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What is the latest on Joseph Wilson, his wife and CIA agent Valerie Plame, and the leaking of her identity?  Why were Wilson's views threatening?  
How was Karl Rove involved?  What did the President know?  
What did Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald conclude?  How does Libby's trial enlighten us?

The pre-war intelligence issue, simmering for months, hit the headlines in July 2003. 

Joseph Wilson told columnist Nicholas Kristof about his trip.  Kristof's May 6, 2003 column told of Wilson's conclusions but did not mention him by name. The column obviously got the attention of Cheney and his aides

In March before the war, the UN's IAEA called the Niger documents a crude forgery. The administration only admitted the mistake one day after the Joseph Wilson op-ed piece ran in the New York Times on July 6, 2003. Wilson, asked by Cheney or the CIA to investigate the charges in February 2002,  traveled to Niger.  Wilson concluded the charges were baseless, included obvious forgeries,  and reported back to the CIA, who sent a memo to the White House summarizing Wilson's findings.

Wilson was thus shocked to learn that the White House, Rice, and Cheney claim they did not know of his results.  Wilson's oral report to the CIA turned into a 1 1/2 page CIA intelligence memo for the White House and the NSC.  

On CNN, NSA's Rice said that neither she nor Cheney knew that Wilson was sent to Niger." (Tribune, 7/14/03).  Who is lying? Wilson concluded, "Based on my experience with the administration in the month leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq' nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."  

It was also revealed by the Washington Post that the U.S. had copies of the forged Niger documents three months before the State of the Union message. Rice's assistant Stephen Hadley appeared to drop the ball, it seemed, unless Rice was clearly lying.  Indeed, on July 23 Hadley admitted his error.  CIA assistant Alan Foley says he tried to get the line dropped from the speech. Five weeks after the original State of the Union speech the claim was not withdrawn when UN IAEA direct El Baradei announced that the uranium claim was based on fake documents.  Instead, we went to war days later. 

On July 11, The Tribune headline blared, "[George] Tenet takes blame for false claim", with CIA head Tenet saying, "Those 16 words should never have been" in the speech...It was a mistake...I am responsible." The President accepted Tenet's blame, saying the speech was cleared by the CIA and that pre-war intelligence was "darn good." The President also expressed full confidence in his CIA director. Some detailed background on the uranium story is written by The New York Times on July 12. Yet a few days later Tenet said he didn't know about the uranium claim. 

Before Wilson's article, NPR reported on July 4 that the majority of Americans recently polled in a University of Maryland study  felt that the administration "stretched the truth."

Someone in the White House leaked Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame, to the Washington Post's Robert Novak (at left) on July 14.  Attorney General Ashcroft eventually started on investigation, three days after a September CIA study told the Justice Department that a law was broken and the CIA sought an investigation. Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and is it a felony to disclose this information.

Asked 27-year CIA veteran Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Officers for Sanity, "Has one of [the White House] senior officials committed a felony, endangered lives, and vitiated the ability of a senior intelligence official to use her net of agents to acquire critical information on WMD?...Recall that when it was announced that the Justice department would investigate it was made clear that the formal order requiring administration officials to save all relevant documents would come a day or two later.  Imagine the heat rising from eh shredder machines that weekend.  And recall how the white House counsel then insisted on reviewing all documents before they could be given to the Justice department."
http://www.commondreams.org/scriptfiles/views03/1231-15.htm

We learned a few weeks later that Fitzgerald was using a grant jury.  Could someone have leaked the name not knowing it was a crime?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A47860-2004Jan1?language=printer

In April 2004 the Wilson wife story re-surfaced in the New York Times as the inquiry was said to have expanded.
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/0402-06.htm

The Wilson story continued into later that month with the release of Wilson's book The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led To War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity--A Diplomat's Memoir.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/politics/30LEAK.html?pagewanted=print&position=

In the lead-up to Bush's November re-election, the story rarely surfaced. 

However, in May 2005 it was learned that Washington Post reporters were being interviewed, perhaps suggesting that the probe in winding down. As the probe continued into June, President Bush sought advise from a private lawyer.  The New York Times  reported that Cheney was interviewed about the leak.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/05/politics/05LEAK.html?pagewanted=print&position=  

The President said he "wanted to get to the bottom of it" and would fire any leaker.  He added, "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.  And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." Back in October 2003 Bush said, "I mean this is a town full of people who like to lead information.  And I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration officials.  Now, this is a large administration, and there's lots of senior officials.  iI don't have any idea."

The previous spokeswoman, Ari Fleischer, resigned in July 2003.  A phone log determined that he received a call from Novak the day after Wilson's op-ed.

Returning to the news again in July 2005, was this case of the outing of of a CIA agent.  (See "Was the War Inevitable?", for pre-war background on the President's allegations) Readers of this web site might recall that a few months after the war began, Joseph Wilson (with wife at left) published an op-ed piece in the New York Times in which he described his mission to Africa to see if Iraq was purchasing material that could be used in a nuclear weapons program.  In 2005 Wilson spoke of "the web of lies" which led up to the war and "a war undertaken under false pretenses." He realizes that "this [cover-up and pre-war allegations] is a long educational process."

Wilson had been sent in 2002 (before the war) by the CIA after Cheney expressed interest in the possible Niger connection.   Cheney, got the ball rolling on Wilson's original trip after he was intrigued by a February 2002 Defense Intelligence Agency report on yellowcake uranium and Niger. After Wilson returned, he concluded that there was no such evidence of Iraq attempts to buy uranium from Niger and that the President was wrong in a pre-war State of the Union speech hyping the threat of Iraq.  After the op-ed piece of July 6, 2003, veteran reporter Robert Novak said two high level administration sources told him that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent.  In essence, she was "outed"; her career ended.  There is disagreement as to how "covert" her job war.  Ironically, Plame's work was to limit proliferation of WMD. How could this hurt our national security? Any relationships and sources were destroyed and even their lives could be at risk with her outing.  Logic would tell us that the administration sources were trying to penalize Wilson, ruin his wife's career, and scare future critics of the war. 

Why was Plame's CIA cover leaked?  A lengthy Times reported of July 23 states the obvious:  "The goals were clear:  Shield President Bush from responsibility for dubious prewar weapons claims, and distance the vice president from Mr. Wilson's journey... which Mr. Cheney's aides say he knew nothing about."  I would add that they wanted to make clear that Wilson only got the job because of his wife and that Cheney never saw Wilson's reports. 

Who gave Plame's name to Novak?  Was it only to intimidate Wilson or other whistle blowers?  A grand jury was finally formed to try to answer these questions.  For more details on Wilson and the State of The Union, see pre-war Iraq FAQ, "Was the War Inevitable?"

Who would have leaked the CIA agent's name?  My best guess in 2003 was Lewis (Scooter) Libby, chief assistant to Cheney.  It was Cheney confident nuclear claims before the war that were most hurt by Wilson's conclusions.  So, not surprisingly, Libby was named by Time Magazine's Matthew Cooper as his second source.  His first was Karl Rove. Libby was a student at Yale of neocon leader Paul Wolfowitz and worked for an assertive foreign policy in the 1990s. He joined that PNAC. Then, in 2001, Cheney lured Libby to the White House from his $535/hour law practice. See more on Libby below.

In July, a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller (at left), was jailed for not disclosing her source in the story.  Progressive chat rooms and Air America Radio were later joined by the Times in suggested that valuable White House political adviser Karl Rove was somehow involved in the disclosure, which could result in a prison sentence, according to the 1982 law, which the first President Bush urge be passed.  By law, the revealing must be deliberate and he must have known she was covert CIA. The law was prompted by the 1975 assassination of the CIA station chief in Athens who had been earlier identified. "The most insidious of traitors" was how the first President Bush termed anyone who would out a covert agent.

A reaction from the Times editorial, whose reporter, Miller, was still in prison, came on July 13, 2005:  "Far be it for us to denounce leaks...But it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary."  

After 3-4 days buried or absent from the mainstream press, the Rove/Plame connection hit the Tribune and other papers on July 11-12. By the afternoon of July 12 there were calls from Democrats that Bush fire Rove. The President's spokesman would not answer questions due to the "ongoing investigation." 

The July 15 Times ran a front-page story from a well-placed  unnamed source that Rove had merely confirmed to Novak that Wilson's wife had a role in getting him the job to Niger. This same source told the Times that Rove did not know Ms. Wilson's name nor that she was a covert officer.  This begs the question, who else leaked?

On July 19, with the CIA leak story not going away, President Bush announced his choice for the Supreme Court. 

On July 21 we learned of a secret memo which the State Department wrote for Colin Powell in June of 2003 and delivered to him on July 7.  Seven days later Novak's column outed Plame.  The State Department had strong doubts about the administration's Niger/uranium claims.   Powell  brought it on Air Force One during the President's trip to Africa in July 2003.

Most of the memo is not about Plame. The classified memo marked "S" for Secret on the paragraph concerning Plame.  According to Walter Pincus of the Post, this was "a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified." The Post reporter told of the Wall Street Journal story that the "memo mad it clear that information about Wilson' wife was sensitive and should not be shared." 

Yet Pincus points out that his sources conclude that the memo did not describe her status as covert...The memo may be important to answering three central questions..: Who in the Bush administration knew about Plame's CIA role?  Did they know the agency was trying to protect her identity?  And, who leaked it to the media?"  I wonder if one of the sources for the Pincus article could be Powell himself. 

Reaction to the Wilson/Plame/Rove story was strong in mid-July of 2005.  When Miller was jailed in early July, her paper, the New York Times, wrote in their only and length editorial of the day of their original editorial when Novak first broke Plame's cover:  Those guilty of the leak were evidence of "an egregious abuse of power."  

Republicans tended to defend Rove, sometimes by "attacking the messenger."   Commented Senator Bond (R-Mo), "Joe Wilson has perpetuated one of the greatest political hoax [of ] all times." A few days later Republican Nation Committee chair Ken Mehlam spoke on Meet The Press  of a "smear campaign":  "It's wrong, it's outrageous, and folks involved in this, frankly, owe Karl Rove an apology."  

Among Democrats, a shorter reaction came from John Kerry:  "The problem is that, instead of protecting the American people from real threats to our security, this Administration spends its time protecting Karl Rove."  Added the Senate majority leader  Reid, "I trust [The President] will follow thorough on this pledge [to fire any leaker]"  

One piece, from the Times Frank Rich, opened with a reference to John Dean's book Worse Than Watergate.  Though some saw the 2004 book as an election year politicization, Rich points out the "no one instigated a war on phony premises.  this is worse than Watergate."  Rich recalls the State of the Union, El Baradei, the Tenet retraction.  But he adds that Judy Miller's front-page stories of aluminum tubes helped trump up the allegations.

"But red-hot uranium was sexy, and it was Mr. Wilson' flat refutation of it that drove [Rove] administration officials to seek their revenge...the pettiness of this retribution shows just how successfully Mr. Wilson hit the administration's jugular:  his revelation threatened the legitimacy of the war on which both the president's reputation  and re-election campaign had been staked."

Turning to the Watergate parallels, Rich writes that "there was even greater incentive to smear Mr. Wilson than Mr. Ellsberg [of Watergate era].  Nixon compounded the Vietnam War but didn't start it.  The war in Iraq, by contrast, is Mr. Bush's invention....The Bush administration at first tried to buy the while Wilson affair by investigating itself.."  He wonders if special prosecutor Fitzgerald is investigating perjury or obstruction of justice.  "If so, it would mean the Bush administration was too arrogant to heed the most basic lesson of Watergate:  the cover-up is worse than the crime." 

Rich's follow up piece "Follow the Uranium" followed on July 17.  We suggests that we shouldn't get hung up with Rove, Wilson, and the Cooper email, but look for the "main plot...about Iraq, not Niger.  The real victim are the American people, not the Wilsons.  the real culprit--the big enchilada, to borrow a 1873 John Erhlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes--is not Mr. rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11.  That's why the stakes are so high. Rich's long op-ed went back to the fall of 2002 when the National Intelligence Estimate was sent to Congress "as it deliberated authorizing war, included the State Department's caveat that 'claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa' made public in a British dossier, were 'highly dubious.'  A CIA assessment, sent to the White House that month, determined that 'the evidence is weak' and 'the Africa story is overblown."  

Rich then looks back to the pre and post war changes, and to the forged Niger documents, pointed out by UN's Baradei, which were ignored just days before the war.  "The administration's apocalyptic uranium rhetoric, sprinkled with mushroom clouds, had been hammered incessantly for more that five months by then--not merely in the Stat of the Union address--and could not be dislodged...Once we were locked into the war, and no WMD's could be found, the original plot line was dropped with an alacrity that recalled the "never mind!' with which Gilda Radner's Emily Litella used to end her misinformed Weekend Update commentaries on 'Saturday Night Live.' The administration began its dog-ate-my-homework cover-up , asserting that the various warning sign about the uranium claims were lost ' in the bowels' of the bureaucracy or that it was all the CIA's fault or that it didn't matter anyway, because there were new, retroactive rationales to justify the war.  But the administration knows how guilty it is.  That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradict it story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke."

Rich concludes, "seasoned audience of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainly ahead; the timing of a Karl Rove resignation.  As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it's essential to protect the king."

Paul Krugman added to the mid-July noise on Rove and the leak with his "Karl Rove's America" (7/15/05): "Read the before-and-after columns by pro-administration pundits about Iraq:  before the war they castigated the CIA for understating the threat posed by Saddam's WMD; after the war they castigated the CIA for exaggerating the very same threat.

"Mr. Rove also understands, better than anyone else in American politics, the power of smear tactics...I don't know whether Mr. Rove can be convicted of a crime, but there's no question that he damaged national security for partisan advantage.  If a Democrat had done that, Republican would call it treason."  Krugman concludes that President Bush "obviously made no attempt to find out if he was the leaker."

Krugman colleague John Tierney countered on the same op-ed pages, "For now...it looks as if this scandal is about a spy who was not endangered, a whistle-blower who did not blow the whistle and was not smeared and a White House official who has not been fired for a felony that he no commit.  And so far the only victim is a reporter who did not write a story about it." (7/16/05). 

In the Washington Post came David Ignatius piece entitled "Summer Stonewall" (7/20/05).  He notes ABC polls that show 71% of Republicans feel that Rove should be fired.  "In place of accountably, the Bush White House has embraced the3 three-pronged strategy of attack, attack, attack."  Ignatius calls this the "trash the enemy" strategy. 

Reaction in editorials included July 16 in the "paper of record" concluded another lead editorial on the CIA lead with a sense of the bigger picture:  "What really bothered Mr. Rove was Mr. Wilson's view that the administration had deliberately twisted the intelligence on Iraq and that Mr. Bush had misled American about the need for war. We don't know whether top officials heard about Mr. Wilson's finding add ignored them, or whether the finding never reached the upper levels--at the time, dissenting views on Iraq were not getting much of an airing in the administration.  There's a lot we don't know about the case."

Would the growing scandal of mid-July get a "Gate" name?  Some suggests heard were: Rovegate, Traitorgate, and Plamegate. The Houston Chronicle feels the press is overreacting and they term the situation "Rove Rage." 

Also see more Op-Ed views on Iraq in general, from the Post-Saddam era.

In July 2005 it was not clear that the leak or the false pre-war evidence would lead to a scandal, but one is reminded of recent second term scandals that hurt other Presidents over the past 30 years:  In all cases, the scandal began before re-election but surfaced during the second term:

There were even rumors, which I didn't believe, that Vice-President Cheney would resign and be replaced by Condi Rice.

The grand jury was set to complete their work in the next few weeks.  Rumors flew that Karl Rove might be indicted, as Fitzgerald's grand jury was to be done with their work in the next few weeks. By mid-October the "Plamegate",  "Rovegate" or "Treasongate was back on the front pages.  What would Fitzgerald conclude?  The day after Harriet Meirs withdrew her nomination to the Supreme Court and the Chicago White Sox won the world series, the nation and the White House waited.  We waited...and expected word on Friday, October 28.

Rove was apparently indicted on October 28, but that investigation is continuing. In addition, The FBI is investigating the crude Niger nuclear document forgery, originally obtained from Italy. 

Reaction to the Libby indictment was by far the top news story of the pre-Halloween weekend.  Most media complemented Fitzgerald on his work.  Some thought the indictment did not go far enough and wondered if Rove would be next.

In mid-November Bob Woodward, of Watergate fame, and "perhaps the nations' single most famous reporter" announced that he had just testified before the Grand Jury and that he had been told weeks about Plame's job at the CIA about one months before Novak went public.  He said the source told him in an offhanded way so that the information did not appear classified. Who told Woodward?  Journalists struggled to guess.

Watergate historians might ask, "Who was Woodward's 'Deep Throat'"? Many of those with access to the information were asked specifically in the week before Thanksgiving by reporters of they were the White House leaker to Woodward.  Most specifically denied.  Some issued no comment.  Does "no comment" make them more suspect? The most well known initial "suspects" were Cheney, Powell, Rive, Libby, and their aides. As of mid-November, we still don't know who first told Novak. 

Woodward, we learned, apologized to the Post for concealing his information for two years.  He had made statements about the leak in 2005 on Fresh Air, Larry King Live, and Meet The Press 

The Woodward bombshell led Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald to ask for a new Grand Jury. 

In mid-March 2006, it was alleged that former Powell assistant at State, Richard Armitage told Woodward of Plame, perhaps even before Novak found out from his White House source. 

The Post also has a special with graphics and background articles, "Background on the Plame Investigation."

Who forged the yellow cake documents?  We know the forgeries were crude.  We know they were passed through Italy.  The FBI continued its investigation into December. 

In February 2006, we learned that Libby's trial would not begin until January 2007, after the November 2006 Congressional elections.  Libby admitted that his "superiors" gave him permission to tell the press about secret information, according to reports published on Feb. 10.   He evidently told a grand jury about the classified NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) of October 2002, which he told reporters about after the war began. 

There was little Libby et all news until April 6, when Libby testified in pre-trial procedures that Bush OK'd the leak.   There was no immediate reaction from the White House.  Sen. Shumer feels Bush and Cheney need to "clear the air" on this issue. After a day the White House admitted, but defended, the President's actions in trying to get the public information they needed. "I wanted people to know the truth", but actually the parts of the NIE that Libby discussed with reporters with not accurate reports of what NIE actually concluded.

Wilson's op-ed of 2003, we have learned from Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald, was viewed at Cheney's office "as a direct attack on the credibility" of Cheney (and Bush) "on a matter of signal importance:  the rationale for the war in Iraq."  Added the Fitzgerald filing, "Disclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson's wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the vice president had done so, while at the same time undercutting Mr. Wilson's credibility if Mr. Wilson were perceived to have received the assignment on account of nepotism."

Libby told special prosecutor Fitzgerald that he was unsure if he had the authority to reveal such classified information.  Miller did not write about the NIE after Libby spoke with her.  However, after Libby gained authority to speak with Judith Miller, her notes show that they also discussed Wilson's wife, Plame.  We do not yet know for certain whether Bush or Cheney specifically gave Libby permission or urged him to "out" Plame, a CIA operative. It appears amazingly obvious that Cheney was behind the outing of Plame, if not the President himself.  both is not accused by Fitzgerald of doing anything illegal. What of Karl Rove?

The New York Times leading editorial of April 7 confirms that "officials may well have known" that selected bits of information "to be false.  It's not even clear that Mr. Bush can legally declassify intelligence at whim."  Tenet told Cheney that the Niger uranium story was no good but Cheney "continued to peddle the Niger fairy tale to the public." 

The Chicago Tribune's editorial of April 11 was it's harshest against the administration in at least months.  Entitled, "Answers, Mr. Cheney" the paper which twice endorsed Bush feels Cheney should hold an open news conference because remaining silent suggest that he "or the president has something to hide."  The editorial reminded us that Cheney instructed Libby to tell Miller that a key finding of the 2002 intelligence was that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium from Africa.  However, that is not what the intelligence concluded.  

"Someone is lying.  It could be that Libby acted on his own" or that "Cheney told him to do so without the president's approval...Why would someone in the white House want to perpetuate this sort of deception?"  One explanation is because WMD were not found and another is that it was part of what Fitzgerald calls "a concerted action to discredit, punish or seek revenge" against Wilson.

The Chicago paper concludes, "Bush was well within his authority to declassify the report.  But for anyone in the administration to misrepresent ins conclusion, particularly if the motive was to punish a critic, is an abuse of the public trust on a subject of the gravest urgency--the decision to go to war."

Republican Senator Specter, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, feels that Bush and Cheney should "explain" the CIA lead.  The House Intelligence Committee issued a report in March expressing concern that leaking intelligence information "cost untold million of dollars in list intelligence collection capabilities...literally puts lives in jeopardy, and makes the work [of intelligence] more difficult."

We learned in May that Cheney wrote detailed notations on the original Wilson article from July 2003.  The Vice-President wrote, "Have they done this sort of thing before/  Send an Amb. to assess a question?  Do we normally send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket."  Obviously, Cheney already knew that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.  

Maureen Dowd concluded her April 8 column thusly:  "If W. wants the information out, it's good for the county to make it public.  If W. doesn't want the information out, it's bad the for the county to make it public.  L'etat, c'est moi. That's how we go mired in the Iraq war in the first place.  The administration ruthlessly held back classified information that contradicted its bogus case for war, and leaked classified information that supported it.  L'etat, c'est mess."

Despite the President's attempt to spin the latest leak news and to confuse the NIE with Plame (she is not mentioned in the NIE), 63% of Americans believe the President did something illegal or unethical. 

Rove's job changed in mid-April, 2006.  His role shrunk and he went back to the Grand Jury for a fifth time.  Rove continued as deputy chief of staff and senior adviser but will have less daily control and work more on the November campaign. 

What was Valerie Plame Wilson's job at the CIA?  The Wilson/Plame/Rove news of May 2006 was that Plame, when she was outed in 2003, was actually researching Iran's nuclear program.  MSNBC reporter David Shuster, on "Hardball" alleged  that her outing damaged US efforts to learn about Iran's nuclear program. That is, US national security was harmed. For much more on Iran, see "Next" FAQ.

In mid June it was announce that Karl Rove would not be indicted. This was a great relief to the President. Libby's trial is set to begin in January 2007, after the November Congressional elections

Columnist David Brooks reacted in August to the Plame case. The scandal no longer seemed "politically useful" to Democrats and many in DC had become "indifferent" after a "wild ride of speculation" about Rove and Bush and Cheney.

The surprising front page news of early September 2006, was that the first of two leakers was actually Powell's assistant at State, Richard Armitage. He is not considered an ally of Cheney, but an assistant at State to Powell. In fact, Fitzgerald knew for months (since Oct. 2003) that Armitage was the original leaker, but kept the investigation open for two years. Armitage probably learned of Plame through a memo from Cheney's assistant, Scooter Libby. Armitage said he gave the name to the press by mistake and prepared a resignation letter when he realized what he had done. However, he stayed on because "his sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the leak," according to the Times.

Reaction to the Armitage leak news was varied. The press dropped that ball, seeming to think that one of the two leakers had been found, so the case was closed. Some, like David Broder thought the investigation was a waste of time and that Rove was owed an apology. Others felt that since there was a second leaker, Armitage's news didn't change much. Steve Chapman feels that the White House strategy could still have been to discredit Wilson. "That Armitage was guilty of carelessness does not mean Libby is innocent of malice. Libby told the Times weeks before Armitage told Novak. Chapman concludes that "the bulk of the evidence indicates that people high up in the White House did seek to punish Wilson by unmasking his wife, and that the vice president's chief of staff did his best to conceal this effort from the special persecutor."

The Times editorial page (9/6/06) still felt it was "Time for Answers" because we have not answered "the central question in the investigation--whether there was an organized attempt by the White House to use Mrs. Wilson to discredit or punish" her husband." Armitage "would be an odd participant in such a plot." They wonder who is the second leaker Novak refered to. "It's time for [Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald] to provide answers or admit that this investigation has run its course."

Robert Novak himself spoke out in a September 14 Washington Post op-ed, in which he desired to "set the record straight."

The Wilson/CIA/Libby story left much of the press in October and November, only to return in December 2006 which the approaching of Libby's trial. Some sources speculated that Cheney might testify at the trial, scheduled to start on Jan. 16. Cheney would testify under and be cross-examined. He would be the first modern VP to appear as a witness in a criminal trial. One topic will be whether there was a deliberate plan to disclose Plame's identity. The trial was to begin one week after President Bush's "surge" speech. Libby was charged on five counts of perjury. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald alleges, that he "knowingly and intentionally lied." He also suggested a White House effort to punish Wilson by outing his wife.

During the week of January 15, 2007 came the jury selection for the long-awaited Libby perjury trial. Though he was being tried on perjury, the public was hoping to learn more clearly what would have motivated him to lie? Libby would claim that misremembered but never knowlingly lied. Libby was busy was an arrary of issues. He admitted being told about Plame by Cheney but then fogetting. The trial made the front page of the Times on its first and second day. Libby's lawyer, Ted Wells, surprised us by going after Karl Rove. Libby felt like a scapegoat for CIA incompetence and to protect Rove, needed for Bush's 2004 re-election. Rove has admitted being a second source for columnist Novak, but Rove is facing no charges (see above).

A fifth witness was former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. He testified that the only time Libby asked to have lunch with him was during his last week in the White House. Libby told Fleischer about Wilson's wife working at the CIA but that it was "hush-hush, on the Q.T." according to the former spokesman, who has been granted immunity. This was three days before Libby claimed he learned of Plame from a journalist.

Libby and Cheney wanted to emphasize that Cheney had not sent Wilson but rather Wilson's wife was the one who got him the "position". This would partly get Cheney off the hook for knowing about Wilson's conclusions but hyping the nuclear "evidence" anyway.

As the prosecution finished questioning its witnesses in after about two weeks, their case was that Libby lied about being informed by Tim Russert about Plame's identity. Though Libby admits Cheney told him earlier, he says he forgot and thus was surprised when Russert told him on July 10 or 11, 2003. Numerous witnesses testified that Libby had not only told them about Plame before he spoke with Russert but that the issue seemed of paramount importance to Libby. Those witnesses included journalists, Cheney's former spokesman, and officials at State and the CIA. Additionally, Russert says he couldn't have told Libby because he didn't know about Plame until the Post article by Novak identified her.

"Most strikingly" describes a New York Times report, was testimony that "Mr. Cheney cleared with President Bush the secret declassification of an intelligence document on Iraqi weapons so that it could be leaked to a reporter he and Mr. Libby saw as friendly, Judith Miller, then of The Times." In Grand Jury testimony, the jury heard Libby say, that Cheney "dictated to me what he wnated me to say to the press" including a "word-for-word" quote to Time magazine

Reaction to the trial came from many, including Frank Rich in the Sunday Times. "Why Dick Cheney Cracked Up" explains the deep concerns of the Vice President over Wilson's allegations. Cheney "understands the danger this trial poses to the White House, despite Bob Woodward's prediction in 2005 that "When all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great." In fairness, Rich feels that the White House is telling the truth that Cheney didn't send Wilson, but this is a "red herring" because Wilson did not allege such, although my research shows that Wilson suggested it was possible. Yet, Rich wonders why the administration continues to act as if it has something to hide. "The explanation for the hysteria has long been obvious. The White House was terrified about being found guilty of a far greater crime than outing a CIA officer: lying to the nation to hype its case for war...They knew Mr. Wilson's modest finding in AFrica was the tip of the iceberb...By my count we now know of at least a half-dozen instances before the start of the Iraq war where carious intelligence agencies and others signaled that evidence of Iraq's purchase of uranium in AFrica might be dubious or fabricated...The culmination of these warnings arrived in January 2003," before the State of the Union. The National Intelligence Council, "the coordinating body for all AMerican spy agencies" stated that the claims were baseless. Rich points out that if the war "had been a cakewalk, few would have cared to investigate the administration's deceit at its inception." But it was "urgent" that Wilson be "smeared as an inconsequential has-been whose mission was merely a trivial boondoggle arranged by his wife...Libby actually was--and still is--a stooge for the vice president."

The defense witnesses took the stand during the week of Valentine's Day. Other journalists who Libby talked to in July of 2003 testified that Libby did not tell them of Plame's identity.

After just 1-2 days, Libby's defense rested its case. Neither Cheney nor Libby were called to testify, despite previous assumptions that Cheney would appear in court. In a front page Times story, the judge was disappointed with the defense seeming to promise that Libby would testify. Judge Walton "expressed in the strongest terms" that he had been misled.

As we awaited for the closing arguments from both sides, a Times report tried to put together what more we know about Wilson, Libby, and Cheney. Wilson said Cheney was interested in learning more about the Niger connection. Cheney claims he didn't send Wilson, didn't know he went, and didn't hear of his report. Wouldn't Cheney have been acutely interested in Wilson's findings, given his WMD interest? Wilson said he reported his findings to the CIA and State. Cheney and Libby asked in a "hush hush" manner to have certain CIA information declassfiied, without the CIA knowing, so they could counter Wilson's charges. Libby became frustrated that Chris Mathews continued to asert that Cheney had sent Wilson to Niger.

Closing arguments came on Feb. 21, with the defense pleading, "Don't sacrifice Libby over a war." Libby, it was argued, did not have time to pay attention to the Wilson issue...It's not easy going before a grand jury. If he got something wrong during eight hours of testimony, it's understandable What witness came in here and didn't get something wrong.?"

The prosecution, led by Fitzgerald, responded, "Mr. Libby had a motive to lie and the motive matches up exactly with the lie he told. He made up a story and stuck to it...He made a gamble , he threw sand in the eyes of the grand jury" rather the tell the truth and risk being prosecuted.."He claims he forgot nine conversations with eight people over a four-week period." Fitzgerald feels the perjury cannot be tolerated because "the truth is what drives our judicial system."

As the jury was out on Libby, the press continued to analyze the case and the broader issue of the use of pre-war intelligence. Though it had seemed like a closed question in all my readings, the issue came up as the whether Plame was covert or not. Was her cover really "blown." "Covert question, open controversy", is how one Post commentary labels the issue in late February.

After four years of investigation, a long trial, and 10 days of deliberations, the jury found Libby quilty on four counts, and not guilty of one count. The counts included obstruction of justice and perjury. The assistant to the Vice President is the highest-ranking White House official to be convicted of a felony since the Iran-Contra scandals of the 1980s under President Reagan. The lead story from the Post on March 6 was that the verdict "deals a blow to the Bush administration." The Times lead article summarized the impact of the entire inquiry as raising "fundamental questions about the reason for invading Iraq, exposed some of the unseen influence of Mr. Cheney's office and changed the landscape of relations between journalists and official sources." This last point was partly a reference to the jailing of Times journalist Judith Miller.

The paper added, "while the case never quite got into the Oval Office, it seemed to go right to the door." For example, Libby had testified that the President had secretly declassified crucial intelligence for Libby's use, upon request form Cheney, but without the knowledge of other officials. Bush never knew, we were told, what Libby would do with the information. Cheney and Libby were very close, often riding to work together in the same car. Fitzgerald's closing comments included, "There is a cloud over the Vice President." The Tribune headline focused on some jurors calling Libby "the fall guy." Others in the media suggested that Libby just the "puppet" and Cheney was pulling all the strings; Libby playing the role of "fall guy." With Libby described as "non-vindictive", why would he go after Wilson on his own?

"Verdict: He lied". The Tribune editorial feels the larger questions is "why did he lie?...We don't know. Top government officials "chose badly" and Americans "deserve to hear...the full story."

Cheney faces of civil suit brought by Joseph Wilson. Wilson feels that reporters had been used, according to the Times, "to deceive people about the reason for going to war and then to harm" his wife's career by blowing her cover. Mrs. Wilson's Mom didn't even know she was undercover.

One historian feels that the case "will deepen the impressions of someone who was a tremendous manipulator and was very defensive about mistakes."

Op-ed reaction to Libby's verdict came from the entire media, including "The Libby Verdict" from the Washington Post. The lead Times editorial emphasized that the verdict did not tell us "whether someone deliberately blew Valerie Plame Wilson's cover" but it did provide a look at "the methodical way that Mr. Cheney, Mr. Libby, Karl Rove and others in the Bush inner circle set out to discredit Ms. Wilson's husband." Looking with a larger lense, the "paper or record" feels the trial shows us "some of the clearest evidence yet that this administration did not get duped by faulty intelligence; at the very least, it cherry-picked and hyped intelligence to justify the war...What we sill do not know is whether a government official used Ms. Wilson's name despite knowing that she worked undercover."

Retired Times columnist Anthony Lewis returned to the op-ed pages following the Libby verdict. "Not All Sources Are Equal" examines the role of the press and leaks. "The government is always quick to claim that the national security sky will fall if a story is published. It did so, nororiously, in the Pentagon Papers case (during the Vietnam War). And judges are too often overawed by such claims.

Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor and expert on white collar crime, authored a Tribune op-ed (3/7/07) in which he wonders why nobody was ever charged with the leak. He feels that Fitzgerald could not prove an intentional leak of a covert agent. He fears that Libby was prosecuted for covering up action that was not a crime. "We will never know if he would have been charged if he had been more truthful." Fitzgerald asked for no leniency becuase Libby had shown to remorse for his crimes.

"Libbygate", came from Dave Lindorf, an advocate of Bush impeachment. The investigative journalist wonders if the trail (or trial) will lead to Cheney or Rove. Lindorf also comments on the forged documents from Italy which purported to show that Saddam Hussein was buying uranium from Niger. It turns out that before 9/11 there was a robbery of the Niger embassy in Rome. At this time the PNAC, with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby, and others, was actively urging an invasion of Iraq. The only person found guilty was a maid. Interestingly, she formerly worked in intelligence. What was stolen? Just Niger official stationary and stamps. These same stationary were used in the forged documents which were cited in the Prescient's State of the Union message before the war. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi presented these documents to Bush. Who was behind the robbery?

Should Libby be pardoned by President Bush? Though Libby plans to appeal, it is possible that the President will not wait that long. Conservative publications such as The Wall Street Journa, National Review, and The Weekly Standard pushed for the pardon as did Post columnist Charles Krauthammer. Cheney and Bush complemented Libby, with the VP saying, "Scooter has served our nation tirelessly and with great distincton through many years of public service." Senator leader Harry Reid urged Bush to promise not to issue a pardon. A pardon came up in early June, with commentary from John Dean, former council to President Nixon.

Plame testified for the first time, at a House committee a week after the Libby verdict. Though she shed little new light on the complicated case, Joseph Wilson's wife feels that motives for outing her here "purely political...I could no longer perform the work for which I had been highly trained." Replied Rep. Davis, the lone Republican to attend, "There's no evidence here that the people that were outing this and pursuing this had knowledge of the covert status." The White House was "reckless" and she felt "carelessly abused by senior government officials in both the White House and the State Department." Agency officials could be jeopardized as well as entire networks of foreign agents...Lives are literally at stake." Under questioning, Plame confirmed that she was undercover, making several secret trips in the past few years. Ironically, Plame worked on Iraqi nuclear proliferation issues. A Republican at the committee hearings said disclosing her identity was unintentional. Rep. Henry Waxman was the panel's chair. Bush had said he would fire anyone involved in the leak and Karl Rove has admitted to doing so. Plame also denied any nepotism in suggesting her husband for the Niger job, but hoped he would not take it so she could get support with her small children.

Why are these discussions talking place now, including Gonzalez under fire as Attorney General? Rep. Frank feels its because "we even know about" the issues. "They wouldn't have come to light otherwise, because Republicans protected this administration" in the past.

Plame's Fair Game was released in September, putting her back in the news. The title is Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. Wilson's wife ciritizes Bush's "arrogance and intolerance." She got the title from a top Bush official who said at one point after Wilson's origininal article, "She is fair game."

Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison on June 5. He had lied to federal investigators. The former Cheney chief of staff was also fined $250,000. Libby's lawyers promise to appeal though the President may offer a pardon.

Most media seemed to applaud the fact that Libby was going to jail. As Prosecutor Fitzgerald had said, Lying is "like throwing dirt in the umpires eyes; he can no longer make any fair calls." One op-ed piece called for "neither prison nor pardon."
Matthew Rothschild feels that Libby will soon be pardoned.

In early July, Bush pardoned Libby, commuting his jail sentence of 30 months. Reaction was mostly negative among Americans, with columnists and editorials having strong views on both sides.

After Libby was pardoned, we hardly heard a word about Wilson, Plame, or Libby. This changed in mid-November when former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says that Bush and Cheney gave him misinformation about the leak. McClellan new book, out in November, is What Happened. The Press Secretary writes that he unintentionally misled the public about the leak of Plame. He had told reporters at the time that Karl Rove and Libby were not involved in the leak. "There was one problem. It was not true...five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself." Plame's reaction to the story was outrage. "I am outraged to learn that...McClellan confirms that he was sent out to lie to the press corps." Did the President know it wasn't true? Bush has said since July that the case is closed and it is "time to move on."

In mid-December, Libby dropped his appeal, thus, unless he gets a full pardon from Bush, will remain convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. His probation will last until 2009. Libby's lawyer continued to "remain convinced of Mr. Libby's innocence" but Joseph Wilson disagrees. "Mr. Libby has finally abandoned the pretense that his conviction was a miscarriage of justice.'

Less than a month went by before Wilson and Plame were back in the news. The White House has gaps in their email archives. Rep. Henry Waxman concluded that these gaps coincide with late 2003 and early 2004 when the administration "was dealing with the CIA leak investigation" and the possible Congressional probe.

Cheney was upset that Libby was not pardoned, we learned in February. Libby did not do jail time but Cheney spent his last days as VP "making a furious last-ditch effort" to have Bush pardon Libby. This had become a nearly solitary goal of the Vice President.

Robert Novak died in August 2009, so the Plame leak resurfaced. Known by some as "The Prince of Darkness," Novak wrote a column, "Inside Report," with Rowland Evans for decades. After Evans' death, Novak had uncanny access to many administrations and was "one of the first personalities" to emerge on cable TV. Careful readers of this page will recall that Novak named Plame in a July 2004 column as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Federal law prohibits the disclosure of the identities of CIA officers in some circumstances. Libby, Cheney's assistant was convicted not of this crime but of perjury. We eventually learned that Novak's sources were top political adviser Karl Rove and assistant Sec. of State Richard Armitage. Neither was charged with violating the law. Perhaps they would have been charged if Libby did not lie.

Also see related analysis at "Was the War Inevitable?" FAQ section and see "US Politics '06" FAQ. The Post also has a special with graphics and about 20 background articles, "Background on the Plame Investigation."