The Washington Post finally revisits the Plame scandal today, with its first substantive article on the subject since July 27, ostensibly addressing the question of who, exactly, sent Joseph Wilson to Niger in 2002.
But before you turn away saying, “It doesn’t matter who sent Wilson to Niger, they blew the identity of an undercover agent to cover up their lies,” the piece included some oblique hints about a key detail.
Senior Bush administration officials told a different story about the trip’s origin in the days between July 8 and July 12, 2003. They said that Wilson’s wife was working at the CIA dealing with weapons of mass destruction and that she suggested him for the Niger trip, according to three reporters.
The Bush officials passing on this version were apparently attempting to undercut the credibility of Wilson, who on Sunday, July 6, 2003, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” and in The Washington Post and the New York Times that he had checked out the allegation in Niger and found it to be wrong. He criticized President Bush for misrepresenting the facts in his January 2003 State of the Union address when he said Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa.
Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper has written that he was told by Karl Rove on July 11 “don’t get too far out on Wilson” because information was going to be declassified soon that would cast doubt on Wilson’s mission and findings. Cooper also wrote that Rove told him that Wilson’s wife worked for the agency on weapons of mass destruction and that “she was responsible for sending Wilson.”
OK, so what did Rove use as a source? In other words, where did Rove learn this information about soon-to-be declassified intelligence before he started leaking it? The Post’s Walter Pincus, who was contacted by WH leakers in 2003, points to two possibilities: The June 2003 memo by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research and a statement of the views of Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). Because the Roberts statement appears to have come after the leaking, the Post article seems to hint strongly that the officials who helped out Plame learned about her identity, not from reporters, but from this State Department document, as most of us have believed all along.
And why is that important? Because the memo was classified and labeled “secret.” If Rove, Libby, and/or anyone else saw it, they can’t very well claim now that they “unintentionally” leaked classified information.
Drip, drip, drip…