Alternate theories regarding the CIA leak scandal

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Main article: CIA leak scandal

The CIA leak scandal (also known as the Plame Affair and Plamegate) has resulted in a federal criminal investigation (also widely known as the "CIA leak investigation") into allegations that one or more White House officials revealed the undercover CIA status of Valerie E. Wilson (aka Valerie Plame), resulting in federal indictment of Lewis Libby and a civil suit filed by Mrs. Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson. Since Mrs. Wilson's identity as a "CIA operative" specializing in intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction was first made public, in a column by Robert Novak published on July 14, 2003, some commentators in the mainstream press and in the alternative media, including the blogosphere, have developed accounts that question its principals' claims and that even engage in perspectives bordering on conspiracy theories. Some recurrent topics of speculation follow below:

Contents 1 Questioning Joseph C. Wilson's account of his trip to Niger 2 Alleging wider knowledge of Plame's CIA job 3 Questioning the covert nature of Plame's CIA status 4 Accusing Wilson's wife of greater involvement in his trip to Niger than Wilson acknowledges 5 Arguing possible involvement of the CIA in the Plame affair 6 Claiming possible involvement of the Saudis in the leak 7 Alleging that Wilson contributed to the outing of his own wife 8 Calling into question the necessity of the Grand Jury Investigation into the leak 9 Speculating about the "Air Force One Memorandum" 10 Notes

[edit] Questioning Joseph C. Wilson's account of his trip to Niger

The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence criticized Joseph C. Wilson for claiming that his trip to Niger proved that Iraq was not seeking uranium from Niger. Wilson reported that a former Minister of Niger told him that, during an OAU Ministers meeting in Algiers in 1999, the Nigerien Minister had an informal meeting with an official from Iraq, who wanted to talk about "trade" between the two countries. But their talk never came to any clear topic. The Minister let all matters drop because of UN sanctions against Iraq. And he told Wilson he didn't know if the official wanted to talk about uranium.^[1]

In March 2003, the IAEA declared certain documents alleging a sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq to be forgeries.^[2] The Senate Select Committee criticized Wilson for allegedly stating that his trip to Niger had proved that Niger documents may have been forged when acting as a source for a Washington post article.^[3]

Wilson told The Washington Post anonymously in June 2003 that he had concluded that the intelligence about the Niger uranium was based on the forged documents because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."^{[citation needed]}

The Senate intelligence committee, which examined pre-Iraq war intelligence, reported, however, that Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports." Wilson said that he "may have misspoken to the reporter when he said he concluded the documents were forged" (Report 44).

Similarly, an article May 6, 2003 article by Nicolas Kristof on May 6, 2003, for which Wilson was one of the sources, states that "that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged."^[4]

In a later article Mr. Kristof confirmed that Wilson was the source for this statement, but defended Wilson, stating that although Wilson may not have had the documents in his possession, he may still have provided information necessary to debunk the documents. In that article, Mr. Kristof also explained "Wilson has said that he misspoke when he made references to the documents to me and to two other journalists."^[5]

An editorial published in Washington Post on April 9, 2006 states:

“

After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Wilson's charge. [President] Bush did not authorize the leak of Plame's identity. Libby's motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Cheney. In fact . . . Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife. . . .[6]

”

See also: Joseph C. Wilson#Selected_press_commentary_and_Wilson's_responses

High-ranking CIA officials told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that they disputed the claim that Plame was involved in the final decision to send Wilson, and indicated that the operations official who made it was not present at the meeting where Wilson was chosen. On July 22, 2003, Newsday reports:

“

A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be." "We paid his [Wilson's] air fare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there," the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses.[7]

”

In the first chapter ("Sixteen Words") of his book The Politics of Truth, Wilson writes:

“

Apart from being the conduit of a message from a colleague in her office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about Niger's uranium industry, Valerie had had nothing to do with the matter. (5)

”

But press reports deleted key parts of that comment.^[8]

Further information: Joseph C. Wilson#Selected_press_commentary_and_ Wilson's_responses

[edit] Alleging wider knowledge of Plame's CIA job

On November 4, 2005 Fox News analyst and retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely claimed that Plame's husband, Joseph C. Wilson had spoken to him about his wife's role with the CIA while they were waiting together in the green room before appearing on FOX News. He initially said this occurred on three to five occasions, first in February or March of 2002, more than a year before Novak's column was published. Vallely also said Wilson was proud to routinely introduce his wife as a CIA employee at cocktail parties. ^[9]

Wilson has since demanded that Vallely retract these allegations, calling them "patently false." Wilson wrote to his attorney, as quoted in electronic correspondence included in his demand for a retraction posted on the blog World Net Daily:

“

This is slanderous. I never appeared on TV before at least July 2002 and only saw him maybe twice in the green room at FOX. Vallely is a retired general and this is a bald faced lie.... I never laid eyes on [Vallely] till several months after he alleges I spoke to him about my wife.[10]

”

Indeed, Wilson and Vallely could have been together in the green room at most four times beginning in August, 2002.^[11] But a compendium of the times that Wilson and Vallely appeared on Fox News has revealed that there is only one possible date, September 12, 2002, during which the two would have been in the green room within hours of each other.^[12]

In response, Brit Hume, managing editor of Fox News, reported:

“

Liberal Websites say they have proof Vallely is lying, saying research service LexisNexis shows Vallely and Wilson never appeared on FOX on the same day. But in fact, Vallely and Wilson appeared on the same day nine times in 2002, and on the same show twice — on September 8 and September 12, when both men appeared within 15 minutes of one another.[13]

”

Hume's unit of measure "on the same day" differs from the comparison's unit of measure "within hours," according to Jeralyn Merritt, who went through the FOX transcripts to compile this information; she notes that on September 12:

“

Wilson's segment was over 15 minutes before Vallely's began. The Fox green room in New York is very small and contains an even smaller makeup room that only has one guest chair. Guests are by themselves in the makeup room. I assume Wilson would have been having his makeup done before his segment, so Vallely wouldn't have been with him then. Even if they did overlap in the green room for a couple of minutes, it strains credulity to think the topic of Wilson's wife's employment with the CIA would have come up. There likely would have only time for mere pleasantries."[14]

”

On November 7, 2005, Vallely appeared on ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show; on this occasion he stated that Wilson had disclosed Plame's employment while in the green room only once, but could not remember the precise date:

“

. . . we got to talk about our families, past assignments, and so on and so forth. And only on one occasion do I recall, you know, "My wife's at the agency." . . . . . . . it was 2002, and –– . . . . Probably was in that summer, early fall timeframe that it happened.

”

On November 8, WorldNetDaily posted that

“

Since speaking with WND late Friday, Vallely has clarified the number of occasions Wilson mentioned his wife's status and when the conversation occurred. After recalling further over the weekend his contacts with Wilson, Vallely says now it was on just one occasion.[15]

”

Media Matters for America notes:

“

Vallely's allegations have come nearly two years after the beginning of Fitzgerald's high-profile investigation. Despite widespread reporting about the seriousness of Fitzgerald's investigation, Vallely apparently did not feel compelled to share his story until more than a week after Libby's indictment. In an interview on the November 8 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Alan Colmes asked Vallely: "Did you talk to the FBI, or do you plan to talk to the FBI?" Vallely responded, "Well, no, I haven't talked to them."[16]

”

On The Sean Hannity Show of November 7, Vallely stated further: "I was asked, 'Why didn't you say this before?' Well, I figured Joe Wilson would self-destruct at some point in time."^{[citation needed]}

According to ABC Radio Networks' John Batchelor on November 6, touting McInerney's scheduled appearance on Batchelor's show the next day, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, who has coauthored with Vallely a book about the war on terrorism, alleged that Wilson had also told him about his wife's job with the CIA while in the green room at FOX News studios:

“

Lt. General Tom McInerney, USAF (ret), West Point '59, will join his colleague Maj. General Paul Vallely, USA (ret), West Point '61, on my show Monday 7 November . . . to repeat and expand upon Vallely's memory that Joe Wilson more than once in 2002 in the green room at Fox New [sic] Channel in Washington D.C. boasted about his wife the "CIA desk officer." McInerney has the same memory and more, since both he and Vallely were on FNC between 150 and 200 times in 2002 each.[17]

”

But when McInerney actually appeared on the November 7 show, he did not mention any direct "memories" of any similar incident and limited his comments to very general support of Vallely:

“

But to your knowledge, Paul Vallely has revealed nothing but the truth. Is that correct, General? Absolutely.[18]

”

Former CIA officer Larry C. Johnson questions the credibility of these retired generals:

“

I too was a Fox News Contributor in 2002 and spent a lot of time in the Green Room with both Vallely and McInerney. I saw them but never saw Joe Wilson. What is really curious is that I know I spent more time with Vallely and McInerney than Joe Wilson ever did and the subject of my wife (or their wives) never came up. . . . What is so pathetic is that both Vallely and McInerney present themselves as military experts on special operations when neither has held any position of any importance with those forces. In fact, neither has ever held compartmented clearances required to know about those special programs. Given their track record of getting military facts wrong there is no doubt they are wrong about Joe Wilson.[19]

”

Batchelor also suggested on November 6 that Hoover Institution senior fellow and National Review contributor Victor Davis Hanson had also reported being similarly informed of Plame's employment by Wilson:

“

Also, I have written my regular correspondent Victor Davis Hanson to ask after his reported memories of Wilson boasting to him in a green room meeting that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.[20].

”

On November 8 WorldNetDaily stated:

“

. . . contrary to a report, Hanson said Wilson did not disclose his wife's CIA employment.

”

Instead Hanson merely described Wilson as very "indiscreet" and "unguarded" with personal information, rambling in a "stream of consciousness" manner.^[21] These claims have been disputed by Wilson and his lawyer.

See also: Joseph C. Wilson#Wilson's_response_to_the_claims

Fitzgerald concludes his indictment against Libby:

“

Prior to July 14 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community.

”

Libby's defense team has countered in court hearings that they have five witnesses from outside the intelligence community who will testify that Wilson told them before the Novak article was published that his wife worked at the CIA.^[22] Libby's legal team rested their case on February 14, 2007. There was no testimony from any witness that Wilson disclosed his wife's status prior to the Novak article.

According to a June 2006 ruling by United States District Judge Reggie Walton, Libby's defense team also sought "any notes from the September 2003 meeting in the Situation Room at which Colin Powell is reported to have said that (a) everyone knows that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and that (b) it was Mr. Wilson’s wife who suggested that the CIA send her husband on a mission to Niger."

Walton ruled against Libby regarding this request.^[23]

[edit] Questioning the covert nature of Plame's CIA status

There are various disputes concerning the covert nature of Plame's status with the CIA. This issue is complicated somewhat by a variety of definitions of covert. While it appears to be clear that Plame's employment status was formally classified by the CIA as "secret" and not for disclosure to foreign nationals, and that her employment was therefore "undercover," and/or "classified," and that she had been classified as a NOC, or non-official cover agent of the CIA, various commentators have argued that on July 14, 2003, when Novak's column appeared, Plame did not fit the legal definition of "covert" as defined in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.^{[citations needed]}

The USA Today stated on July 14, 2005 that Mrs. Plame hadn't been outside the United States as a NOC since 1997, when she returned from her last assignment, and married Joe Wilson and had her twins.^{[citation needed]} The following day, in an article published in the Washington Times, Stephen Dinan and Joseph Curl cite Fred Rustmann, a former CIA covert agent who claimed that he supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career, took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," and said that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee: "She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat."^[24]

Joe Wilson, Plame's husband, in a July 14, 2005 interview with Wolf Blitzer, broadcast on CNN on July 14, 2005, stated: "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity."^[25] This comment has been misinterpreted, but Wilson later explained his meaning to Associated Press, which issued a retraction: "In an interview Friday, Wilson said his comment was meant to reflect that his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand. His wife's 'ability to do the job she's been doing for close to 20 years ceased from the minute Novak's article appeared; she ceased being a clandestine officer,' he said."^[26]

Reflecting some of the press commentaries cited above, conservative columnist Max Boot has called Joseph Wilson a "liar," also claiming that Plame's status was not "covert" at the time of her outing in the Novak column because she had been working in Virginia for more than five years.^[27]

Although he left the CIA in 1993, Larry C. Johnson attempted to clear up the confusion surrounding Plame's status in a column responding to Boot: "The law actually requires that a covered person 'served' overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby."^[28]

Plame worked for the CIA for 20 years, and her status, according to the New York Times, was "non-official cover." (5 October 2003). U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that Plame was working undercover shortly after it had been revealed by Robert Novak.^[29] Senator Charles Schumer asked the FBI to investigate the leak because the CIA had identified Plame's status as covert.^[30] John Crewdson of the Chicago Tribune interviewed several unnamed former and current CIA employees who doubt that Plame had NOC status in the CIA at the time her cover was blown by Novak.^[31]

A variety of arguments regarding Ms. Plame's status as "covert" have arisen as a result of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's investigation. In the Grand Jury indictment of Libby and his press conference on the Libby indictment, broadcast on October 28, 2005, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald would not state explicitly whether or not Plame was "covert."^[32].

Nevertheless, in a 5 February 2005 concurring opinion, Circuit Judge David S. Tatel made two references to Plame's covert status: (1) on page 28 of the opinion, Judge Tatel refers to Plame as an "alleged covert agent"; (2) on page 38, Judge Tatel states that because Fitzgerald had allegedly referred to Plame as a CIA agent "who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years," in footnote 15 of a recent affidavit, Judge Tatel inferred that Mr. Fitzgerald must have at least "some support" for that conclusion.^[33] Judge Tatel appears to have inferred from Special Counsel Fitzgerald's affidavit, which says that he is investigating whether or not Libby could have "intentionally" and "willfully" exposed the identity of "a covert agent" (italics added),^[34] that Fitzgerald had already concluded that Plame was an agent who had carried out covert work within the last five years.^[35][36]

[edit] Accusing Wilson's wife of greater involvement in his trip to Niger than Wilson acknowledges

Some commentators believe that Plame's outing was justified on the grounds that Plame had a greater role in arranging Wilson's trip than Wilson has publically acknowledged and that, in the words of Vice-President Dick Cheney, written on his copy of Wilson's op-ed "What I Didn't Find in Africa," the trip was a mere "junket".^{[citation needed]}

Some commentators have accused Mrs. Wilson of using her position in the CIA to influence the appointment of her husband in a case of nepotism.^[37]

Novak's July 14, 2003 column claims that Valerie Plame had a role in selecting Wilson, her husband, for his trip to Niger:

“

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report [concerning alleged Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium in Niger]. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.[38]

”

Wilson had been open about the CIA's sponsorship of his trip (which he called "discreet but not secret"), stating that he had been "informed by officials at the CIA that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report" relating to the sale of uranium yellowcake from Niger.^{[citations needed]}

Further information: Yellowcake Forgery

Two other reports from Niger support Ambassador Wilson's view that the construction of the uranium consortium in Niger, with its difficult road connections, tight production schemes, and close relations to several countries and to several official departments in Niger, could not be a possible tool for export of "yellowcake" to Iraq.^{[citation needed]} Yet the CIA viewed the report as bolstering the belief that Iraq was trying to acquire "yellowcake" because Wilson's trip was the first to confirm a trade meeting with Iraq.^[39]

Iraq already possessed a large amount of yellowcake that had been reported to the IAEA but lacked the means to transform it to the enriched uranium needed for bomb production.^{[citations needed]} The UN had found no evidence before the war, through its inspections, that Iraq had any remaining nuclear program nor could it be confirmed in general that Iraq had disarmed as it was required to do under the U.N. resolutions.^{[citations needed]} Rumors of Iraq's desire to acquire uranium from Africa appear to have been based partially on the documents delivered from Italy describing a Niger transaction, but these were very simple and primitive forgeries.^{[citations needed]} Other evidence that has led the British government to continue to state that Iraq wanted to acquire African uranium is said to be classified, and therefore cannot be substantiated at this time.^{[citation needed]} Only the false documents were given to IAEA when IAEA experts asked the US government for documentation of its claims. ^{[citations needed]}

Of his trip to Niger, in "What I Didn't Find in Africa," Wilson writes:

“

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction [purchase of uranium ore] had ever taken place.

”

Wilson also notes that U.S. Ambassador to Niger Barbara Owens-Kirkpatrick "knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington."^{[citation needed]} But British and US intelligence had been stating that Iraq was attempting to purchase yellowcake, not that such a transaction had been completed.^{[citations needed]}

A Senate intelligence committee report issued on July 9, 2004 refutes Wilson's claims about the extent of his wife's involvement in arranging the trip as well as the conclusions reached in his report. The Washington Post summarizes the committee report as follows:

“

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on 12 February 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity. The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.[40]

”

High-ranking CIA officials told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that they disputed the claim that Plame was involved in the final decision to send Wilson, and indicated that the operations official who made it was not present at the meeting where Wilson was chosen. Newsday reported:

“

A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They (the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story) were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can’t figure out what it could be." "We paid his (Wilson’s) airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you’d have to pay big bucks to go there," the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses. (July 22 2003)

”

Wilson writes:

“

Apart from being the conduit of a message from a colleague in her office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about Niger's uranium industry, Valerie had had nothing to do with the matter.

”

Former CIA officer Larry Johnson elaborated:

“

Another false claim is that Valerie sent her husband on the mission to Niger. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee Report issued in July 2004, it is clear that the Vice President himself requested that the CIA provide its views on a Defense Intelligence Agency report that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. The Vice President's request was relayed through the CIA bureaucracy to the Director of the Counter Proliferation Division at the CIA. Valerie worked for a branch in that Division. The Senate Intelligence Report is frequently cited by Republican partisans as "proof" that Valerie sent her husband to Niger because she sent a memo describing her husband's qualifications to the Deputy Division Chief. Several news personalities, such as Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly continue to repeat this nonsense as proof. What the Senate Intelligence Committee does not include in the report is the fact that Valerie's boss had asked her to write a memo outlining her husband's qualifications for the job. She did what any good employee does; she gave her boss what he asked for.[41]

”

Others argue that Wilson has said that his wife did not authorize the trip and that he cannot speak about the details. The Senate intelligence committee report and other sources confirm that Plame gave her husband a positive recommendation. However, they also seem to confirm that she did not personally authorize the trip, contrary to what Matthew Cooper reports having been told by Karl Rove.

[edit] Arguing possible involvement of the CIA in the Plame affair

Some critics of Plame/Wilson view the Plame affair as a covert operation by a rogue agent (or perhaps Agency) designed to pull down a sitting president.^[42] This point of view alleges that Wilson may have played a key role by "misrepresenting" the intelligence he gathered on his trip to Niger. Although Wilson's trip was not secret, proponents of this argument find it significant that Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Zell Miller has even called for a new rule that will prevent CIA employees from leaking classified information through their spouses.^[43] Nevertheless, there has been no evidence that either of the Wilsons leaked classified information.

The suggestion of a plot by CIA officers is countered by a series of articles in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.^{[44][45][46][47]}

Investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo claim that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. According to them, Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.

According to the account, Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. ^{[48][49][50][51]}

[edit] Claiming possible involvement of the Saudis in the leak

Michael Ruppert offers a different perspective in his blog From the Wilderness, sharing [with whom?] a belief that the leak was intentional, but arguing that the motive of the leak was to forestall a possible investigation by Plame and the CIA into the reserve capacity of Saudi oil fields. In this view, Ruppert argues, the leak was part of a strategy to conceal a coming crisis in energy supply from the American people, known as the peak oil theory.^[52]

[edit] Alleging that Wilson contributed to the outing of his own wife

The Washington Post has criticized Joe Wilson for contributing to the outing of his own wife.^[53] Its editorial "End of an Affair" even opines that Wilson himself caused Plame's exposure as a CIA operative:

“

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson.[54]

”

See also: Joseph C. Wilson#Selected_press_commentary_and_ Wilson's_responses

[edit] Calling into question the necessity of the Grand Jury Investigation into the leak

In an article published in The New York Times on September 2, 2006, David Johnson and Neil A. Lewis question Patrick Fitzgerald's "proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion" in going forward with the three-year investigation despite his knowing "from his very first day in the special counsel’s chair" that the initial and primary source for Novak's column of July 14, 2003 was Richard Armitage:

“

An enduring mystery of the C.I.A. leak case has been solved in recent days, but with a new twist: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, knew the identity of the leaker from his very first day in the special counsel's chair, but kept the inquiry open for nearly two more years before indicting I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on obstruction charges. Now, the question of whether Mr. Fitzgerald properly exercised his prosecutorial discretion in continuing to pursue possible wrongdoing in the case has become the subject of rich debate on editorial pages and in legal and political circles.[55]

”

Yet, the article continues:

“

Mr. Fitzgerald, who has spoken infrequently in public, came close to providing a defense for his actions at a news conference in October 2005, when Mr. Libby was indicted. Mr. Fitzgerald said that apart from the issue of whether any crime had been committed, the justice system depended on the ability of prosecutors to obtain truthful information from witnesses during any investigation. . . . . But Mr. Fitzgerald did obtain the indictment of Mr. Libby on charges that he had untruthfully testified to a grand jury and federal agents when he said he learned about Ms. Wilson's role at the C.I.A. from reporters rather than from several officials, including Mr. Cheney. Mr. Libby has pleaded not guilty to all the charges and his lawyers have signaled he will mount a defense based on the notion that he did not willfully lie.

”

[edit] Speculating about the "Air Force One Memorandum"

In late July and early August, 2005, the press publicized a classified State Department memorandum which may have been the original source of the leaked suggestion regarding Plame and may help to identify those who were in a position to have and therefore to leak Plame's identity.

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, that three-page memo was dated June 10, 2003 and addressed to Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who had asked to be briefed on the history of opposition by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) to the White House's position that Saddam Hussein was attempting to obtain uranium from Africa. The memo summarized the notes (included with the memo) taken by an unnamed senior analyst, of a meeting at the CIA, on February 19, 2002, at which those in attendance discussed Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger.

The memo shows mainly that the State Department had already decided, on the basis of other evidence detailed in the memo, that Iraq was not seeking to acquire uranium from Niger, and that it therefore opposed Wilson's trip as unnecessary. Two sentences of background information in the second paragraph mention Wilson's wife, identifying her as "Valerie Wilson" and speculating that it was she "who had the idea to dispatch [him] to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue." Although the memo does not explicitly identify Valerie Wilson as a covert agent, that paragraph is marked with an (S), the code used in a U.S. classified document to indicate that a paragraph is classified at the "secret" level.^[56] Anyone with a U.S. security clearance is expected to be familiar with this notation.

According to the Washington Post, on July 6, 2003, shortly after the publication of Wilson's op-ed "What I Didn't Find in Niger" in the The New York Times and The Washington Post and his appearance on Meet the Press criticizing the Bush administration's statements regarding Saddam's attempts to acquire yellowcake, Secretary of State Colin Powell had asked Carl W. Ford Jr., at that time director of INR, to explain Wilson's statements.^{[citations needed]} Ford re-addressed the classified memo to Powell, who received it on July 7, 2003 as he was about to leave for Africa aboard Air Force One with President Bush, White House senior adviser Dan Bartlett, then White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and others.^{[citations needed]} The memo was passed around on the plane and discussed. The Post's sources report that Ford described the details of the memo in 2004 for the grand jury investigating the leak.^{[citations needed]}

On April 18, 2006, The New York Sun obtained a declassified version of the July 7, 2003 memo.^[57] In the second paragraph of the memo, marked with an (S//NF), it states:

“

In a February 19, 2002, meeting convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and rationale for going to Niger.[58]

”

One week later, on July 14, 2003, Robert Novak wrote his column outing Plame. Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, who received the leak later than Novak, stated that it was given to him by Karl Rove and confirmed by Lewis "Scooter" Libby. According to Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, Rove has stated that he had not seen the memo until it was given to him by prosecutors investigating the leak and that he learned of Plame from Novak.

To date, it is the only known public document linking Plame to the suggestion that Wilson be sent to Niger.^{[citation needed]} Thus, the memo is viewed by some as the original source of the leaked exposure of Plame via someone who was on that flight of Air Force One.^{[citation needed]} Others counter that the source of the information could have been the earlier June 10 State Department memo, the notes of the CIA meeting by the unnamed senior State Department analyst, the analyst and other attendees at that meeting, or the persons at CIA involved with arranging Wilson's Niger trip, and not somebody who read the memo aboard Air Force One.^{[citations needed]}

[edit] Notes