Have you been anxiously awaiting some interesting news about the Plame scandal? You’re in luck — over the weekend, Murray Waas helped move the ball forward a bit on the other White House leaker.
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby’s account.
The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame’s identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.
The meeting took place in Washington, D.C., six days before columnist Robert Novak wrote his now-infamous column unmasking Plame as a “CIA operative.”
While this is interesting, I was also struck by the question of Libby’s waiver to reporters about confidentiality. Way back in June 2004, the Washington Post reported that Libby, at Fitzgerald’s request, signed a waiver releasing journalists “from keeping confidential any disclosures about Plame.” Waas’ report, however, suggests that there’s more to it than that.
Sources close to the investigation, and private attorneys representing clients embroiled in the federal probe, said that Libby’s failure to produce a personal waiver may have played a significant role in Miller’s decision not to testify about her conversations with Libby, including the one on July 8, 2003.
Libby signed a more generalized waiver during the early course of the investigation granting journalists the right to testify about their conversations with him if they wished to do so…[b]ut Miller has said she would not consider providing any information to investigators about conversations with Libby or anyone else without a more specific, or personal, waiver. She said she considers general waivers to be inherently coercive. Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, has previously said Miller had not been granted “any kind of a waiver … that she finds persuasive or believes was freely given.”
Libby has never offered to provide such a personalized waiver for Miller, according to three legal sources with first-hand knowledge of the matter.
And why not?
This should be an easy one for the president. Bush has said, “[I]f there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.” Scott McClellan has said no one wants to get to the bottom of this scandal more than the president. Everyone at the White House insists the staff is doing everything possible to assist in the investigation. And yet, “Libby has never offered to provide such a personalized waiver for Miller.”
Seems like we’re seeing a test of the Bush gang’s commitment to full cooperation — and it’s not going well.