Big News on Bob Woodward
The Post has big news; Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, notable reporter and author, has been involved in the Valerie Plame Wilson matter from the beginning (as known today). Actually it appears that Woodward may have been the first reporter involved in discussions about Plame Wilson with senior White House officials.
Woodward has been publicly critical of Fitzgerald’s investigation, saying basically it was much a do about nothing. But this gets a bit cloudy and the article in today’s Post does very little to clear things up. In fact, it raises more questions than answers.
Woodward testified under oath Monday, that a senior White House official told him about Valerie Plame Wilson and her position a month before her her identity was disclosed, which puts him first in line for comminiques with the White House leaks. Furthermore:
- The unnamed senior Bush administration official that conveyed the information to Woodward is not Libby or Rove.
- Woodward did not tell his editors at the Post about the conversations until a month ago and did so only after the unnamed senior administration official told prosecutor Fitzgerald about the conversation(s), which raised flags with Fitzgerald and he ultimately subpoenaed Woodward.
Another twist in this revelation is Woodward claims he told Walter Pincus, a Post reporter, about Wilson’s wife and her role at the CIA. Pincus, who broke the story after Nickolas Kristoff’s Op-Ed in the NY Times questioning the WMDs, vehemently denies Woodward’s claim.
Woodward’s statement said he testified: “I told Walter Pincus, a reporter at The Post, without naming my source, that I understood Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA as a WMD analyst.”
Pincus said he does not recall Woodward telling him that. In an interview, Pincus said he cannot imagine he would have forgotten such a conversation around the same time he was writing about Wilson.
“Are you kidding?” Pincus said. “I certainly would have remembered that.”
Pincus said Woodward may be confused about the timing and the exact nature of the conversation. He said he remembers Woodward making a vague mention to him in October 2003. That month, Pincus had written a story explaining how an administration source had contacted him about Wilson. He recalled Woodward telling him that Pincus was not the only person who had been contacted.
As you might imagine, Libby’s lawyers are coming up with everything under the sun, which will discredit Fitzgerald, hoping to exonerate Libby. I would consider that to be just lawyer talk and put it aside for now.
This is a bit puzzling, therefore more thought needs to be put into this. This is uncharacteristic behavior on Woodward’s part - criticizing Fitzgerald and especially keeping his editors in the dark until he had no choice to talk about it.
Also, if you remove Libby and Rove as senior administration officials, those eligible for “unnamed senior administration officials” makes for a very short list.
Suffice it to say, there’s more we don’t know and the tentacles of this matter cover more territory than initially perceived.
More later…
