Where There’s “Gate,” Libby, Plame, or Otherwise … There’s a Woodward
By Denise Best | Related entries in In The News, The Plame GameFlash forward thirty years and Bob Woodward is in the midst of another reporter revelation involving a politically charged “gate.”
The disclosure that a current or former Bush administration official told Bob Woodward of The Washington Post more than two years ago that the wife of a prominent administration critic worked for the C.I.A. threatened Wednesday to prolong a politically damaging leak investigation that the White House had hoped would soon be contained.
The revelation left the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, grappling with an unexpected new twist - one that he had not uncovered in an exhaustive inquiry - and gave lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff and the only official charged with a crime, fresh evidence to support his defense.
Surprising that after two years of intensive investigation, Fitzgerald’s efforts did not yield this information.
Mr. Woodward’s statement could help Mr. Libby counter one of the main charges against him, that he lied to the grand jury about a conversation with Tim Russert, NBC’s Washington bureau chief, in which Mr. Libby asserted that it was Mr. Russert who told him about Ms. Wilson.
The lawyers said that they could say he merely misspoke, never intending to mislead the grand jury because he honestly believed he had heard about the C.I.A. officer as the subject of gossip in news media circles.
But some legal experts were skeptical that Mr. Woodward’s disclosure would significantly alter the case against Mr. Libby.
“I don’t think that in a technical legal sense it matters,” said Rodney A. Smolla, dean of the law school at the University of Richmond and a specialist in media law. “It’s neutral as to Libby because he has been indicted for perjury and for lying, and nothing in his account seems to sanitize those lies if in fact they turn out to be lies.”
Personal opportunism on the part of Woodward or a genuine following of the “reporter’s code” in respecting and protecting source relationships?
This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2005 and is filed under In The News, The Plame Game. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
November 17th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
Grand Jury testimony of longtime Washington Post editor Bob Woodward, leaked by Rove-ing reporter (humor).
It is posted at: Bob Woodward Tells Grand Jury Who Leaked First
Bobbing and weaving, a tangled web we do.
Please keep my identity a secret. Double super Secret.
Middle-aged, Middle-of-the-road, Mid-Westerner
March 13th, 2006 at 6:42 am
The CIA decides what is and is not classified, not bloggers or pundits. So, it seems almost irrelavant as to whether or not the information was ‘available.’ If Libby is like the countless folks who work with sensitive information, he was obligated (he signed documents attesting to this) to not discuss classified information.
When I worked for the DoD, years ago, much of the generic nature of the work I did was known and written about in popular periodicals. People saw me come and go to work, and likely the curious one’s had an idea of what we all were doing. However, I was not supposed to EVER confirm such facts to anyone outside of work who did not possess a “need to know.”
Apart from the security clearance, individual’s are privy to only portions of sensitive information. There may be a person who works on another floor who has a level clearance similar to your own, but has no specific knowledge of what you are doing. Cleared personnel are not supposed to discuss or confirm such details.
Libby was, of course, not an analyst. He possessed bits and peices of the whole picture. Why he knew about a particular agent, is in itself suspicious. None the less, he was not supposed to confirm with reporters or anyone anything of a sensitive nature. Even Plame’s identity was known, he should not have been confirming it. That was the responsibility that he likely signed documents attesting to.
So he was busy. Is that really a good excuse? I mean, aren’t we all busy? He was obligated to be more careful and more on guard than anyone, I would think. If he is too busy at his position to keep sensitive information safe, God help us!
Libby is in deep do-do, I think. He is basically trying to blur the landscape of a clear picture. He likely violated his signed agreement, and was not careful enough with the sensitive information he was privy to, at the very least. He otherwise lied and misled regarding what he leaked.
He is just doing a dance. But, the court room with a good prosecutor will stop the music. I am glad, because this song annoys me.