Now they sat silently before U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson. Calling the courtroom to order, Robinson asked whether the grand jury had something to present. The forewoman, wearing a black cardigan, rose and walked a few steps with a sheaf of papers. She handed them up to the magistrate's clerk. Robinson declared them in order and adjourned.

Charged with five felony counts, Libby resigned from the vice president's office that day.

Fitzgerald, in his news conference, said he could not speculate on whether anyone else would be charged. He said "the substantial bulk of the work of this investigation has concluded," but not all of it.

"I will not end the investigation," he said, "until I can look anyone in the eye and tell them that we have carried out our responsibility."

Staff writers Dan Eggen, Dafna Linzer, Dana Milbank and Christopher Lee, and researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.