I know it’s been several weeks, but remember all the fun we had a month ago with the Joseph Wilson/Valarie Plame scandal?
Let’s take a second to recap. Wilson was sent to Niger last year to investigate claims that Iraq was trying to acquire yellowcake uranium for a nuclear weapons program. Wilson discovered the claim was bogus, but the administration proceeded to repeat the allegation over and over again, including in the State of the Union. Wilson came forward to explain that he had first-hand knowledge of the inaccuracy of the claim.
Shortly thereafter, the administration tried to diminish the story by attacking Wilson’s credibility. When that didn’t work, two unnamed “senior administration officials” told conservative newspaper columnist Robert Novak that Wilson’s wife, Plame, was involved in sending Wilson to Niger in the first place. Though the claim was false, the administration outed Wilson’s wife as an undercover CIA agent in the process.
This, of course, raised a host of problems. First, the administration placed a CIA agent’s career in danger. Second, they jeopardized the safety of her contacts around the world. Third, it’s a felony to leak classified information, which this was.
So, who, exactly, was responsible for leaking the information to Novak? Novak certainly isn’t saying, the White House made no apparent effort to find out who did tell Novak, and the press didn’t show much interest in getting to the bottom of this.
Joe Wilson, however, seems to have an idea of his own. And it’s a doozy.
As Mark Kleiman noted yesterday on his fine blog, Wilson is still troubled by the turn of events and more-or-less named names at a forum organized by Rep. Jay Inslee (D) over the weekend.
“At the end of the day, it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs,” Wilson said. “And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words.”
Whoa. That’s no small accusation. Karl Rove effectively runs this White House and serves as Bush’s brain. It’s not inconceivable that Rove would talk to Novak and mention that Wilson’s wife as part of an effort to raise questions about Wilson’s credibility.
Wilson is saying, in no uncertain terms, that Rove committed a felony by leaking classified information as part of a smear campaign against him. If this is true and can be proven, Rove would be in some pretty big trouble. If this isn’t true and Wilson is falsely accusing Rove, then, as Kleiman said, Wilson “risks being personally discredited in a way that’s very hard to recover from.”
Ultimately, Wilson’s comments suggest that this story isn’t quite dead yet. Wilson noted at the forum that there’s still congressional interest in this controversy from several high-profile members, including Sens. Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, and Hillary Clinton.
It does, however, put things back in the hands of the political journalists who largely ignored this story a month ago. It’s pretty simple, really. A former ambassador who played an important role in the Niger-gate scandal has accused the president’s top political advisor of leaking classified information to a sympathetic journalist. Someone — anyone — in the White House press corps needs to ask, “Did Rove leak the information or not?”
It’s a question that deserves an answer.