Plame affair

The Plame affair concerns allegations that U.S. government officials revealed classified employment information about Valerie E. Wilson (née Valerie Elise Plame; also known as "Valerie Plame") indicating that she was a covert operative of the United States CIA investigating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Mrs. Wilson's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, alleges that members of the George W. Bush administration leaked his wife's covert identity to the press as "political retribution" for his criticizing the administration in his New York Times editorial published on 6 July 2003. Wilson's allegations have led to a federal grand jury investigation and subsequent conviction on perjury and obstruction of justice charges against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr., a civil suit by the Wilsons, and related controversy, still ongoing in 2007.

Background

For a date-sequenced look at this issue, see the Plame affair timeline.

Prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, in his January 28, 2003 State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush presented the following information as a statement of fact: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

In late February of 2002, responding to inquiries from the Vice President's office and the Departments of State and Defense about the allegation that Iraq had attempted to buy enriched uranium yellowcake from Niger, the CIA had authorized a trip by Joseph C. Wilson to Niger to investigate the possibility. He concluded then that there "was nothing to the story," and presented his report in March of 2002.

After the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, Wilson wrote a series of opinion-editorials ("op-eds") questioning its factual basis (See "Bibliography" in The Politics of Truth). In one of these op-eds published in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, Wilson argues that, in the State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush misrepresented intelligence leading up to the invasion and thus misleadingly suggested that the Iraqi regime sought uranium in order to manufacture nuclear weapons.

The Butler Report, the Iraq Intelligence Commission and the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at various times concluded that Wilson's claims were incorrect. Wilson later took strong exception to their conclusions in his 2004 memoir The Politics of Truth. CIA Director George Tenet said "[while President Bush] had every reason to believe that the text presented to him was sound," because "[f]rom what we know now, Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct - i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa," nevertheless "[t]hese 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President."

Eight days after Wilson's July 6th op-ed in The New York Times, columnist Robert Novak wrote about Wilson's 2002 trip to Niger and subsequent findings and described Wilson's wife as an "agency operative," suggesting that she had some role in his assignment. Subsequent press accounts reported that "White House officials wanted to know how much of a role she had in selecting him for the assignment."

Wilson and others have argued that disclosure of his wife's classified identity as an "operative" of the CIA to Novak and/or other reporters is illegal; he argues that it was done purposely and intentionally to punish Wilson for his criticism and that it illegally endangers both Plame herself and others involved in national security.

According to Stanley M. Moskowitz, CIA Director of Congressional Affairs, after an internal inquiry into the matter, the CIA made a referral to the Department of Justice (DOJ) for investigation of "possible violation of criminal law concerning the unauthorized disclosure of classified information." According to a December 16, 2003 letter from Bruce C. Swartz, then Deputy Assistant Attorney General, to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, the Department of Justice's investigation concerned "the possible unauthorized disclosure of classified information in the July 14, 2003 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times and the July 22, 2003 edition of Newsday". A Special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed to lead the investigation. In a February 6, 2004 letter from the Justice Department to Fitzgerald, the Justice Department clarified to Fitzgerald that he had the authority to "prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice."

In various legal filings Fitzgerald alleged that two Bush administration officials, Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had told several reporters about Plame's employment at the CIA. Libby was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and grand jury. On June 13, 2006, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, released a statement saying that Fitzgerald had informed him Rove would not be charged with any wrong-doing. On July 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson filed a civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, his former Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, top Presidential advisor Karl Rove and other unnamed senior White House officials, for their alleged roles in the public disclosure of her classified CIA employment.

Wilson said that his African diplomatic experience led to his selection for the mission to Niger. Ambassador Wilson, a retired diplomat and fluent in French, had served as a U.S. State Department general services officer in Niger, as an ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe, as Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) in both Brazzaville, Republic of the Congo, and Iraq (taking over as Chief of Mission during the 1990-91 Gulf War), in other diplomatic postings, and in subsequent national security and military advisory roles concerning U.S.-African affairs under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Further information: Joseph C. Wilson § Diplomatic_career

After being consulted by her superiors at the CIA about whom to send on the mission, Valerie E. Wilson, according to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, suggested Ambassador Wilson, her husband, whom she had married in 1998.

In the book ''Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, as Corn observes (before its release on September 8, 2006), they consider the "issue" of "whether Valerie Wilson had sent her husband to Niger to check out an intelligence report that Iraq had sought uranium there," presenting "new information undermining the charge that she arranged this trip. In an interview with the authors, Douglas Rohn, a State Department officer who wrote a crucial memo related to the trip, acknowledges he may have inadvertently created a misimpression that her involvement was more significant than it had been." In the first week of Libby's trial, a CIA witness testified that Plame conceived the idea for the trip in response to questions from the Vice President's office and the State and Defense Departments regarding alleged attempts by Iraq to acquire uranium from Niger. In his testimony to the grand jury, Libby testified that both he and Vice President Cheney believed that Joseph Wilson was qualified for the mission, though wondered if he would have been selected had his wife not worked at the CIA.

After his identification by Corn and Isikoff in advance word of their book, Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, acknowledged that he was the initial and "primary source" (Robert Novak's phrase) for Novak's column of July 14, 2003 that disclosed the identity of Wilson's wife Valerie Plame as a CIA "operative".

On March 6, 2007, Libby was found guilty on four of the five counts against him. At a press conference after the verdict was read, Fitzgerald told the press "I do not expect to file any further charges. Basically, the investigation was inactive prior to the trial...I would not expect to see any further charges filed, we are all going back to our day jobs. If new information comes to light, if new information comes to us that would warrant us taking some action, we look forward to doing that. But I would not create the expectation that any of us will be doing further investigation at this point, we see the investigation as inactive."

Justice Department investigation

Main article: Plame affair criminal investigation

Main article: CIA leak grand jury investigation

This matter is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel.

The redactions in a March 1, 2006 affidavit by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald suggest that he was aware then of the identity of Novak's original source. According to the affidavit,

Mr. Novak has published a brief description of how he learned the information, albeit declining to name his sources (REDACTED). Mr. Libby indisputably knows at least one of Mr. Novak’s sources:(REDACTED). Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that Rove told Libby that Novak was publishing a column about Wilson’s wife before it was ever published. . . . The one significant piece of information that Libby is not being told is the identity of (REDACTED) as a source for (REDACTED). Moreover, Libby has been given a redacted transcript of the conversation between Woodward and (REDACTED) and Novak has published an account briefly describing the conversation with his first confidential source (REDACTED).

In May 2006, it was reported that on September 29, 2003, the same day on which Novak made a statement on the Crossfire television program about the investigation, and three days after it became known that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation, Novak and Rove had a telephone converstation in which Novak told Rove he would protect him from being harmed by the investigation. According to the National Journal, "Rove testified to the grand jury that during his telephone call with Novak, the columnist said words to the effect: 'You are not going to get burned' and 'I don't give up my sources.'" When "asked during his grand jury appearance his reaction to the telephone call," the National Journal continues, "Rove characterized it as a 'curious conversation' and didn't know what to make of it."

On July 11, 2006, Robert Novak posted a column entitled "My Role in the Valerie Plame Leak Story":

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed my attorneys that, after two and one-half years, his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded. That frees me to reveal my role in the federal inquiry that, at the request of Fitzgerald, I have kept secret.

Novak dispells rumors that he asserted his Fifth Amendment right and made a plea bargain, stating:

I have cooperated in the investigation.

Novak continues:

For nearly the entire time of his investigation, Fitzgerald knew -- independent of me -- the identity of the sources I used in my column of July 14, 2003. That Fitzgerald did not indict any of these sources may indicate his conclusion that none of them violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. . . . In my sworn testimony, I said what I have contended in my columns and on television: Joe Wilson's wife's role in instituting her husband's mission was revealed to me in the middle of a long interview with an official who I have previously said was not a political gunslinger. After the federal investigation was announced, he told me through a third party that the disclosure was inadvertent on his part. Following my interview with the primary source, I sought out the second administration official and the CIA spokesman for confirmation. I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in "Who's Who in America." (Italics added.)

Novak says that he did not reveal his "primary source" in the column because

My primary source has not come forward to identify himself.

Novak also states that Rove's and Harlow's recollections of their conversations with Novak about Plame differed from his.

Robert Novak's column "Mission to Niger"

In his column of July 14, 2003, entitled "Mission to Niger," Robert Novak states that the choice to use Wilson "was made routinely at a low level without [CIA] Director George Tenet's knowledge." Novak goes on to identify Plame as Wilson's wife:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.

Response to Novak's column "Mission to Niger"

The suggestion that naming Plame as an agent is a serious crime first appeared in an article by David Corn published by The Nation on July 16 2003, two days after Novak's column. Corn quotes Joe Wilson:

'Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.'

Supporters of White House officials argue that Wilson had initiated a partisan smear campaign against the Bush administration. They contend also that those White House officials who talked "on background" about Wilson were not punishing him by exposing his wife but trying to prevent journalists from reporting Wilson's "disinformation." Others counter this speculation by arguing that officials have a duty diligently to avoid exposing undercover officers or other confidential information and that, in any event, Plame's CIA status had little to do with any facts Wilson may or may not have uncovered.

Robert Novak's column "The CIA Leak"

In "The CIA Leak," published on October 1, 2003, Novak describes how he had obtained the information for his July 14, 2003 column "Mission to Niger":

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counter-proliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

Novak defends his column "Mission to Niger"

In his column of October 1, 2003, 'The CIA Leak," Novak states that he included the paragraph about Wilson's wife "because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission." He writes:

I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one ... During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counter-proliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife.

In that column Novak also claims to have learned Mrs. Wilson's maiden name "Valerie Plame" from his entry in Who's Who In America, though it was her CIA status rather than her maiden name which was a secret.

A day after the publication of the October 1st column, Novak announced on his TV program Crossfire on CNN [check accuracy] that although "Ms. Valerie E. Wilson" had donated $1,000 to the Gore campaign in 1999, according to the website Newsmeat, listing Brewster Jennings & Associates as her employer, he was "convinced" that "[t]here is no such firm." Novak argued further that "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover — they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery."

Although Tenet claimed not to have first-hand familiarity with Wilson's report, he stated that it "was given a normal and wide distribution" in intelligence circles but not to Congress or the Administration. Although the bipartisan Senate Intelligence report states that Wilson's report was actually viewed by the CIA as bolstering the belief that Iraq was trying to acquire "yellowcake" to reconstitute its nuclear WMD program, apparently the State Department remained skeptical of Wilson's findings.

According to Murray S. Waas in the American Prospect of February 12, 2004, the CIA source warned Novak several times against the publication: two "administration officials" spoke to the FBI and challenged Novak's account about not receiving warnings not to publish Plame's name; according to one of the officials, "At best, he is parsing words ... At worst, he is lying to his readers and the public. Journalists should not lie, I would think." Novak has also claimed that Plame's CIA employment was an "open secret" in Washington, indicating that effective "affirmative measures" to conceal her relationship to the CIA were not being taken, though this has been disputed.

Novak's critics argue that after decades as a Washington reporter, Novak was well aware of the difference and would be unlikely to make such a mistake. A search of the LexisNexis database for the terms "CIA operative" and "agency operative" showed Novak had accurately used the terms to describe covert CIA employees, every time they appear in his articles.

Novak's sources for his column "Mission to Niger"

In their article entitled "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," published in Newsday, on July 22, 2003, Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce report: "Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. 'I didn't dig it out, it was given to me,' he said. 'They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." In response, although Phelps stands by the report, Novak has argued that he was "badly misquoted." In September 2003, on CNN's Crossfire, Novak asserted: "Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. There is no great crime here," adding that while he learned from two administration officials that Plame was a CIA employee, "They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative and not in charge of undercover operators." In July 2005, it was revealed that Rove was Novak's second Bush administration source. Novak told Rove about Plame, using her maiden name, and Rove responded by saying "I heard that, too", or "Oh, you know about it." Through his personal attorney, Robert Luskin, Rove has stated that other media sources told him about Plame, although he's not sure which journalist first told him.

Novak's "primary source": Richard Armitage

After the indictment of Lewis Libby and the expiration of the term of the initial Grand Jury, Michael Isikoff revealed portions of his new book entitled Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, co-authored with David Corn, in the August 28, 2006 issue of Newsweek. Isikoff reports that then Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage had a central role in the Plame affair.

In Hubris Isikoff and Corn reveal – as both Armitage and syndicated columnist Robert Novak acknowledged publicly later – that Armitage was Novak's "initial" and "primary source" for Novak's July 2003 column that revealed Plame's identity as a CIA operative and that after Novak revealed his "primary source" (Novak's phrase) was a "senior administration official" who was "not a partisan gunslinger," Armitage phoned Colin Powell that morning and was "in deep distress." Reportedly, Armitage told Powell: "I'm sure [Novak is] talking about me." In his Newsweek article, Isikoff states:

The next day, a team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors investigating the leak questioned the deputy secretary. Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA...[William Howard Taft IV, the State Department's legal adviser] felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source—possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more. Armitage's role thus remained that rarest of Washington phenomena: a hot secret that never leaked.

According to Isikoff, as based on his sources, Armitage told Bob Woodward Plame's identity three weeks before talking to Novak, and Armitage himself was aggressively investigated by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, but was never charged because Fitzgerald found no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status when he talked to Novak and Woodward.

In an August 27 2006 appearance on Meet the Press, Novak is asked if indeed Armitage was his source of Mrs. Wilson's identity as a CIA operative. Novak responds: "I told Mr. Isikoff...that I do not identify my sources on any subject if they’re on a confidential basis until they identify themselves...I’m going to say one thing, though, I haven’t said before. And that is that I believe that the time has way passed for my source to identify himself."

On August 30 2006 the New York Times reports that the lawyer and other associates of Mr. Armitage confirmed he was Novak's "initial and primary source" for Plame's identity. The New York Times also reports "Mr. Armitage cooperated voluntarily in the case, never hired a lawyer and testified several times to the grand jury, according to people who are familiar with his role and actions in the case. He turned over his calendars, datebooks and even his wife’s computer in the course of the inquiry, those associates said. But Mr. Armitage kept his actions secret, not even telling President Bush because the prosecutor asked him not to divulge it, the people said . . . Mr. Armitage had prepared a resignation letter, his associates said. But he stayed on the job because State Department officials advised that his sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the leak, the people aware of his actions said. . . . He resigned in November 2004, but remained a subject of the inquiry until [February 2006] when the prosecutor advised him in a letter that he would not be charged."

In an interview with CBS news first broadcast on September 7 2006, Armitage admits that he was Novak's "initial" and "primary source" (Novak's words). In the interview he describes his conversation with Novak:

At the end of a wide-ranging interview he asked me, "Why did the CIA send Ambassador (Wilson) to Africa?" I said I didn't know, but that she worked out at the agency, adding it was "just an offhand question. . . . I didn't put any big import on it and I just answered and it was the last question we had."

After acknowledging that he was indeed Robert Novak's initial and primary source for the column outing Plame, Richard Armitage refers to what has been termed "a classified State Department memorandum" which purportedly refers to Valerie Wilson.

Further information: Alternate theories of the Plame affair § Speculating_about_the_"Air_Force_One_ Memorandum"

While the document is "classified," Armitage states, "it doesn't mean that every sentence in the document is classified. . . . I had never seen a covered agent's name in any memo in, I think, 28 years of government. . . . I didn't know the woman's name was Plame. I didn't know she was an operative. . . . I didn't try to out anybody." In a phone interview with The Washington Post, Armitage reiterates his claim, stating that in 40 years of reading classified materials "I have never seen in a memo . . . a covert agent's name."

According to the Washington Post, Armitage attributes his not being charged in the investigation to his candor in speaking with investigators about his action; he says that he turned over his computers and never hired an attorney: "'I did not need an attorney to tell me to tell the truth.'"

Novak disputes Armitage's claim that the disclosure was "inadvertent." In a column titled The real story behind the Armitage story, Novak states: "First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he 'thought' might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column . . . he noted that the story of Mrs. Wilson's role fit the style of the old Evans-Novak column -- implying to me it continued reporting Washington inside information." Novak also disputes Armitage's claim that he learned he was Novak's "primary source" (Novak's phrase) only after reading Novak's October 1 column: "I believed [Washington lobbyist Kenneth Duberstein, Armitage's close friend and political adviser] contacted me Oct. 1 because of news the weekend of Sept. 27-28 that the Justice Department was investigating the leak."

In a review of Corn's and Isikoff's book, Hubris, Novak writes: "I don't know precisely how Isikoff flushed out Armitage [as Novak's "primary source"], but Hubris clearly points to two sources: Washington lobbyist Kenneth Duberstein, Armitage's political adviser, and William Taft IV, who was the State Department legal adviser when Armitage was deputy secretary."

Armitage also acknowledges that he was Woodward's source. At the end of a lengthy interview conducted in the first week of September 2006, he describes his June 2003 conversation with Woodward as an afterthought: "He said, 'Hey, what's the deal with Wilson?' and I said, 'I think his wife works out there.'"

Bush administration officials subpoenaed to testify in Fitzgerald's Grand Jury Investigation

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby

A five-count indictment of "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former Chief of Staff, was issued on October 28, 2005. It is to date the only indictment issued by the Grand Jury. He resigned his post after his indictment. Libby was convicted 6 March 2007 on four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying during the leak investigation.

The Grand Jury Investigation indictment of Libby states:

Beginning in or about January 2004, and continuing until the date of this indictment, Grand Jury 03-3 sitting in the District of Columbia conducted an investigation ("the Grand Jury Investigation") into possible violations of federal criminal laws, including: Title 50, United States Code, Section 421 (disclosure of the identity of covert intelligence personnel); and Title 18, United States Code, Sections 793 (improper disclosure of national defense information), 1001 (false statements), 1503 (obstruction of justice), and 1623 (perjury).

A major focus of the Grand Jury Investigation was to determine which government officials had disclosed to the media prior to Robert Novak's July 14, 2003 information concerning the affiliation of Valerie Wilson with the CIA, and the nature, timing, extent, and purpose of such disclosures, as well as whether any official making such a disclosure did so knowing that the employment of Valerie Wilson by the CIA was classified information.

According to Fitzgerald, Libby first learned of Plame's employment at the CIA in early June 2003 from Cheney, and proceeded to discuss Plame with six other government officials in the following days and months before disclosing her name to reporters in early July. Libby does not dispute that he initially heard about Plame from Cheney, but claims he had no recollection of this when he told the FBI in October 2003 and the grand jury in March 2004 that he first learned about Plame in a conversation with NBC’s Tim Russert. During Libby's trial, Libby's lawyers argued that Libby’s testimony to the grand jury and his interviews with the Federal Bureau of Investigation may have contained inaccuracies but that they were the result of innocent memory lapses explained by his pressing schedule of national security issues. Libby's defense lawyers also challenged the memory and recollections of each prosecution witness. The prosecution focused the jury on a sequence of events occurring between May and July 2003. According to prosecutors, given the level of interest coming from the Vice President's office regarding Joe Wilson, it was impossible for Libby to have forgotten that he already knew that Wilson's wife, aka Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.

On March 6, 2007, Libby was found guilty on four of the five counts against him. He is currently out on bail pending an appeal. After the verdict was read to the court, Denis Collins, a member of the jury and a journalist who has written for The Washington Post and other newspapers, spoke to the press. According to Collins, many in the jury felt sympathy for Libby and believed he was only the "fall guy." Collins said that "a number of times" the jurors asked themselves, "what is [Libby] doing here? Where is Rove and all these other guys. I’m not saying we didn’t think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells [Ted Wells, Libby’s attorney] put it, he was the fall guy." According to Collins, "some jurors said at one point, 'We wish we weren't judging Libby...this sucks.'" Collins described how after 10 days of deliberations, "What we came up with from that was that Libby was told about Mrs. Wilson nine times...We believed he did have a bad memory, but it seemed very unlikely he would not remember about being told about Mrs. Wilson so many times....Hard to believe he would remember on Tuesday and forget on Thursday."

Further information: Lewis Libby

Further information: United States v. Libby

Karl Rove

On 2 July 2005, Karl Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said that his client spoke to Time reporter Matt Cooper "three or four days" before Plame's identity was first revealed in print by commentator Robert Novak. Cooper's article in Time, citing unnamed and anonymous "government officials," confirmed Plame to be a "CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Cooper's article appeared three days after Novak's column was published. Rove's lawyer asserted that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." Luskin also has said that his client did not initiate conversations with reporters about Plame and did not encourage reporters to write about her.

On July 11, 2006, Robert Novak confirmed that Rove was his second source for his article that revealed the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent, the source who confirmed what Armitage had told him.

On February 12, 2007, Novak testified in Libby's trial. As Michael J. Sniffen of the Associated Press reports:

Novak described trying to get an interview with Armitage in 2001 and being told the deputy secretary was "not too busy. He just didn't want to talk to me." Novak said he was rebuffed again after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Then in the last week of June 2003, Armitage's office called to set up an interview. "I had not pressed my request for one in two years," Novak said. Once he asked about the Wilson trip, Armitage said "it was suggested by his wife, Valerie, who is employed in the counterproliferation division at CIA," Novak testified.

Novak testified he got confirmation from White House political adviser Karl Rove, who replied to him: "Oh, you've heard that, too."

Like Armitage, who was Novak's first source of the leak, Rove was not indicted as a result of Fitzgerald's Grand Jury Investigation.

Further information: Karl Rove § Plame affair

)

Ari Fleischer

In January 2007, during the first week of Scooter Libby's trial, it was revealed in court proceedings that former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was granted immunity from prosecution by Patrick Fitzgerald in February 2004. Fleischer reportedly acknowledged discussing Valerie Plame with reporters, but promised to cooperate with Fitzgerald's investigation only if granted immunity. Once the deal was struck, Fleischer told Fitzgerald that he had discussed Plame with David Gregory of NBC News and John Dickerson of Time in July 2003, days before leaving his job at the White House. Fleischer testified that he first learned about Plame and her CIA affiliation during a July 7, 2003 lunch with Libby. Fleischer also testified that four days later, while aboard Air Force One and during a five-day trip to several African nations, he overheard Dan Bartlett reference Plame. According to Fleischer, Bartlett stated to no one in particular "His wife sent him...She works at the CIA." Shortly after overhearing Bartlett, Fleischer proceeded to discuss Plame with Gregory and Dickerson. According to Fleischer, neither Gregory nor Dickerson showed much interest in the information. Dickerson has denied Fleischer's account. Gregory has declined to comment on the matter. With regards to the immunity deal, Fitzgerald told the court "I didn't want to give [Fleischer] immunity. I did so reluctantly." Libby's attorney, William Jeffress, sought to learn more about the deal, telling the court "I'm not sure we're getting the full story here." According to the Associated Press, "Prosecutors normally insist on an informal account of what a witness will say before agreeing to such a deal. It's known in legal circles as a proffer, and Fitzgerald said [in court] he never got one from Fleischer."

Other subpoenaed journalists informed that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative prior to July 14, 2003

In a January 23, 2006 letter to Scooter Libby's defense team, Patrick Fitzgerald wrote the following:

. . . [W]e advised you during the January 18 conference call that we were not aware of any reporters who knew prior to July 14, 2003, that Valerie Plame, Ambassador Wilson's wife, worked at the CIA, other than: Bob Woodward, Judith Miller, Bob Novak, Walter Pincus and Matthew Cooper.

Bob Woodward

On November 16, 2005, in an article entitled "Woodward Was Told of Plame More Than Two Years Ago," published in The Washington Post, Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig revealed that Bob Woodward was told of Valerie Wilson's CIA affiliation a month before it was reported in Robert Novak's column and before Wilson's July 6, 2003 editorial in the New York Times. Almost a year later it was revealed that the source of this information was Richard Armitage. and was later confirmed by Armitage. Earlier it had been reported that the source was National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, but these reports proved to be false.

At an on-the-record dinner at a Harvard University Institute of Politics forum in December 2005, according to the Harvard Crimson, Woodward discussed the matter with fellow Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein, responding to Bernstein’s claim that the release of Plame’s identity was a "calculated leak" by the Bush administration with "I know a lot about this, and you’re wrong." The Crimson also states that "when asked at the dinner whether his readers should worry that he has been 'manipulated' by the Bush administration, Woodward replied, 'I think you should worry. I mean, I worry.'"

On February 12, 2007, Woodward testified in "Scooter" Libby's trial as a defense witness. While on the witness stand, an audiotape was played for the jury that contained the interview between Armitage and Woodward in which Plame was discussed. The following exchange is heard on the tape:

WOODWARD: But it was Joe Wilson who was sent by the agency. I mean that's just ---

ARMITAGE: His wife works in the agency.

WOODWARD: Why doesn't that come out? Why does ---

ARMITAGE: Everyone knows it.

WOODWARD: ---that have to be a big secret? Everyone knows.

ARMITAGE: Yeah. And I know Joe Wilson's been calling everybody. He's pissed off because he was designated as a low-level guy, went out to look at it. So, he's all pissed off.

WOODWARD: But why would they send him?

ARMITAGE: Because his wife's a [expletive] analyst at the agency.

WOODWARD: It's still weird.

ARMITAGE: It---It's perfect. This is what she does she is a WMD analyst out there.

WOODWARD: Oh she is.

ARMITAGE: Yeah.

WOODWARD: Oh, I see.

ARMITAGE: Yeah. See?

WOODWARD: Oh, she's the chief WMD?

ARMITAGE: No she isn't the chief, no.

WOODWARD: But high enough up that she can say, "Oh yeah, hubby will go."

ARMITAGE: Yeah, he knows Africa.

WOODWARD: Was she out there with him?

ARMITAGE: No.

WOODWARD: When he was ambassador?

ARMITAGE: Not to my knowledge. I don't know. I don't know if she was out there or not. But his wife is in the agency and is a WMD analyst. How about that [expletive].

Judith Miller

New York Times reporter Judith Miller also claims to have learned Plame's CIA affiliation from Scooter Libby. Though she never published an article on the topic, Miller spent twelve weeks in jail when she was found in contempt of court for refusing to divulge the identity of her source to Fitzgerald's Grand Jury after he subpoenaed her testimony.

In her testimony at Libby's trial, Miller reiterated that she learned of Plame from Libby. Miller was pressed by the defense about conversations she may have had with other officials regarding the Wilsons. Miller also testified that after her conversation with Libby, she went to New York Times managing editor Jill Abramson and suggested the Times look into Wilson's wife. Abramson, however, testified at the trial that she had "no recollection of such a conversation."

After the verdict was read, a juror told the press that while Miller's memory may have been bad, many on the jury felt sympathy for her due to the nature of her cross-examination.

Walter Pincus

Walter Pincus, a Washington Post columnist, has reported that he was told in confidence by an unnamed Bush administration official on 12 July 2003, two days before Novak's column appeared, that

the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction.

Because he did not believe it to be true, Pincus claims, he did not report the story in The Washington Post until October 12, 2003:

I wrote my October story because I did not think the person who spoke to me was committing a criminal act, but only practicing damage control by trying to get me to stop writing about Wilson. Because of that article, The Washington Post and I received subpoenas last summer from Patrick J. Fitzgerald.

On February 12, 2007, Pincus testified during Libby's trial that he learned Wilson's wife worked at the CIA from Ari Fleischer. According to Pincus, Fleischer "suddenly swerved off" topic during an interview to tell him of her employment. Fleischer, who was called to testify by the prosecution, had earlier testified he told two reporters about Valerie Plame, but on cross-examination testified that he did not recall telling Pincus about Plame.

Matthew Cooper

Days after Novak's initial column appeared, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine published Plame's name citing unnamed government officials as sources. In his article, entitled "A War on Wilson?", Cooper raises the possibility that the White House has "declared war" on Wilson for speaking out against the Bush Administration. The names of Cooper's sources, later revealed as a result of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's investigation, are Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

During his appearance at Libby's trial, Cooper recounted how he first learned about Valerie Wilson on July 11, 2003 from Karl Rove. Cooper testified that Rove told him to be wary of Joe Wilson’s criticisms in The Times. "Don’t go too far out on Wilson," Mr. Cooper recalled Rove saying, warning him that Valerie Wilson worked at "the agency." Cooper testified that when he spoke to Libby, he told Libby that he had heard that Joe Wilson’s wife worked at the C.I.A. According to Cooper, Libby responded, "I heard that too." In Libby's grand jury testimony, Libby recalled telling Cooper that he'd heard something to that effect but that he didn't know for sure if it was true. In Libby's trial, Cooper's notes became the subject of intense scrutiny by the defense.

Libby was acquitted on one count involving Cooper. A juror told the press that count three of the indictment came down to Libby's word versus Cooper's word, and thus provided enough reasonable doubt.

Testimony of some reporters in trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby

Main article: United States v. Libby

The Associated Press's Michael J. Sniffen reports that on February 12, 2007,

Defense attorneys got Woodward, Novak, Pincus, New York Times reporter David Sanger, Washington Post reporter Glenn Kessler and Newsweek reporter Evan Thomas all to say they had talked to Libby about Wilson's allegations during the summer of 2003, but Libby had not disclosed Plame's identity or employment to them.

But Sanger, Kessler and Thomas said they didn't ask Libby about Wilson's wife. Woodward and Novak testified they didn't recall asking about her but said Libby didn't talk about her if they did. Pincus said Libby said he didn't know how the trip was arranged but their conversation occurred before June 12, when Libby now recalls he first learned the information from Cheney.

Others claiming to have information about Plame's identity as a CIA operative prior to July 14, 2003

Tim Russert

According to Patrick Fitzgerald and the Grand Jury Investigation indictment, in his sworn testimony, Libby claimed to have heard of Plame's CIA status from Tim Russert. Details pertaining to Libby's conversations with Miller, Cooper, and Russert appear in the five-count indictment charging him with lying and perjury to investigators and the Grand Jury.

At Libby's trial, Russert was questioned by prosecutors for only 12 minutes, but underwent more than five hours of pointed cross-examination over two days from defense attorney Theodore Wells Jr. Russert told prosecutors that he could not have told Libby about Plame because he had not heard of her until she was publicly revealed by Novak on July 14, 2003, four days after Russert spoke with Libby by phone. Wells challenged Russert's memory and his version of the events that lead to his crucial grand jury testimony. Wells also questioned Russert as to his reaction to the announcement of Libby's grand jury indictment.

Wells also focused on a November 24, 2003 report by John C. Eckenrode, the FBI Special Agent who interviewed Russert as part of the DOJ investigation. In the report, Eckenrode wrote:

"Russert does not recall stating to Libby, in this conversation, anything about the wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson. Although he could not completely rule out the possibility that he had such an exchange, Russert was at a loss to remember it, and moreover, he believes that this would be the type of conversation that he would or should remember. Russert acknowledged that he speaks to many people on a daily basis and it is difficult to reconstruct some specific conversations, particulary one which occured several months ago."

Russert testified that he did not believe he said that to Eckenrode. Russert also acknowledged on cross examination that he was not asked about any conversations he may have had with David Gregory or Andrea Mitchell regarding Plame during his deposition with Fitzgerald. Russert, however, told the jury "they never came forward" to share with him anything they were learning about Joe Wilson or Valerie Plame from administration officials. Russert testified that after Novak's column was published, the NBC Washington bureau he heads debated whether pursuing Plame's role in the story would compromise her job at the CIA. Russert testified that it was ultimately decided to pursue the story. According to multiple news accounts of the trial, Russert's testimony is key to Libby's conviction or acquittal, and on the day that the defense rested, February 14, 2007, the judge refused to allow the defense to call Russert back to the stand. A juror told the press that the members of the jury found Russert to be very credible in his testimony. "The primary thing which convinced us on most of the accounts was the conversation... the alleged conversation... with Tim Russert...," the juror told the press.

Further information: United States v. Libby § Press coverage of the trial

Hugh Sidey

In a story published in The New York Sun on July 6, 2005, staff reporter Josh Gerstein states that former Time magazine White House correspondent Hugh Sidey claimed in an interview that Plame's identity was widely known well before Mr. Cooper talked to his sources.

Clifford May

In the National Review Online of September 29, 2003, Clifford May writes:

On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative. That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.

Andrea Mitchell

In an October 3, 2003 edition of the now-defunct program Capital Report on CNBC, Andrea Mitchell was quoted as having said:

It was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger. So a number of us began to pick up on that. But frankly I wasn't aware of her actual role at the CIA and the fact that she had a covert role involving weapons of mass destruction, not until Bob Novak wrote it.

In a November 2005 appearance with radio host Don Imus, however, Mitchell clarified that she had been misquoted:

I said that it was widely known that - here's the exact quote - I said that it was widely known that Wilson was an envoy and that his wife worked at the CIA. But I was talking about . . . I was talking about after the Novak column. And that was not clear. I may have misspoken in October 2003 in that interview. (Italics added.)

During Libby's trial, Libby's defense lawyers wanted to call Mitchell to the witness stand to further explain her comments. After hearing arguments on the matter, U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton ruled Mitchell's testimony about statements she made about Plame would have amounted to hearsay and, thus, nullified her subpoena.

Legal issues relating to the Plame affair

There are some major legal issues surrounding the allegations of illegality by administration officials in the Plame affair, including the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the Espionage Act, Title 18 Section 641, conspiracy to impede or injure officers, the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, other laws and precedents, perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and compelling the media to testify.

Main article: Plame affair legal questions

See also: Valerie Plame § The_Wilsons'_Civil_Suit

Possible consequences of the public disclosure of Plame's CIA identity

There has been debate over what kinds of damage may have resulted from the public disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative in Novak's column and its fallout, how far and into what areas of national security and foreign intelligence that damage might extend, particularly vis-à-vis Plame's work with her cover company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, and also how the Plame affair and Plamegate may have affected the power, privileges, and functioning of the press media in America.

On October 3, 2004 The Washington Post quotes a former diplomat predicting immediate damage:

. . . [E]very foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities. . . . That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name.

In contrast, in an October 27, 2005 appearance on Larry King Live, Bob Woodward commented:

They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that [former ambassador] Joe Wilson's wife [Plame] was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone, and there was just some embarrassment.

In an appearance the next night, October 28, 2005, on Hardball, Andrea Mitchell was quoted as saying:

I happen to have been told that the actual damage assessment as to whether people were put in jeopardy on this case did not indicate that there was real damage in this specific instance.

Following Mitchell's appearance on Hardball, on October 29, 2006, The Washington Post's Dafna Linzer reported that no formal damage assessment had yet been conducted by the CIA "as is routinely done in cases of espionage and after any legal proceedings have been exhausted." Linzer writes:

There is no indication, according to current and former intelligence officials, that the most dire of consequences –– the risk of anyone's life –– resulted from her outing. But after Plame's name appeared in Robert D. Novak's column, the CIA informed the Justice Department in a simple questionnaire that the damage was serious enough to warrant an investigation, officials said.

Mark Lowenthal, who retired from a senior management position at the CIA in March 2005 reportedly told Linzer:

You can only speculate that if she had foreign contacts, those contacts might be nervous and their relationships with her put them at risk. It also makes it harder for other CIA officers to recruit sources.

Another intelligence official who spoke anonymously to Linzer cited the CIA's interest in protecting the agency and its work:

You'll never get a straight answer [from the Agency] about how valuable she was or how valuable her sources were.

In August 2005, Newsweek journalist Michael Isikoff reported that a "former government official who requested anonymity because of the confidential material involved" told him that the CIA's initial "crimes report" to the Justice Department requesting the leak probe never mentioned the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

In a November 3, 2005 online live discussion, in response to a question about the Fitzgerald investigation, The Washington Post's Dana Priest, a Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist specializing in matters of national security, opined:

I don't actually think the Plame leak compromised national security, from what I've been able to learn about her position."

In a January 9, 2006 letter addressed to "Scooter" Libby's defense team, Patrick Fitzgerald responded to a discovery request by Libby's lawyers for both classified and unclassified documents. In the letter, Fitzgerald writes:

A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s status as a CIA employee, and thus we possess no such document. (Italics added).

He continues:

In any event, we would not view an assessment of the damage caused by the disclosure as relevant to the issue of whether or not Mr. Libby intentionally lied when he made the statements and gave the grand jury testimony which the grand jury alleged was false.

During Libby's trial, Judge Reggie Walton told the jury "No evidence will be presented to you with regard to Valerie Plame Wilson’s status. That is because what her actual status was, or whether any damage would result from disclosure of her status, are totally irrelevant to your decision of guilt or innocence. You must not consider these matters in your deliberations or speculate or guess about them." During court proceedings, when the jury wasn't present, Walton told the court "I don’t know, based on what has been presented to me in this case, what her status was...It’s totally irrelevant to this case...I to this day don’t know what her actual status was."

Larisa Alexandrovna of The Raw Story reports that three intelligence officials, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told her that

While Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss has not submitted a formal damage assessment to Congressional oversight committees, the CIA's Directorate of Operations did conduct a serious and aggressive investigation.

According to her sources,

the damage assessment . . . called a "counter intelligence assessment to agency operations" was conducted on the orders of the CIA's then-Deputy Director of the Directorate of Operations, James Pavitt. . . . [and showed] "significant damage to operational equities."

Alexandrovna also reports that while Plame was undercover she was involved in an operation identifying and tracking weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran, suggesting that her outing "significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation." Her sources also stated that the outing of Plame also compromised the identity of other covert operatives who had been working, like Plame, under non-official cover status. These anonymous officials said that in their judgement, the CIA's work on WMDs has been set back "ten years" as a result of the compromise.

MSNBC correspondent David Shuster reported on Hardball later, on May 1, 2006, that MSNBC had learned "new information" about the potential consequences of the leaks:

Intelligence sources say Valerie Wilson was part of an operation three years ago tracking the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran. And the sources allege that when Mrs. Wilson's cover was blown, the Administration's ability to track Iran's nuclear ambitions was damaged as well. The White House considers Iran to be one of America's biggest threats.

On September 6, 2006, David Corn published an article for The Nation entitled "What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA" in which Corn reports that Plame was placed in charge of the operations group within the Joint Task Force on Iraq in the spring of 2001 and that, "when the Novak column ran," in July 2003:

Valerie Wilson was in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management. Her aim, she told colleagues, was to put in time as an administrator--to rise up a notch or two--and then return to secret operations. But with her cover blown, she could never be undercover again.

According to Vanity Fair:

In fact, in the spring [of 2003], Plame was in the process of moving from NOC status to State Department cover. [Joe] Wilson speculates that "if more people knew than should have, then somebody over at the White House talked earlier than they should have been talking."

In July 2006, according to CNN, Valerie E. Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson

filed a civil lawsuit alleging a conspiracy that "was motivated by an invidiously discriminatory animus towards those who had publicly criticized the administration's stated justifications for going to war with Iraq" and culminated with the disclosure that Plame worked at the CIA. This revelation destroyed Plame's career with the agency, according to the suit.

The scenario described by the sources familiar with Armitage's role, however, appears to contradict those arguments.
But the Wilsons' attorney, Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the revelation that Armitage was the original source for the leak did not undercut the charge that Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and White House adviser Karl Rove acted to retaliate against Wilson by engaging in a "whispering campaign" about his wife.
The couple plans to proceed with the lawsuit, Sloan said.

"Mr. Armitage's conduct does not change the facts of what Libby, Cheney and Rove did," Sloan told CNN. "The case is about the abuse of government power."

On September 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson amended their original lawsuit, adding Armitage as a fourth defendant. Unlike their charges against Rove, Cheney, and Libby, "claiming that they had violated her constitutional rights and discredited her by disclosing that she was an undercover CIA operative," the Wilsons are suing Armitage "for violating the 'Wilsons' constitutional right to privacy, Mrs. Wilson's constitutional right to property, and for committing the tort of publication of private facts.'"

Beginning in mid-February 2007, the Public Broadcasting Service television program Frontline presented a special four-part series entitled News War; in Part One: Secrets, Sources, and Spin correspondent Lowell Bergman

examines the relationship between the Bush administration and the press, the use of anonymous sources, and the consequences of the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

See also: CIA leak grand jury investigation, Plame affair criminal investigation, and United States v. Libby

More discussion of various controversial and still-often-disputed perspectives on the potential "damage" that may or may not have been done to Mrs. Wilson and national security and other possible consequences may be found in:

Main article: Valerie Plame § Career

See also: Valerie Plame § The_Wilsons'_civil_suit

Other perspectives on the Plame affair

Main article: Alternate theories of the Plame affair

Since the Plame Affair became public knowledge, commentators began presenting multiple and often highly-contested perspectives on it in various media.

Allusions to the Plame affair in popular media

• The plot of an episode of season 16 of the NBC television series Law & Order entitled "Kingmaker" (episode no. 369), which first aired on May 3, 2006, parallels aspects of the Plame affair.

Notes

Selected references

• A front for Valerie Plame, Jean C. Edwards, Robert Ellmann, Paul Jennings (of the Anglo-Irish Bank), and others, Brewster Jennings shared an office and phone number with the Boston accounting firm of similar name, Burke Dennehy.
• Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics: Plame's Brewster Jennings associate Jean C. Edwards is in the attendees lists of three ICTP conferences where she spied on Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and E. European countries involved in nuclear proliferation.
• "AP falsely reported Wilson 'acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job' when her identity was first publicly leaked". Media Matters for America July 15, 2005.
• "A Bad Leak." The New York Times April 16, 2006, Editorial. Accessed November 18, 2006.
• Ballard, Tanya N., and Kevin Dumouchelle, comps. "Key Players in the Plame Affair." The Washington Post October 20, 2005. (Incl. link to "Timeline.") Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Corn, David. "Toensing and WSJ: Corn Outed Plame (Here We Go Again)." DavidCorn.com (journalist's blog) September 15, 2006. Accessed November 18, 2006. (Reply to Toensing's editorial in The Wall Street Journal; linked therein.)
• –––. "What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA." The Nation (web only) September 6, 2006. Accessed December 6, 2006.
• –––. "A White House Smear." The Nation July 16, 2003. Accessed November 18, 2006. (Also linked in above source.)
• De la Vega, Elizabeth. "The White House Criminal Conspiracy." Online posting. The Nation October 26, 2005. Issue of November 14, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Dickerson, John, and Viveca Novak. "Grand Jury Hears Plame Case in Front of a Grand Jury in the Investigation into Whether the Identity of CIA Operative Valerie Plame Was Improperly Leaked to the Press." Time January 22, 2004. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Gellman, Barton, and Dafna Linzer. "A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic." The Washington Post April 9, 2006. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Hayes, Stephen F. "The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons: The Chain of Events That Gave Rise to a Grand Jury Investigation." The Weekly Standard [11.6] October 24, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Hitchens, Christopher. "Plame's Lame Game: What Ambassador Joseph Wilson and His Wife Forgot to Tell Us about the Yellow-cake Scandal." Slate July 13, 2004.
• Isikoff, Michael. "Matt Cooper's Source." Newsweek July 18, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• ––, and David Corn. Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. New York: Crown, 2006 (Sept. 8). ISBN 0-307-34681-1.
• Johnston, David, and Richard W. Stevenson, with David E. Sanger. "Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer". New York Times July 15, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006. (TimesSelect subscription required.)
• Johnston, David, Richard W. Stevenson, and Douglas Jehl. "Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Lawyers Report." The New York Times October 25, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006. (TimesSelect subscription required.)
• Kerber, Ross, and Bryan Bender. "Apparent CIA Front Didn't Offer Much Cover." Boston Globe October 10, 2003). Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Kincaid, Cliff. "Why Judith Miller Should Stay In Jail." Accuracy In Media July 11 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Leonnig, Carol D. "Papers Say Leak Probe Is Over." The Washington Post April 7 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• End of an Affair The Washington Post September 01, 2006, Editorial: A20. Accessed December 6, 2006.
• Miller, Zell."Rule Can Head Off Dirty Tricks at CIA." Atlanta Journal-Constitution November 2, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• News War: Secrets, Sources, and Spin (Parts 1 and 2). With correspondent Lowell Bergman. Special four-part series broadcast on Frontline. Prod. of WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts). Public Broadcasting Service. Part 1 first broadcast 13 February, 2007. WXXI-TV (Rochester, New York). Part 1 incl. "Prologue: The Plame Affair" (chap. 1) and "Epilogue: 'Plamegate'" (chap. 8). Streaming video accessible online in both Windows Media Player and Quicktime. Accessed February 14, 2007. [Full transcripts to be posted online at pbs.org approx. 7 to 10 days following first broadcasts of each part of the series.]
• Novak, Robert D."The CIA Leak." TownHall.com (syndicated column) October 1, 2003. Accessed December 12, 2006.
• –––. "Mission to Niger." The Washington Post July 14, 2003: A21. Accessed December 12, 2006.
• –––. "Who Said What Where When: The Rise and Fall of the Valerie Plame 'Scandal.'" The Weekly Standard October 16, 2006. Accessed December 5, 2006.
• Polity Media, Inc. "Valerie Plame's Campaign Contributions" from 1999 and 2004. Newsmeat.com. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• "Q&A: The CIA Leak Case BBC News September 9, 2006. Accessed December 6, 2006.
• "Richard Armitage Admits to Name-Dropping Incident." LegalNews. TV September 9, 2006. (ClipSyndicate media link provided.) Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Scarborough, Rowan. The Flameout of the Plame Game." The Washington Times September 5, 2006. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Smyth, Frank. "U.S. Sends the Wrong Message to the World." IFEX June 30, 2005. Posted July 1, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Spiegel International Online. "Was Berlusconi Behind the Pre-Iraq War Yellow Cake Story?" (English translation). Der Spiegel October 27, 2005. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Suellentrop, Chris. "Robert Novak: The hollow center of the Plame Affair." Slate October 2, 2003.
• "White House Counsel Questioned in CIA Leak." Las Vegas Sun June 18, 2004.
• Toensing, Victoria. "The Plame Kerfuffle: What a Load of Armitage! What did Patrick Fitzgerald know, and when did he know it?". The Wall Street Journal September 15, 2006, Editorial. (See reply posted by Corn.)
• United Press International. "Ashcroft Recuses Himself from Plame Affair Case." UPI December 30, 2003. (Defunct link)
• United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Template:PDFlink On the U.S. Intelligence Community's Pre-War Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, Together with Additional Views. July 9, 2004. Accessed December 5, 2006.
• –––. "Senator Roberts' Statement on the Niger Documents." Press release. July 11, 2003. Accessed December 5, 2006.
• Ward, Vicki. "Double Exposure." Vanity Fair (Jan. 2004). (11 pages.) Accessed February 6, 2007.
• "What Does the Plame Case Add Up to?" Online feature of News War on Frontline (Public Broadcasting Service), WGBH-TV. Posted February 13, 2007. Accessed February 14, 2007.
• Wheeler, Marcy. Anatomy of Deceit: How the Bush Administration Used the Media to Sell the Iraq War and Out a Spy. Berkeley: Vaster Books (Dist. by Publishers Group West), 2007. ISBN 0-979-17610-7 (10). ISBN 978-0979-17610-4 (13).
• Wilson, Joseph. The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Put the White House on Trial and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2004. Paperback ed., 2005. ISBN 0-7867-1551-0.

External links

• News War: "A special four-part investigation into the future of news." Frontline. Prod. WGBH (Boston, Massachusetts) and a co-production of Frontline in association with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Broadcast by PBS. Parts 1 and 2: Secrets, Sources, and Spin. Part 1 first broadcast on February 13, 2007. Streaming video in Windows Media Player and Quicktime and multiple other online resources, incl. broadcast schedule, full interviews, and full transcripts (within 7 to 10 days of the broadcast of each part). Part 1 incl. "Prologue: The Plame Affair" (chap. 1) and "Epilogue: 'Plamegate'" (chap. 8).
• The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Put the White House on Trial and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir, by Joseph Wilson: website featuring excerpts from the book, interviews, and reviews, a news archive, and "Bibliography", with hyperlinks. Copyright © 2004, Carroll & Graf Publishers & Joseph Wilson.
• Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's official Web site.
• Documents From The Trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

See also

• CIA leak grand jury investigation
• Plame affair criminal investigation
• Plame affair legal questions
• Plame affair timeline
• United States Intelligence Community
• United States v. Libby
• Yellowcake forgery