Attorney General John Ashcroft has removed himself from the investigation into who within the Bush administration exposed the name of a CIA agent. The agent’s name was Valerie Plame. She was the wife of former US diplomat Joseph Wilson. The leak came shortly after Wilson charged that President Bush had mislead the country by stating Iraq attempted to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson had personally traveled to Niger in 2002 on a CIA-sponsored trip and found there was no Iraq-Niger connection.

The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, would now lead the investigation.

The Wall Street Journal reports Ashcroft’s decision to step aside casts the spotlight on Bush’s top advisor Karl Rove who has already been questioned by the FBI. For over a decade Rove served as an advisor to Ashcroft. Between 1984 and 1994 Ashcroft paid Karl Rove’s company nearly three quarters of a million dollars for offering direct mail services to Ashcroft’s campaigns in Missouri for governor and senator. Earlier this year Wilson said he hopes to see Rove “frogmarched” out of the White House for his role in the leak.

We talked to Ambassador Joseph Wilson yesterday shortly after the announcement to hear his reaction.

• Ambassador Joseph Wilson, former U.S. diplomat who traveled to Niger in 2002 and determined reports that the African nation sold uranium to Iraq were untrue. Shortly after Wilson publicly criticized President Bush for playing up the Iraq-Niger connection, Wilson became the target of a White House attack.