What’s That Sound?
Ah, it must be the collapse of all those houses made of cards. Robert Novak will be publishing the details of what he told the special prosecutor – and it looks very much like there was no concerted effort or coordinated campaign and Joe Wilson or his wife.
Syndicated columnist Robert Novak acknowledged for the first time today that he identified three confidential administration sources during testimony in the CIA leak investigation, saying he did so because they had granted him legal waivers to testify and because special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald already knew of their role.
In a column to be published on Wednesday, Novak said he told Fitzgerald in early 2004 that White House senior adviser Karl Rove and then-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow had confirmed for him, at his request, information about CIA operative Valerie Plame. Novak said he also told Fitzgerald about another senior administration official who originally provided him with the information about Plame, and whose identity he says he cannot reveal even now.
"I'm still constrained as a reporter," Novak said in an interview. "It was not on the record, and he has never revealed himself as being the source, and until he does I don't feel I should."
Novak triggered one of the capital's most tangled investigations with a July 2003 column reporting that Plame had suggested sending her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to Niger to investigate whether Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was trying to obtain nuclear material from that country. Fitzgerald, who decided last month not to pursue charges against Rove, is prosecuting I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former chief of staff for Vice President Cheney, for allegedly lying to a grand jury. Judith Miller, then a New York Times reporter, went to jail for 85 days last year for initially refusing to name Libby as her source.
Oh dang. The left has to come up with another conspiracy theory fast. The question now is, how long until the Libbey persecution also collapses.
Other Links to this Post
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Outside The Beltway | OTB — July 11, 2006 @ 7:21 pm
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BizzyBlog.com » Bob Novak Comes Out; WaPo’s Howard Kurtz Keeps Lying — July 11, 2006 @ 10:35 pm
By Neo, July 11, 2006 @ 8:44 pm
Please .. Joe and Val are on their 17th minute of the 15 minutes of fame.
The simple facts are, if you write an op-ed for the NYT saying you went on a CIA trip at the VP’s office request that proves that the President is lying, 1) get your facts straight, 2) expect minimally that your facts will be checked and laid bare, and 3) don’t have any secrets cause, in DC, there are no secrets.
Given that there was no concerted effort or coordinated campaign against Joe Wilson or his wife, the truth is quick focusing tight on the truth that Joe “outed” his own wife, not directly, but through his stupidity. Joe’s idea of a “campaign” was just to cover his own ass.