Woodward Comes out of the Woodwork
This is truly bizarre. The Washington Post is reporting that Bob Woodward has come forward and testified to Patrick Fitzgerald that a Bush administration official told him in early June 2003(more than a month before Bob Novak published his now infamous column) that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Watergate and Plamegate are now forever intertwined.
Woodward's mysterious source--who is apparently neither Karl Rove nor Scooter Libby--only recently told Fitzgerald about the conversation. That source (Deep Throat II?) agreed to release Woodward to testify. Woodward's full statement is here. He claims that he is not at liberty to identify his source publicly. He also claims that his source mentioned Wilson's wife in a casual way and did not indicate that she was a covert agent. Woodward also testified about subsequent conversations with two other administration officials (one of whom was Libby), but he does not remember speaking with either of them about Plame.
It's hard to even put into words how strange a development this is. Woodward has made countless appearances on talk shows where he has opined about various aspects of the Plame case and has never once even hinted at his central role in the affair. Contrast that with Woodward's colleague, Walter Pincus, who has admitted all along that he was told about Plame, but has kept his source's name confidential. Woodward could have been honest about what he knew without divulging the identity of his source (or he could have said nothing at all). Instead he weighed-in constantly about the case but kept the very existence of this highly relevant conversation a secret, even from his editors at the Post. This behavior strikes me as ethically questionable.
Stranger still, Woodward's conversation took place in early June, almost two weeks before Libby's June 23 conversation with Judith Miller. That makes Woodward the earliest known recipient of the Plame leak. Fitzgerald clearly knew nothing about this prior to Libby's indictment. In his press conference, Fitzgerald made it clear that Libby was the first administration official known by prosecutors to have discussed Plame with a reporter.
Obvious questions: Why did Woodward's source wait till after Libby was indicted to come forward? Had this mysterious official previously been questioned by Fitzgerald? If so, does this official now face a potential false statement or perjury charge for withholding this crucial information? Does this information hurt or help Libby, or neither? Stay tuned.
Woodward's mysterious source--who is apparently neither Karl Rove nor Scooter Libby--only recently told Fitzgerald about the conversation. That source (Deep Throat II?) agreed to release Woodward to testify. Woodward's full statement is here. He claims that he is not at liberty to identify his source publicly. He also claims that his source mentioned Wilson's wife in a casual way and did not indicate that she was a covert agent. Woodward also testified about subsequent conversations with two other administration officials (one of whom was Libby), but he does not remember speaking with either of them about Plame.
It's hard to even put into words how strange a development this is. Woodward has made countless appearances on talk shows where he has opined about various aspects of the Plame case and has never once even hinted at his central role in the affair. Contrast that with Woodward's colleague, Walter Pincus, who has admitted all along that he was told about Plame, but has kept his source's name confidential. Woodward could have been honest about what he knew without divulging the identity of his source (or he could have said nothing at all). Instead he weighed-in constantly about the case but kept the very existence of this highly relevant conversation a secret, even from his editors at the Post. This behavior strikes me as ethically questionable.
Stranger still, Woodward's conversation took place in early June, almost two weeks before Libby's June 23 conversation with Judith Miller. That makes Woodward the earliest known recipient of the Plame leak. Fitzgerald clearly knew nothing about this prior to Libby's indictment. In his press conference, Fitzgerald made it clear that Libby was the first administration official known by prosecutors to have discussed Plame with a reporter.
Obvious questions: Why did Woodward's source wait till after Libby was indicted to come forward? Had this mysterious official previously been questioned by Fitzgerald? If so, does this official now face a potential false statement or perjury charge for withholding this crucial information? Does this information hurt or help Libby, or neither? Stay tuned.
posted by A.L. at 12:38 AM
5 Comments:
Interesting, Wilson on Woodward last August.
Wilson: "Now, with respect to Woodward, the great irony in all of this is that, of course, Woodward was hanging around the White House and dealing with the most senior officials of our government for several years while he was writing his two books, the second of which was Plan of Attack, and you know, I think the question for Woodward once all is said and done is, ‘you were sniffing around there. You were talking to all of these people on a daily basis. You were basically taking their dictation, and you didn't sniff out a story? You didn't sniff out a story that might actually be rather important.’"
Additionally, I think the Woodward source could be Bush himself. Fitz went to Sharp, Bush's lawyer, right before the Indictment.
Sorry, meant to sign the above comment, Pollyusa
Does this information hurt or help Libby, or neither? Stay tuned.
After brief reflection, the only scenario under which I can see this hurting Libby is if Fitzgerald tosses this indictment and comes back with the full enchilada, misuse of classified information.
Otherwise, IMHO this ranges from bad to awful for Fitzgerald - if the goal of the defense is reasonable doubt, it should not be hard to convince people that Fitzgerald clearly missed key evidence.
Now, *IF* Libby was insande enough to swear up and down that the only reporter he talked to about this was Russert, maybe this is just a speedbump for Fitzgerald.
Bus assuming Liby was always vague on that (E.g., "OK, I remember Russert for sure, I can't name others but I bet there were some"), doesn't Fitzgerald's story look silly?
Libby can just say, "look, maybe Woodward asked me about it, and we both forgot; maybe some other reporter that eluded Fitzgerald's dragnet told me. But we know for sure that Fitzgerald missed people and evidence".
And get Andrea Mitchell in for questioning - her famous statement that folks covering the Wilson story knew about the wife is definitely back in play.
[Bonus nit-pick - the WaPo story leaves out a detail from the Woodward statement - he spoke by phone with Libby on June 23, then met on June 27. June 23 is Judy's day, conveniently enough. And how in the world did WH phone logs, sign-in sheets, and everything else miss Woodward?]
Tom Maguire
Wow, maybe he just wants to boost his book sales?
BTW, I added you to my blogroll today. HOW SPECIAL?!
I agree that this hurts Fitzgerald because he missed key evidence- but perhaps that was the point of Woodward's confidential source in the admin. not giving him a waiver until now. I think this stinks to high heaven quite frankly and it seems that many are suspicious of this 11th hour testimony.
I think this is more damaging to Fitz in the court of public opinion than in the court of law, although I realize they overlap. This new information seems to deal primarily with where in the chain libby was with respect to who recieved the info first but I dont see how it affects the underlying charges of perjury and obstruction. Does it really change the veracity of Libby's testimony that much?
And why did Woodward spend so much time publicly criticizing Fitz and the investigation and going out of his way to minimize the the leak itself? Looking back at his comments now, they seem almost bizarre- the type of comments one would expect from Limbaugh or Sean Hannity but not the managing editor of the WaPo, who also happened to not divulge that he was at the very center of the case.
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