On September 28, the same day the FBI investigation got under way,
Washington Post
reporter Mike Allen wrote that “before Novak’s column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson’s wife,” attributing this to a senior administration official. “Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge,” the official added. They were “wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they [the leaks] were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson’s credibility.”
Were these the same two officials who had leaked to Novak? To
Time
? Or were there four or more potential suspects? And instead of one journalist who received the leaks, they now had to consider at least seven–Novak plus six.
The next Monday, October 1, Novak weighed in again, claiming his role had been “distorted.” He seemed defensive about having compromised a covert agent and possibly damaging national security as well as having been a “pawn” of the administration, not to mention a second or even third choice to disseminate the leak of Plame’s identity. Without naming his sources, he elaborated in “The CIA Leak” on how he learned Plame’s identity:
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 counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of his 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.
Novak added yet another possible source: a CIA official who had confirmed her identity.
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.
The next day, the
New York Times
called for a vigorous and independent investigation of the leak:
As members of a profession that relies heavily on the willingness of government officials to defy their bosses and give the public vital information, we oppose “leak investigations” in principle. But that does not mean there can never be a circumstance in which leaks are wrong; the disclosure of troop movements in wartime is a clear example. . . .
If someone at the White House, perhaps acting with institutional sanction, revealed the name of a CIA operative to undermine the credibility of Mr. Wilson and thus stifle dissent over Iraq policy, that in itself would be a serious assault on free speech and an egregious abuse of power. In such a case, the blanket denial that Mr. Bush issued this week would put him dangerously close to the territory in which the cover-up eclipses the offense.
But short of a public confession, how can the source of a leak to the press be identified and convicted without testimony from journalists? As the newspaper responsible for the fabled Vietnam-era Pentagon papers case, and a party to numerous First Amendment cases, the
Times
surely recognized that Novak and any other reporters who were leaked Plame’s CIA status were witnesses to a potential crime. The Supreme Court ruled in a landmark 1972 case that the First Amendment does not prevent journalists from being compelled to testify before grand juries investigating crimes. In calling for an investigation and, if warranted, prosecution, the
Times
was helping make it inevitable that journalists would be subpoenaed to reveal both the identities of their sources and what those sources told them.
O
n October 1, John Dion, the head of the Justice Department’s counterespionage division, who was overseeing the Plame case, called Dave Szady, his counterpart at the FBI. Dion had just gotten a call from Will Taft, general counsel at the State Department, regarding Novak’s source. Szady sent Dion’s call to Eckenrode, and after speaking briefly, Eckenrode got an FBI car, picked up Dion at Justice, and headed straight for the Harry S. Truman State Department headquarters building, popularly known as Foggy Bottom. There was no time to lose. They went to the fifth floor, where Secretary of State Colin Powell and top officials had their offices.
A secretary showed them to Richard Armitage’s office, where they met his assistant. Shortly after Taft escorted Armitage in and Eckenrode and Dion rose to greet him. Armitage’s sheer physical presence made an impression; he reminded Eckenrode of General George Patton. About five-foot-ten and 250 pounds, he had a wide face, and a broad chest from weight lifting, his physique emphasized by his dark, well-tailored suit. A prominent Defense Department official under Ronald Reagan, Armitage was now deputy secretary of state, perhaps best known for having allegedly threatened to bomb Pakistan “back to the Stone Age” if President Pervez Musharraf didn’t support the United States in its post-9/11 war on terror. Though Armitage denied using those words, he acknowledged having such a conversation and was known in diplomatic circles for his sometimes blunt, profanity-peppered assertions.
After some pleasantries and small talk, Eckenrode asked, “What is it you’d like to tell us?”
Armitage said he’d never met with Novak before the summer, although Novak had tried to contact him many times. He’d basically told Novak to stop trying; he wasn’t interested in seeing or talking to him. But then he’d relented, and had his assistant schedule a meeting for July 8. “I didn’t think anything of it, until this morning,” he said, when he’d read Novak’s column in the
Washington Post
. It was the reference to a “long conversation,” with a “senior administration official,” he said, that jogged his memory, and made him worry that he might have been Novak’s source. The two had been talking about other things, primarily the appointment of Fran Townsend as a homeland security adviser to Bush. Townsend’s Democratic ties troubled Novak–she’d worked in the Clinton Justice Department and was close to former attorney general Janet Reno–and he wondered why someone whose loyalty was questionable would be named to a sensitive intelligence post. This was similar to Novak’s concerns about the choice of Wilson for the Niger mission, given that Wilson had also worked in the Clinton administration, and this may be why Novak shifted to the Wilson affair. Armitage had offered as a possible explanation that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA and had suggested sending him.
Armitage said he realized now that this might have been what inspired Novak’s column. He was so upset he had canceled a trip to Pakistan scheduled for that day. He’d gone to Powell that morning, told him what happened, and had tendered his resignation in writing. Powell had taken it, put it in his desk drawer, and called Taft, who recommended they contact the Justice Department. “I feel I failed my president and I failed my country,” Armitage said with a dramatic flourish. “What can I do to make amends?”
“How did you know about Wilson’s wife?” Eckenrode wanted to know.
“I read a memo,” Armitage said.
“What memo?”
Armitage was vague. “Something that was kicking around.” He said he didn’t really remember and couldn’t be more specific.
“Do you have a copy?”
“No.”
“Can you get one?”
Taft said he’d look for it.
Armitage stressed he didn’t know Plame was a covert agent. “I thought she was some kind of analyst,” he said. “I didn’t know she was an agent, covert or otherwise. I never mentioned her name. I just referred to her as Wilson’s wife.”
Eckenrode asked if Armitage or Taft had contacted the White House or told the president. Taft said he’d contacted White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, but only told him that the State Department had “relevant information” about the Plame leak. Given that the matter was under investigation, Gonzales had indicated he didn’t want to hear any more, and so Taft had said nothing further.
“Is there anything else we need to know to help us in this investigation?” Eckenrode asked.
“No, that’s it,” Armitage said.
The mystery of at least one of Novak’s sources was already solved, almost before the investigation had begun. Still, Eckenrode had misgivings. Why had Armitage suddenly scheduled a meeting with Novak if not to discredit Wilson? What was his motive? Perhaps it was to absolve Powell’s failure to heed Wilson’s warnings, although there was no evidence he was privy to them. Surely it wasn’t to protect Cheney, or even the president. Armitage and Powell, along with the State Department generally, had often been at odds with the vice president. And did Armitage really not know Plame’s status at the CIA? It was obviously in his interest to insist that he had no idea she was a covert agent, since a conviction under the statute requires “access to classified information that identifies a covert agent” and knowing that the United States is taking “affirmative measures” to conceal the agent’s covert status.
Afterward, Dion, Eckenrode, and other agents and lawyers met for a postmortem in a Justice Department conference room to map out their next steps. Obviously they’d need to interview Powell. Did this pose possible conflicts for the Justice Department? This was getting to a pretty high level, and might ultimately reach the vice president and even the president, who’d appointed Attorney General John Ashcroft. For now, they decided to postpone that discussion. If they concluded there was no case, they wouldn’t have to reach that issue. Eckenrode wanted to subpoena Novak right away, but the Justice lawyers were cool to the idea, as they had been in the Shelby investigation.
The next day, October 3, Eckenrode and his colleagues arrived at Wilson’s office on the first floor in a building near Georgetown. They waited in an area with his secretary, who indicated Wilson was in the midst of yet another press interview. After waiting nearly a half hour, they asked if she’d interrupt. They did have an appointment. But just then the door opened and a television crew emerged with their cameras and equipment. Wilson was in an expansive mode and seemed to be basking in his sudden celebrity. His outrage over the outing of his wife seemed to be gaining steam, fueled by the mostly positive press he was getting. Wilson narrated the by-now-familiar story of his mission to Niger, stressing that he had volunteered for the assignment because of his ties in Niger and not because his wife had recommended him. He’d gone without pay, out of a sense of patriotism; nobody who’d been to Niger would ever consider a trip there a “boondoggle.” Nor was he an antiwar fanatic; he’d long been critical of Saddam Hussein and, based on his years in Iraq, believed he probably did have hidden chemical and biological weapons.
Wilson said he never wrote a report on his trip, instead delivering his findings orally to a group at the CIA. Since it was the vice president’s office that had asked for the information, he assumed his findings had been conveyed to Cheney and his staff, and on that basis had alleged that the White House had ignored information inconsistent with its case for war. Eckenrode had some sympathy for the White House’s frustration with Wilson’s claims. All Wilson really knew was what he was told in Niger and his subsequent debriefing at the CIA. He did not know Novak’s sources, which didn’t stop him from continuing to cast suspicion on Karl Rove. Indeed, he seemed angrier than ever at Rove, convinced he was behind the smear campaign against him and his wife.
For the first time Wilson detailed the basis for his claim that Rove should be “frog-marched” out of the White House in handcuffs. Wilson said he had gotten a call from MSNBC talk show host Chris Matthews, whose comments had so agitated Libby, who told him, “I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He says, and I quote, ‘Wilson’s wife is fair game.’ I will confirm that if asked,” Matthews added, then hung up.
Wilson seemed to think that that settled the matter, and that Rove was the leak.
Maybe, but it was hardly conclusive. Rove’s comment was secondhand hearsay. It hardly justified Wilson’s public accusations that Rove should be handcuffed. Still, there were witnesses–and Eckenrode added Matthews’s name to the list of journalists they’d need to contact.
Wilson also told the agents that a few days after his op-ed piece had run in the
Times
, a friend, Howard Cohen, had rushed in to see him at his office. He’d breathlessly told Wilson that he’d just had a chance encounter with Novak, and they’d been discussing the uranium controversy. Cohen had asked Novak what he thought of Wilson, and Novak had replied, “Wilson’s an asshole. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA. She’s a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him.” This was days before Novak’s column had appeared.
Wilson asked Cohen to write down his recollection of the conversation, then called CNN, telling the head of the news division that it was the “height of irresponsibility” for Novak to be discussing his wife with a near stranger. Novak himself returned his call the next day and apologized. Novak also seized the opportunity to interview Wilson for his column, but Wilson told him he wouldn’t answer questions about his wife.