Bob Woodward, once a muckraker and now largely a stenographer to power, has become the person a network news show turns to when they want to know what the administration thinks about something but can’t get Dan Bartlett. In that light it makes sense that he’d turn up in the Plame story somewhere, but until now that hasn’t happened.
As it turns out, that’s because Woodward hid what he knows from us and from prosecutors and, oddly enough, from his editors:
Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed.
In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.
I bet it felt good to get that off his chest. Why now?
Fitzgerald interviewed Woodward about the previously undisclosed conversation after the official alerted the prosecutor to it on Nov. 3 — one week after Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was indicted in the investigation.
Even stranger, the article sets up an odd situation where one or the other of two highly-regarded journalists is either lying or lacking in fundamental journalistic skills:
Woodward’s statement said he testified: “I told Walter Pincus, a reporter at The Post, without naming my source, that I understood Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA as a WMD analyst.”
…
“Are you kidding?” Pincus said. “I certainly would have remembered that.”
The experienced kremlinologists can parse whether this helps Libby, or expands the potential conspiracy, or who knows what. Kevin Drum is stumped, Armando at Kos says that this buries Woodward’s credibility, while Tom Maguire claims that this helps Libby’s defense. They may both be right.
Incidentally, in the same post Maguire recommends that Fitzgerald interview the two folks who claim that Joe Wilson told them about Plame. I think that’s a great idea. Testifying under oath is a big step up from testifying to a reporter.
**Update***
Good commentary from Carpetbagger, of course.
Gray
“Testifying under oath is a big step up from testifying to a reporter.”
Hehehe. And lying under oath is a big step up towards an indictment for perjury from lying to a reporter. :D
anonymous
Okay, there was no WMD because of Rice’s degree, which every operations officer had to go to school to study leaked by Plame when the operations officers got jealous ‘Vanity Fair The Movie’ came out and that is why Plame picked the magazine to come out(as a group-see MI5/ Directorships) and explain she was a CIA operations officer, paramilitarily trained; getting a needed role up of Spanish operations officers in Iraq, etc. because all of the assualts on the US government and memos mentioning her(and other US governmet officials like Bush) could not do this, even the memos leaks after she was revealing herself.
Yes, its been said Woodward is actually CIA.
ppGaz
A lot of people on the left are going to owe us an apology when it becomes clear that Fitzgerald is simply wrapping up book deals. This “prosecution” isn’t going anywhere. A couple from Indiana recently told an Evansville morning tv show that they heard about Valerie Plame during a White House tour in 2003 while visiting the capital with a church group. I mean, was there anyone in Washington who didn’y know who she was?
Could we stick to serious topics, please?
Anderson
Best guess: Woodward is lying to protect one of his better sources. That’s why he’s emphasizing that the guy didn’t think that Plame’s ID was classfied—he wants to ensure that the guy doesn’t get prosecuted under the IIPA.
Since the only witness to the lie is the guy he’s trying to protect, this may well work. Though the b.s. about Pincus doesn’t help Woodward’s credibility, does it?
Rob
Could someone please explain to me what anonymous is saying?
SomeCallMeTim
In a hypothetical credibility poll, Pincus vs. Woodward, I bet Pincus wins, even among Bush supporters. As you said, Woodward has become a stenographer.
neil
Finally, someone is talking about the good news in the web of lies woven between high-ranking government officials and the supposedly independent press.
Mr Furious
Is that DougJ pretending to be ppGaz?
I don’t see how it helps Libby on perjury and obstruction charges. And alll this means to me is that those in the White House who revealed this info, did it with enough frequency as to muddy the waters. Throwing more “whos” in the “Who said what and when” doesn’t erase the fact that her cover was blown. It just means it was blown wider and more callously.
srv
We could, but then we’d have to shoot you.
As NSA, Tenet or someone on the NSC staff could have easily told Condi about Plame very early on. Something tells me Woodword would want to protect them, but couldn’t care less about VP, Libby, Rove and the rest.
Lines
I see this throwing the whole Libby indictment into a tailspin of confusion and ultimately getting everyone off scott-free without any accountability. These guys know how to manipulate a system. We all thought Libby was being thrown to the wolves, when in fact he’s just the first misfire in a long list of confusing misfires.
srv
Oh, and since Powell would have known Joe Wilson from Bush 41, I can imagine him volunteering it to NSA Condi. Wilson and Scowcroft are apparently associates from the old days.
I wouldn’t be surprised that Woodword has ties with Powell dating back to Iran Contra (in which Powell was involved).
Alexandra
This doesn’t seem to me to exonerate anyone. Instead, it makes Bob Woodward look at very least like a world-class hypocrite, or perhaps a criminal. Certainly it makes the White House appear even more corrupt than it did already, which is saying something.
Cyrus
As I understand it but of course IANAL, this doesn’t affect Libby’s case at all, and I don’t think it would even affect the mysterious hypothetical leaker’s case. I’ve been told (great sourcing, I know…) that leaking classified information is a crime whether or not that specific bit of information has been leaked before or not. If Fitzgerald can ever pin anything on him, it would stand up in court just as well (if not better, in fact) to know that someone from the same office had previously leaked the info.
Politically, however, it could be very bad. An administration official indicted, speculation about the guy called the President’s brain being forced to quit (hey, it was a part-time job anyway!), and a criminal investigation touching on the motivations for war… all over something that might turn out to be common knowledge among the Washington élite?
ppGaz
It’s me, Bob Woodward.
CaseyL
I think the idea is to muddy the waters. The original charage was that a CIA agent had been outed. The original date-of-disclosure was pegged to the day Novak’s column came out.
If some high-ranking WH Official- Libby, Rove, Cheney, Powell, whoever – was running around telling anyone who would listen that Plame was a CIA agent, itp opens up more, not fewer, cans of worms.
Above all, it begs the question why blab about Plame all over WH social circles. Joe Wilson was still trying to discuss the findings of his trip with; he had not yet (SFAIK) decided he had to go public with his misgivings.
Absent the urge to smear Wilson, why leak Plame’s name?? Why would she come up in conversation at all?
No, sorry; this latest version of “Everyone Knows Valerie” does’t wash becauase it doesn’t manke any damned sense.
scs
I saw on Wilson on TV talk about how his wife and Rove’s wife went to the same church and were friendly. I would be curious to know what Plame told Rove’s wife about where she worked and what she told other Washington types about where she worked. I would think that while she may be reluctant to tell her neighbors (the civilians) about her C.I.A job, I’m wondering if she felt more comfortable telling people whom she knew were insider Washington types about her job. As it is a small town, I find it possible that a lot of people did know that she worked at the C.I.A., although few would have known she had been/was covert.
don surber
“Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago”
Hey, I knew about it, too, more than two years ago. Read it in the Novak column …
Steve S
That’s interesting, considering Woodward was one of the talking heads on TV who was defending Scooter Libby.
I gotta be honest here… My opinion of Woodward is pretty low. He along with Barbara Walters are responsible for the decline in modern journalism. So many people thought he was this awesome reporter, and then when we find out who Deep Throat was, we realize he was just a hack in the right time at the right place.
But the problem is that he inspired a whole slew of journalists to also become hacks, and dig for dirt and get the exclusive.
BAH!
May he and Barbara rot in hell.
ppGaz
Well, it makes sense if you make sense of it.
The game at WHIG appears to have been to start a whispering campaign about the Wilsons, and to get enough people in the mix and enough different versions of stories floating around that nobody could be really held accountable.
It’s perfectly legitimate. The Mafia does it all the time. Why aren’t we hearing about the good things accomplished by WHIG?
Stormy70
It’s looking alot like Fitzmas, everywhere you go. Oh, I guess Fitzmas is really looking like a two year waste of time.
scs
By the way, the source for Woodward, by inference, is a former senior (non-partisan?) Administration official. My guess on Richard Clarke as the alpha source is still in the running. Then Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer. I wish they would just reveal Mr. X already.
stephen
Anderson:
Problem with that is Woodward knows this game inside and out. Do you believe Woodward would have dropped Pincus’ name really thinking that Pincus would corroborate his story? I don’t think so. Pincus is firmly on the anti-White House, pro-Wilson side and Woodward knows it. Dropping Pincus’ name even if true would be a dumb move because the Woodward revelation would damage the credibility of the investigation, and Pincus wouldn’t let that happen, at least not until he was under oath. And then only maybe.
stephen
Let me add to that. Dropping Pincus’ name would be dumb even if true, unless it gets Pincus a subpoena to testify, but as I said, then only maybe. Would Pincus lie to a grand jury about this? This may also highlight just how much Plame’s undercover status was b.s. Her name was prolly thrown around so much that nobody really remembers who or where they heard it first, and tracing the outing back to its original source is probably just an exercise in futility. What a waste of time and money.
Sojourner
Shouldn’t it be obvious to everyone that these assholes can’t be trusted with national secrets?