Woodward’s bombshell — Day 2

November 17, 2005

A lot of ink has spilled over Bob Woodward’s revelation that he knew about Valerie Plame before Judy Miller, and that his source was neither Karl Rove nor Scooter Libby, but it seems the number of helpful, accessible facts are far and few between.

The WaPo, among others, suggests the new information could be a boon to Libby, the only person indicted in the scandal (so far).

Legal experts said Woodward provided two pieces of new information that cast at least a shadow of doubt on the public case against Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff, who has been indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

Woodward testified Monday that contrary to Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s public statements, a senior government official — not Libby — was the first Bush administration official to tell a reporter about Plame and her role at the CIA. Woodward also said that Libby never mentioned Plame in conversations they had on June 23 and June 27, 2003, about the Iraq war, a time when the indictment alleges Libby was eagerly passing information about Plame to reporters and colleagues.

A lot of speculation, but little else. Fitzgerald, as Josh Marshall noted, said “Libby’s was the earliest instance he’d found of an official leaking Plame’s identity,” so it’s not as if Fitzgerald’s conclusion was wildly off base.

Regardless, I’m not entirely clear on why any of this matters. Reading Fitzgerald’s indictment, Libby concocted an entirely bogus narrative involving him learning about Plame from reporters. He repeated the story to the FBI and the grand jury, and according to Fitzgerald, none of it was true. Libby’s leak to Miller may not have been the first-ever Plame leak, but that doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on the indictment’s bottom line.

For that matter, the WaPo piece suggested Libby could have told Woodward about Plame directly, but didn’t. That’s great except it has nothing to do with the other leaks and falsehoods Libby is alleged to have repeated.

Then there’s the matter of Woodward’s still unknown source. The New York Times seems to have helped narrow things down a bit.

Yesterday, Rove and Libby were eliminated from the Woodward sweepstakes and the NYT crossed several more names off the list today.

A senior administration official said that neither President Bush himself, nor his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., nor his counselor, Dan Bartlett, was Mr. Woodward’s source. So did spokesmen for former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; the former director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet; and his deputy, John E. McLaughlin.

A lawyer for Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff who has acknowledged conversations with reporters about the case and remains under investigation, said Mr. Rove was not Mr. Woodward’s source.

Mr. Cheney did not join the parade of denials.

In fact, as Kevin noted, the NYT reporters seem to think Cheney was the source, “but they can’t just say so.” On the other hand, before we read too much into the VP’s lack of a denial, it’s worth remembering that The Note reported yesterday that a senior Administration official, speaking to ABC News’ Jessica Yellin, “laughed” at the suggestion that Cheney was Woodward’s source.

And what of our friend Stephen Hadley? The NYT mentioned him in passing today as one several “administration officials known to have been interviewed by investigators.” Steve Soto, however, picks up the Hadley ball and runs with it.

If Hadley came forward to tell Fitzgerald that he was releasing Woodward from any pledge of confidentiality, what and who prompted Hadley to do this? Did Scooter or Cheney force Hadley’s hand, knowing that Libby wasn’t the first to talk with reporters about Plame’s identity? […]

If Hadley was in fact the first administration official to talk to a member of the media about Plame’s identity, and knowingly revealing that she was a possible covert operative due to her assignment in the Directorate of Operations, how plausible is it that his boss at the time didn’t know about this either. You know, his boss, the current Secretary of State?

So many questions…

my take for what it’s worth.
scooter libby getting indicted on lying, perjury, obstruction, etc. was a small victory, because they can use the defense that the underlying crime was non-existent, so how bad can the so called obstruction be. yet Fitzgerald was very careful in his indictment to not come down either way on the underlying crime. so that sword still hangs over libby and rove’s heads. In order to be fully exonerated they have to remove that question about the underlying facts. Well now they are forcing Fitz’ hand. He now knows who leaked first, and to whom. Is it a crime? Will he indict Hadley, or whoever else the presumably original leaker to Woodward is?, or will he punt and just pursue the obstruction type charges. In either case Rove and his team have put together their defense. either there’s no underlying crime so the obstruction is no big deal, or the leak was just gossip and hardball politics, or, look everyone was talking about it, or It slipped it was an accident, there was no malicious intent. In any case, now for once they have found that it is in their interest to have all the facts on the table to fully defend themselves.

  • Screw the Wapo. It dosen’t change anything. Libby lied, perjured, and obstructed. Libby’s lawyer is doing what BushCo is doing – blowing smoke. And screw BushCo. too.

  • I’ve been dreaming up scenarios again. This time I’m trying to understand the recent Woodward revelations. Here goes nothing.

    It is clear from the indictment that Libby used an elaborate story about learning role of Valarie Plame in sending her husband Joseph Wilson to Niger from reports. Until the Woodward revelations I had assumed that this story was cooked up after the fact. However, these revelations fit neatly into a scenario in which the cover story was hatched before the Novak column.

    Libby was aware that Plame was undercover since he at one point he ceased a conversation about her on an unsecure phone. Therefore he surely knew that he had to protect himself from any blowback if he were to leak the name. He and Cheney come up with the following plan. Cheney will causally drop Plame’s name to Woodward in the course of a conversion about a potential interview. Either Cheney calls Woodward with this in mind or he waits for Woodward to call him. Since Woodward is working on a book about Iraq the opportunity to do so certainly would come up. Woodward asks for the interview. Cheney says yes, but first talk to Scooter about the questions you’ll ask me. This set Woodward up to ask Libby about Plame, which would give Libby the cover he needs to tell other reports. However, Woodward never asks. Libby goes ahead anyway and leaks the Plame information to Miller.

    Why did they select Woodward to be used as the false conduit? First, he has a track record of protecting sources. He protected Deep Throat for over thirty years. Second, they don’t want the conduit to write the story since that could blowback on Cheney. Because Woodward was writing a book it would be unlikely that he would publish anything on this in the short run.

    When the Justice Department begins to investigate the leak, Libby and Cheney stick with the original plan of saying that Libby learned the name from a reporter. He can’t use Woodward’s name because this would implicate Cheney. Russert would do as well as anyone.

    Excuse me now while I adjust my tinfoil hat.

  • Good one, AliB. I hope the MSM picks that one up and runs with it.

    I’m beginning to think that this whole Woodward thing is a result of the bad guys hitting absolute stone rock bottom regarding the Plame quagmire and seeing no way out under present circumstances.

    So they decide to expend their deepest deep cover agent, Woodward, in an attempt to confuse the issue enough to minimize the damage, or even get out from under completely. Woodward is now revealed to be either merely a shill for the right wing agenda or a total fool, or both. And with no credibility or integrity left he’ll be useless to them in the future, so it’s an extremely costly maneuver, whether it works or not.

    But I agree with CB. Libby lied and that has nothing to do with anything or anyone else, so Woodward’s sacrifice will likely end up being a total waste when the dust settles and everyone realizes that he really doesn’t matter either way where Libby is concerned.

  • Perhaps casting the spotlight on Woodward has less to do with exonerating Libby than it does with the ultimate fate of “Mr. X” (or “Ms. X.” if in fact the leaker is Condi, Karen, etc.). Methinks “Mr. X” is feeling that trademark Fitzgerald heat a little too much for “his” own good these days –otherwise “he” could have come clean on Woodward before this.

  • Should Bob Woodward be referred to from now on as “Bush and Cheney’s Bitch” or the Judith Miller of the Washington Post?

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