The Times' Cryptic Clues in the CIA Leak Investigation

The other day, as Tom Maguire noted, an article in the New York Times about the CIA leak investigation ended with a seemingly random line. Reporters David Johnston and Richard Stevenson wrote:

Officials who testified or were questioned by
investigators also included John Hannah,
Mr. Cheney's principal deputy national
security adviser.

The previous day, Raw Story had reported, citing anonymous sources, that Cheney aide John Hannah had agreed to cooperate with Fitzgerald's investigation after being threatened with indictment. As Maguire put it, by including this sentence, the Times was giving "the John Hannah story a whiff of oxygen, in their own endearing and cryptic way."

Well, Richard Stevenson offers even more cryptic clues in today's Times story (this time sharing the byline with Douglas Jehl). Today's story ends with this seemingly irrelevant passage:

Mr. Libby was also part of the network of
Iraq hawks within the administration. He
is a protege of Mr. Wolfowitz, perhaps the
leading neoconservative in the administration
until he left to head the World Bank.
Mr. Libby's deputy, John Hannah, had close
ties to John R. Bolton, then the undersecretary
of state for arms control; David Wurmser, a
Bolton aide who later joined Mr. Cheney's
office; and Robert Joseph, then the senior
director for nonproliferation on the National
Security Council.

Mr. Bolton is now ambassador to the United
Nations, and Mr. Joseph has taken over as
undersecretary of state, where he has retained
as his executive assistant Frederick Fleitz, a
C.I.A. officer who had served as Mr. Bolton's
chief of staff. Some of those officials, including
Mr. Hannah and Mr. Joseph, have been
questioned in the leak case.

There are five names gratuitously cited in this passage, names that appear nowhere else in the story. How much do you want to bet that one of those five men is Bob Novak's original source? The reporters at the Times are clearly privy to a lot of information that, for whatever reason, they do not yet feel comfortable putting in print. They are very much plugged-in to the Beltway rumor mill, and they no doubt have strong suspicions regarding who the major players are in this investigation. I strongly suspect that in the paragraphs quoted above, Stevenson and Jehl are trying, however cryptically, to give careful readers hints as to who some of the key players in the leak investigation might be, and how they are connected to one another.

Patrick Fitzgerald has run a tight ship, with few if any leaks. That means that we have to take any speculation by the press corps regarding his intentions or the focus of his investigation with a grain of salt. The same is not necessarily true with regard to the names of the yet unidentified leaker or leakers, including Bob Novak's original source. If two administration officials really did leak Plame's identity to at least six reporters, then there are a number of reporters (and editors) at the major news outlets who know exactly who the culprits are. In other words, the rumors flying around the Beltway regarding the identity of these individuals may in fact be based on first-hand knowledge, and not simply speculation. My hunch, and I've said this before, is that the identity of Novak's source (and Walter Pincus' source) is a relatively open secret among the Washington press corps. It's possible that Stevenson and Jehl are trying, in their "endearing and cryptic way," to help readers narrow the field of possible suspects.

Bolton, Hannah, Wurmser, Joseph, and Fleitz. I'm guessing one of them is our man.