By: E&P Staff and AP Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has informed Karl Rove?s lawyer that he will not be prosecuted in the Plame/CIA leak case, according to reports.
Attorney Robert Luskin said Fitzgerald informed him of the decision on Monday. President Bush?s closest adviser testified five times before a grand jury.
?On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove,? Luskin said in a statement.
Luskin added that he would not address other legal questions surrounding Fitzgerald?s decision. But he stated: "In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation. We believe that the Special Counsel?s decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove?s conduct."
He did not release any written notification from Fitzgerald and did not say if his client had struck some sort of deal with the prosecutor.
Fitzgerald's case against I. Lewis Libby, meanwhile, is moving toward trial, as the two sides work through pretrial issues such as access to classified documents.
Libby, 55, was charged last October with lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about how he learned and when he subsequently told three reporters about Plame. He faces five counts of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice.
With Rove's fate now decided, other unfinished business in Fitzgerald's probe focuses on the source who provided Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward information about Plame.
Woodward says his source, who he has not publicly identified, provided the information about Wilson's wife, several weeks before Novak learned of Plame's identity. The Post reporter, who never wrote a story, was interviewed by Fitzgerald late last year.
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