Fitzgerald Investigation of Leak of Identity of CIA Agent

And here I thought the fine motor skills were the first to go.

Downie Jr. Talks About Run-Up to Woodward Apology Today
Leonard Downie Jr. Talks About Run-Up to Woodward Apology Today
By Joe Strupp
Published: November 16, 2005 4:00 PM ET
NEW YORK

Bob Woodward of The Washington Post said this afternoon that he had apologized to his editor, Leonard Downie Jr., for not telling him much earlier that he had been keeping a secret: a June 2003 conversation with a confidential White House source, during which he learned about the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame.

"I expect that he will communicate more freely with me," Downie told E&P this afternoon, two days after Woodward testified before a federal grand jury. "I told him I want better communication on what he's working on, and he agreed to that."

But what happened before getting to this point? It was just a few days before the indictment of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was announced on Oct. 28 that Downie learned from Woodward that the Watergate legend had his own connection to the Valerie Plame case.

"It was getting near the time of the [Libby] indictments and he came to me because he thought I should know," Downie told E&P today, adding that he did not initially show his disappointment in not knowing the information earlier because he had to decide how to proceed. "This was important information to have, and we needed to decide ho to use it. The important thing was to decide what to do. There were all sorts of journalistic questions -- whether this affected our reporting and what we should be doing as a result."

Downie said he immediately put Woodward in touch with Post attorneys so that they would know about his information in case any subpoenas were forthcoming. None ever materialized, but Fitzgerald did request Woodward's testimony shortly afterward, although Downie does not recall exactly when.

"We had to decide what to do as a result," Downie added, saying he was told at the time the identity of the source. "We looked at the circumstances under which he had been told and if we were still bounded by the confidentiality agreement, which we were."

Downie said the paper eventually asked the source -- who Woodward later revealed was one of three people about whom he has now testified -- to lift the confidentiality agreement, but that person declined. Since then, Libby and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card have given permission for their identities as two of the sources to be disclosed, but the main source for Plame's identity has not.

"When the request was made for Woodward to testify in the deposition, releases were sought from the sources for him to be able to testify and for us to be able to write about it as well," Downie said. The editor said he knew last week that Woodward had planned to testify on Monday, but that none of his sources had given permission for their identities to be published, so nothing was written.

After Woodward testified Monday afternoon, the Post still had not secured releases from any of the sources that would allow the paper to identify them. It was not until Tuesday that Libby provided permission, Downie said. "At the end of the day Monday, we wanted to keep trying" to get them all, Downie said, adding that the Post also was working on the statement Woodward wrote about his testimony, which appeared in today's paper.

After today's story was published, Downie said he then approached Woodward this morning for the first time about his failure to disclose to Downie the conversation he had had with the White House official about Plame. "He told me his reasons, why he had not told me sooner, he definitely should have informed me sooner," Downie said. "Even if he had told me sooner, we may not have been able to publish anything about it because it was part of a confidential-source interview."

Downie said Woodward told him he had not disclosed the conversation because "he wanted to protect the confidentiality of his source and wanted to avoid being caught up in the leak investigation because he was working hard to finish his book. He also thought what had been said to him was relatively minor. But, he should have still told me about it and we would have made a joint decision to proceed."

A similar disclosure occurred earlier this year when, Downie said several months ago, Woodward had revealed to the editor the identity of Watergate source Deep Throat, who was later found to be former FBI official W. Mark Felt.

Woodward apologized this morning to Downie for withholding the information on his Plame conversation for so long, Downie said, which the editor accepted. He also said Woodward agreed to be more open in the future about such information.

This incident has highlighted what many at the Post view as a difficult working relationship between Woodward and the paper, in which Woodward is an assistant managing editor but also an author of books. Sometimes, staffers have said, that arrangement causes Woodward to keep information and sources out of the paper and use them instead for his books.

Downie acknowledged the negative impact of the relationship, saying, "There are issues that always need to be managed for the purpose of his books. In many cases, sources remain anonymous." He added that it also offers positive results.

"Most of the time, he has alerted us to what he is doing, to significant information he has found to produce his own front-page stories, and enabled other people to produce front page stories." He also noted Woodward's willingness, after the Sept. 11 attacks, to put aside a book project and work with the paper on coverage that "earned us a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting."
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Joe Strupp ([email protected]) is a senior editor at E&P.

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Woodward's Multiple Roles: Questions of Interest Conflict
November 17, 2005
A Star With Multiple Roles Now Faces Questions of Conflict Among Them


By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE and SCOTT SHANE
For 30 years, Bob Woodward has reigned as a one-man investigative reporting franchise from his base at The Washington Post. With the blessing of Post management, he has juggled his roles as star reporter, assistant managing editor and best-selling author, managing to keep those roles from colliding.

But collide they have, and in spectacular fashion, leading the country's most famous investigative reporter to issue an apology yesterday for failing to reveal his involvement in a major national investigation. His handling of the matter has now raised questions about his paper's credibility and has roiled The Post's newsroom.

Mr. Woodward apologized to The Post's executive editor yesterday for concealing for more than two years that he had been drawn into the growing scandal over the leak of the name of a C.I.A. operative.

Mr. Woodward testified under oath Monday that a senior administration official told him the identity of the operative, Valerie Wilson, a month before it was disclosed publicly by Robert D. Novak, the columnist, in July 2003, The Post reported yesterday. Mr. Woodward told the editor, Leonard Downie Jr., only last month of the conversation, which he had pledged to keep confidential.

Mr. Woodward enjoys a unique, if not mythic, status at The Post and among journalists, stemming from his work with Carl Bernstein in uncovering Watergate. Now his withholding of the leak information from his paper has renewed questions about the potential conflicts of interest brought on by his multiple roles - as a reporter, editor and author, as well as a commentator on television and the lecture circuit.

In this case, Mr. Woodward appeared on television discussing the C.I.A. leak investigation - and minimizing its importance - without his editors, his readers or his television viewers knowing he was privy to information for which other reporters had been subpoenaed.

Even as the role of reporters, including Judith Miller of The New York Times, became central to the case, Mr. Woodward concealed his own involvement, hindering his paper's ability to report fully on the leak investigation.

It was the second time this year that Mr. Woodward's loyalties to a book seemed to cross with his duty to his newspaper. In June, W. Mark Felt, a former F.B.I. official, revealed himself to be Mr. Woodward's legendary Watergate source, Deep Throat. Mr. Woodward, who was writing a book in which he planned to reveal Deep Throat's identity, reluctantly acknowledged that Mr. Felt was his source only after Vanity Fair revealed his identity and Mr. Felt stepped forward.

That incident had created some tension between Mr. Woodward and Mr. Downie and served as a backdrop for a breakfast meeting between the two yesterday to discuss Mr. Woodward's involvement in the C.I.A. leak case.

In a telephone interview, Mr. Woodward said of Mr. Downie: "He made the point, which is right: I should tell him more. More is better. Sooner is better."

He added: "I was so focused on protecting sources, I didn't want to get dragged into this, as no reporter would. And I apologized to Len for not telling him this."

He added, "He graciously accepted it, and said there was a breakdown in communication, but not in trust."

Mr. Downie said: "It was important to have a long discussion about his not letting me know about this, about what he said in his TV appearances, about our relationship up to now - we've worked together since the latter stages of Watergate - and going forward. Obviously, he's in an unusual position."

He said that over the years, Mr. Woodward had managed to write books and "figured out how to help the paper without violating sources."

But in this case, Mr. Downie said, Mr. Woodward told him he had not discussed the matter with him because it came "as a tiny part of a longer interview, he was near the end of writing a book, he was frazzled, he was working as fast as he could, and this was said as an aside in the interview, he didn't think it was important."

Moreover, he said, Mr. Woodward told him he did not want to get subpoenaed.

"I said he should have told me," Mr. Downie said, "and we would have reasoned through it together."

Mr. Downie said he wanted to keep Mr. Woodward on the staff. "We've resolved that we'll have better communication going forward," he said. "After years, habits had formed, and we'll have new habits."

But concerns persisted inside and outside The Post's newsroom.

A confidential internal memo board at The Post lighted up yesterday with comments that Mr. Woodward's withholding of information would hurt the credibility of other Post reporters.

"This is the logical and perhaps inevitable outcome when an institution permits an individual to become larger than the institution itself," read one of those confidential postings, written by Jonathan Yardley, a veteran staff writer.

When contacted about the posting, which was e-mailed to The Times by a Post reporter, Mr. Yardley objected strenuously to its being made public. In the posting, he wrote that he expected that this episode might prompt the paper to re-examine "the star system and its attendant risks."

Outside analysts also saw problems.

"Woodward's metamorphosis over the past several decades from a tough investigative reporter to a soft courtier to the powerful" has been discouraging, said Rory O'Connor, a former CBS News producer and Frontline director who runs the Web site MediaChannel.org.

Mr. Downie acknowledged that Mr. Woodward's status had caused some problems, but said they were worth it, because he was so valuable to the paper.

"Over the years, because of the nature of this relationship, questions have been raised by other staff members about him, because he has a very unusual arrangement," Mr. Downie said. "There are issues that need to be managed, involving setting priorities between books and the paper, but that management is worthwhile because of what results."

Benjamin C. Bradlee, executive editor of The Post during Watergate, agreed, saying of Mr. Woodward: "He's sometimes harder to manage than you would like, but the benefits are so obvious. He's a tremendous asset to have on your staff."

Mr. Woodward's Watergate reporting partner, Mr. Bernstein, defended him. "I think you can second-guess anybody in a difficult situation," he said in an interview. "What I don't second-guess is Bob's journalistic integrity."

As a best-selling author and constant television presence, Mr. Woodward is among the few celebrity-journalists who are as famous as many of the officials they cover. A frequent public speaker, he charges $10,000 to $50,000 per appearance, depending on how far he has to travel, according to the Web site of Leading Authorities Inc., a Washington speakers' bureau.

Last week, Mr. Woodward spoke to the annual meeting of the Securities Industry Association, which represents investment banks, stockbrokers and related firms, in Boca Raton, Fla., addressing the leak case, among other topics. Travis Larson, a spokesman for the association, said Mr. Woodward was paid for the talk, but he declined to say how much. Mr. Downie said Post employees were not supposed to take money from, or speak to, governmental or interest groups unless they were doing so in an informational capacity.

Mr. Woodward is a frequent guest on "Larry King Live" on CNN, appearing as a Washington insider who interprets the capital to the American public. He is not paid for his appearances, a spokeswoman for the program said. He spoke on the program on Oct. 27, in what was his 27th appearance with Mr. King since the beginning of 2004.

"When the story comes out, I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter," he said that day of the C.I.A. leak case.

Perjury charges were possible, Mr. Woodward said, but added, "I don't see an underlying crime here, and the absence of the underlying crime may cause somebody who is a really thoughtful prosecutor to say, you know, maybe this is not one to go to court with."

The next day, the prosecutor indicted I. Lewis Libby Jr., who was then Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, for perjury, false statement and obstruction of justice.

Asked about his televised remarks criticizing the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and minimizing the importance of the case and failing to mention his own involvement, Mr. Woodward said: "That was pent-up frustration, because I knew about this. As I said in the statement, the source said it in a very offhand, casual way. Len and I talked about that, and he reminded me that I should not be so outspoken, and generally I am not. He's right about that."

Jane Kirtley, a professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said, "Who cannot ask the question, 'Was Bob Woodward dismissing the significance of this leak because of his own involvement?' "

"When you become this much of an insider," Professor Kirtley said, "inevitably you become involved in a way that's very problematic ---for a journalist."
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Lorne Manley contributed reporting from New York for this article, and Todd S. Purdum from Washington.

Busy making friends and influencing people again I see, Tico.

Does anyone remember when the role of the media was to report the news, not BE the news?

All Fitzmas has wrought so far is a stocking filled with lumps of coal. He has to be embarrassed....his statement that Libby was the first Admin official who identified Plame has been effectively refuted by Woodward's testimony.

Fitz may have to drop the indictment charges now.....

Brand, nice try. Using libby's lawyer's spin. But that is not what Fitzgerald said. Fitzy said Libby was the first known administration official who leaked Plame's name. In this instance the word known is important except for those who want to deceive. The case against Libby is solid if you read the indictment. He lied to the FBI and lied to the Grand Jury.

Stay tuned...

Will we have to wait as long as it is taking for the weapons to turn up? It's just that I've already had one heart attack and the days dwindle down...

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, X, I got a bridge you might want. Cheap!

Care to make a wager on that? You are tripping, dude.

Speaking of heart attacks, a top WH official will soon claim he had one and resign when he is named an unindicted co-conspirator.

Excerpt:



ABC

Excerpt:



Source

Funny how they can comment just enough to defend themselves but not answer any questions.

That is a leak from an unnamed source which gives Cheney plausible deniability. The best source is Cheney himself and he remains silent.

Critical thinking. Try it just once.

BTW who cares what these liars tell the press. It is what the tell the NEW Grand Jury that counts.

Yes, NEW Grand Jury.

In other words, you will believe an unnamed source so long as he says something along the lines of what you want to believe, but in all other cases we should just wait and see if he's credible.

That is speculation so far.

.

Thast is not it at all, as usual you fail to discern nuance. There are many, many cases in which unnamed sources can be helpful. In the question of whether or not a person said something, it is a very simple matter for that person to either confirm or deny whether she or he said it. The fact that Cheney, rather than deny he was the leaker directly, floated a statement to another party to leak to the press should tell you something.

But, of course, it is easier to stay within the comfort zone of denial, especially when your entire emotional being is linked to believing this administration's incredible web of deception.