For two full years, no one’s been able to figure out how, exactly, Bob Novak has kept himself out of trouble in the Plame scandal. He’s the one who published Plame’s name, he’s the one who contacted the CIA after getting the leak, and he’s the one who knows all of the relevant details about how this fiasco unfolded in the first place.
And yet, we’ve heard literally nothing about his role in the investigation. Until now.
Murray Waas, who has done excellent work covering this scandal since the beginning, has a terrific report which explains that Novak, unlike Matt Cooper and Judith Miller, has cooperated with prosecutors.
Columnist Robert Novak provided detailed accounts to federal prosecutors of his conversations with Bush administration officials who were sources for his controversial July 11, 2003 column identifying Valerie Plame as a clandestine CIA officer, according to attorneys familiar with the matter.
Apparently, Novak claimed that his White House sources didn’t identity Plame as an undercover CIA agent, and that his use of the word “operative” in his column was his formulation and not theirs. This is all terribly silly, as Josh Marshall has explained repeatedly by reviewing Novak’s use of “operative” in the past.
Nevertheless, Waas’ source for information on Novak’s testimony also mentioned another interesting tidbit.
White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and at least two other Bush administration officials have told federal investigators that they had spoken to reporters about Plame, but that they did not know at the time that she was a covert operative with the CIA, the same sources told me.
Wait, Rove and two others? Novak’s original column said there were two White House sources, and in light of recent revelations, everyone safely assumes one of them was Rove. But this is an interesting twist, suggesting that the drive to smear Joseph Wilson and make his wife “fair game” was more widespread than previously known.
So, who else was doing the leaking, in addition to Rove? Stay tuned.