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Published: October 28, 2005 5:00 PM ET WASHINGTON A text of the statement by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald at Friday's news conference on the CIA leak investigation, as transcribed by CQ Transcriptions: * FITZGERALD: Good afternoon. I'm the United States attorney in Chicago, but I'm appearing before you today as the Department of Justice special counsel in the CIA leak investigation. Joining me, to my left, is Jack Eckenrode, the special agent in charge of the FBI office in Chicago, who has led the team of investigators and prosecutors from day one in this investigation. A few hours ago, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia returned a five-count indictment against I Lewis Libby, also known as Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. The grand jury's indictment charges that Mr Libby committed five crimes. The indictment charges one count of obstruction of justice of the federal grand jury, two counts of perjury and two counts of false statements. Before I talk about those charges and what the indictment alleges, I'd like to put the investigation into a little context. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life. The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well-known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. 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 first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003. But Mr Novak was not the first reporter to be told that Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked at the CIA. In fact, Mr Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson. Now, something needs to be borne in mind about a criminal investigation. I recognize that there's been very little information about this criminal investigation, but for a very good reason. It may be frustrating when investigations are conducted in secret. When investigations use grand juries, it's important that the information be closely held. So let me tell you a little bit about how an investigation works. Investigators do not set out to investigate the statute, they set out to gather the facts. It's critical that when an investigation is conducted by prosecutors, agents and a grand jury they learn who, what, when, where and why. And then they decide, based upon accurate facts, whether a crime has been committed, who has committed the crime, whether you can prove the crime and whether the crime should be charged. Agent Eckenrode doesn't send people out when $1 million is missing from a bank and tell them, "Just come back if you find wire fraud." If the agent finds embezzlement, they follow through on that. It was known that a CIA officer's identity was blown, it was known that there was a leak. We needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it. And, given that national security was at stake, it was especially important that we find out accurate facts. One of the obligations of the prosecutors and the grand juries is to keep the information obtained in the investigation secret, not to share it with the public. And, as frustrating as that may be for the public, that is important because, the way our system of justice works, if information is gathered about people and they're not charged with a crime, we don't hold up that information for the public to look at. And that's why we've safeguarded information here to date. But as important as it is for the grand jury to follow the rules and follow the safeguards to make sure information doesn't get out, it's equally important that the witnesses who come before a grand jury, especially the witnesses who come before a grand jury who may be under investigation, tell the complete truth. It's especially important in the national security area. The laws involving disclosure of classified information in some places are very clear, in some places they're not so clear. And grand jurors and prosecutors making decisions about who should be charged, whether anyone should be charged, what should be charged, need to make fine distinctions about what people knew, why they knew it, what they exactly said, why they said it, what they were trying to do, what appreciation they had for the information and whether it was classified at the time. Those fine distinctions are important in determining what to do. That's why it's essential when a witness comes forward and gives their account of how they came across classified information and what they did with it that it be accurate. When it was clear that Valerie Wilson's cover had been blown, investigation began. He's also an assistant to the president and an assistant to the vice president for national security affairs. The focus of the interview was what it that he had known about Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, what he knew about Ms Wilson, what he said to people, why he said it, and how he learned it. And, to be frank, Mr Libby gave the FBI a compelling story. What he told the FBI is that essentially he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter Tim Russert, and during the conversation Mr Russert told him that, "Hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Mr Wilson's wife works at the CIA?" And he told the FBI that he learned that information as if it were new, and it struck him. So he took this information from Mr Russert and later on he passed it on to other reporters, including reporter Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, reporter Judith Miller of The New York Times. And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on on July 12th, 2003, two days before Mr Novak's column, that he passed it on understanding that this was information he had gotten from a reporter, that he didn't even know if it was true. And he told the FBI that when he passed the information on to the reporters he made clear that he did know if this were true. This was something that all the reporters were saying and, in fact, he just didn't know and he wanted to be clear about it. Later, Mr Libby went before the grand jury on two occasions in March of 2004. He said that, in fact, he had learned from the vice president earlier in June 2003 information about Wilson's wife, but he had forgotten it, and that when he learned the information from Mr Russert during this phone call he learned it as if it were new. When he passed the information on to reporters Cooper and Miller late in the week, he passed it on thinking it was just information he received from reporters; that he told reporters that, in fact, he didn't even know if it were true. He was just passing gossip from one reporter to another at the long end of a chain of phone calls. It would be a compelling story that will lead the FBI to go away, if only it were true. In fact, Mr Libby discussed the information about Valerie Wilson at least half a dozen times before this conversation with Mr Russert ever took place, not to mention that when he spoke to Mr Russert, Mr Russert and he never discussed Valerie Wilson or Wilson's wife. The indictment alleges that Mr Libby learned the information about Valerie Wilson at least three times in June of 2003 from government officials. Let me make clear there was nothing wrong with government officials discussing Valerie Wilson or Mr Wilson or his wife and imparting the information to Mr Libby. But in early June, Mr Libby learned about Valerie Wilson and the role she was believed to play in having sent Mr Wilson on a trip overseas from a senior CIA officer on or around June 11th, from an undersecretary of state on or around June 11th, and from the vice president on or about June 12th. It's also clear, as set forth in the indictment, that some time prior to July 8th he also learned it from somebody else work...
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