CIA leak scandal timeline

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Main article: CIA leak scandal

This article documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses.

The CIA leak scandal (sometimes known as the Plame affair) (cf. CIA leak grand jury investigation) refers to the political controversy and criminal investigation regarding the public disclosure of a United States CIA agent's identity and testimony pertaining to it.

Valerie Plame, the wife of Joseph C. Wilson, was publicly revealed to be a CIA "operative" in a newspaper column by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003, based on information given to him by Richard Armitage and later confirmed by others.^[1]

The Justice Department is conducting an ongoing special investigation into the original source for the leak and any possible violations of criminal statutes requiring government officials to use classified information responsibly and to testify truthfully in such federal investigations.

A Timeline of the CIA leak scandal

Contents 1 Valerie Plame's Front Company 2 Key background events 2.1 1981 2.2 1988 2.3 1993 2.4 1999 2.5 2001 2.6 Late 2001 – Early 2002 2.7 February 2002 2.8 March 2002 2.9 September 2002 2.10 October 2002 2.11 December 2002 2.12 January 2003 2.13 February 2003 2.14 March 2003 2.15 June 2003 2.16 July 2003 2.17 October 2003 2.18 May 2004 2.19 July 2004 2.20 March 2005 2.21 July 2005 2.22 November 2005 3 Disclosure and scandal 3.1 July 2003 3.2 August 2003 3.3 September 2003 3.4 October 2003 3.5 November 2003 3.6 December 2003 3.7 January 2004 3.8 February 2004 3.9 March 2004 3.10 June 2004 3.11 July 2004 3.12 September 2004 3.13 October 2004 3.14 November 2004 3.15 February 2005 3.16 June 2005 3.17 July 2005 3.18 September 2005 3.19 October 2005 3.20 November 2005 3.21 February 2006 3.22 April 2006 3.23 June 2006 3.24 July 2006 3.25 August 2006 3.26 March 2007 4 Public statements 4.1 Statements by the Bush administration 4.2 Further White House reactions; possible involvement of Bush and Cheney 4.3 Congressional reactions 4.4 Reactions of former CIA officers 4.5 Public opinion 4.6 Initial reactions posted online 4.7 Later developments and public reactions to them 4.7.1 October 2003 4.7.2 June 2004 4.7.3 July 2005 4.7.4 April 2006 4.7.5 May 2006 4.7.6 August 2006 4.7.7 September 2006 5 Notes 6 External links

[edit] Valerie Plame's Front Company

• Brewster Jennings was a front for Valerie Plame, Jean C. Edwards, Robert Ellmann, Paul Jennings (of the Anglo-Irish Bank), and others. The Boston accounting firm Burke Dennehy at the same address and phone number was in turn a front for Brewster Jennings.

• Plame's Brewster Jennings associate Jean C. Edwards is in the attendees lists of three Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics conferences where she spied on Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and Eastern European countries involved in nuclear proliferation.

[edit] Key background events

[edit] 1981

• Seyni Kountche, then President of Niger, stated that his country would "sell uranium even to the devil."^[2]

[edit] 1988

• A BBC report notes that South Africa illicitly sells Uranium to Iraq through Uday Hussein. This sale is unverified by other sources.^[3]

[edit] 1993

• According to an editorial in National Review Online, an IAEA report lists 580 tons of natural uranium in Iraqi stockpiles, some of which came from Niger.^[4]

[edit] 1999

• June: (According to a 2002 conversation between Joseph C. Wilson and former Nigerian Prime Minister Ibrahim Assane Mayaki) An Iraqi businessman approached Mayaki and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and Niger. Mayaki interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales, but steered the conversation away from trade because of UN sanctions against Iraq.^[5] In a 2004 conversation with Wilson, Wilson's "Nigerian source" (presumably, Mayaki), told Wilson that the "Iraqi businessman" he had met in June 1999 was Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi Information Minster, sometimes referred to in the U.S. press as "Baghdad Bob."^[6]

[edit] 2001

• New Years 2001: Over the holiday, a gang of burglars break into the Nigerian embassy in Rome and steal some letterhead and official stamps.^[7]

[edit] Late 2001 – Early 2002

• According to CIA Director George Tenet: "There was fragmentary intelligence gathered in late 2001 and early 2002 on the allegations of Saddam's efforts to obtain additional raw uranium from Africa, beyond the 550 metric tons already in Iraq. In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn. He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerian officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office."^[8]

[edit] February 2002

• 12 February 2002: Vice President Cheney reads a DIA report on alleged Niger-Iraq uranium sale and asks for the CIA’s analysis.^[9]
• 12 February 2002: Valerie E. Wilson (aka Valerie Plame), a C.I.A. analyst working in its Counterproliferation Division, sends a memo to the deputy chief of the C.I.A.'s Directorate of Operations stating that her husband has good contact with the former Prime Minister and Director of Mines in Niger as well as other contacts who might prove useful in shedding light on the supposed Niger-Iraq uranium contract.^[10]
• 13 February 2002: An operations official cables an overseas officer seeking approval of Joe Wilson investigation.^[11]
• 26 February 2002: Joseph C. Wilson travels to Niger at the request of the CIA. Joe Wilson meets with the former minister of mines, Mai Manga, who said he knew of no sales of uranium between Niger and rogue states. He states the mines are closely monitored from mining to transport loading making it at least very difficult if not impossible for a rogue state to obtain uranium through this channel.^[12]

Joe Wilson indicates that in his conversation with former Niger Prime Minister, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, the PM indicated that he was not aware of any sales contract with Iraq but that in June of 1999 he was approached by a businessman, asking that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss expanding commercial relations. (Note: Niger's two largest exports are uranium and livestock [176]). Wilson indicated he thought the meeting took place but that Mayaki, who was aware of the illegality of such activities, let the matter drop due to the sanctions on Iraq.^[13]

• According to the report of the U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee, (July 2004, pages 43–46), former Nigerien prime minister Mayaki told Wilson in Niger that Mayaki interpreted the June 1999 proposal of a businessman for "expanding commercial relations" as an offer to buy uranium yellowcake. However, this was only an interpretation. The Iraqi did not mention the word "uranium" or "yellowcake."

• The Senate report's exact words on Mayaki's suspicions of Iraq's interest in uranium:

  Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, [A few words blacked out] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations' between Niger and Iraq. The [CIA] intelligence report [on Wilson's trip] said that Mayaki interpreted 'expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the U.N. sanctions on Iraq."

• The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence faulted the C.I.A. for not fully investigating Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Niger, citing reports from both a foreign service and the United States Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin, a country located between Niger and Togo.

[edit] March 2002

• 5 March 2002:Wilson is debriefed by two C.I.A. officials at his home. He never files a written report.^[14]

Wilson says he reported to the CIA that Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger are unlikely. Any deal about uranium could not possibly have taken place. Nobody at the State Department African Bureau had ever believed in the Niger story. Two other reports supported his views. Some CIA officials told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Wilson's information was neutral, others said Wilson's information lent support to the contention Iraqi sought uranium from Niger.

[edit] September 2002

• 9 September 2002: According to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency (SISMI), Nicolo Pollari, meets secretly with Stephen Hadley, then Bush's Deputy National Security Adviser; the purpose of the meeting, as reported by La Repubblica, was to bypass a skeptical CIA and get documents purporting to detail an Iraqi attempt to purchase Niger uranium directly to the White House.^[15] Hadley and others who attended this meeting say they have little memory of the details of what was discussed, and in a press conference Hadley characterized the meeting as a "courtesy call" that lasted less than 15 minutes.^[16] According to the Italian Prime Minister's office, the meeting was between the then National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and Nicolo Pollari, in the presence of an Italian and US delegation that included Stephen Hadley.^[17]

[edit] October 2002

• 6 October 2002: The National Security Council sent a sixth draft of a speech President Bush was to give in Cincinnati to the CIA. The draft contained the statement about Iraq "having been caught attempting to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide.^[18] Tenet and other CIA officials directed the text be removed from the speech as the certainty regarding the accuracy of the claim was weak [177].
• 7 October 2002: George W. Bush gives a speech in Cincinnati in which he, for the first time, lays out in detail the case for disarming Iraq. In that speech he asserts, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."^[19] It is later revealed (in July 2003) that George Tenet had intervened to remove language from that speech referencing Iraq's alleged pursuit of Niger uranium. More specifically, Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was reported to be a main target of Tenet's entreaties.^[20]
• 9 October 2002: Elisabetta Burba, an Italian journalist for Panorama magazine, part of the media empire of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, contacts the U.S. Embassy in Rome, requesting authentication of some documents of interest that she has. These documents allegedly represent a contract by Iraq to purchase uranium "yellowcake" from Niger. The owner, not Elisabetta Burba, reportedly wants 15,000 euros for them. Panorama refuses to pay that amount unless they are first verified as authentic.^[21]
• 15 October 2002: The embassy in Rome faxes the documents to the State Department's Bureau of Nonproliferation in Washington which in turn provided copies to the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). The INR's nuclear analyst will later decide they are a hoax in January 2003.
• During an inter-agency meeting the next day, analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Security Agency, and the CIA all obtain copies of the documents. None of the four CIA analysts in attendance remembers taking a copy which later would show up in a CIA vault during a postmortem search.^[22]

[edit] December 2002

• 19 December 2002: By this date the uranium claim, which George Tenet had removed from Bush's speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, in October 2002, had found its way back into a State Department "fact sheet." Following that, the Pentagon requests an authoritative judgement from the National Intelligence Council as to whether or not Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.^[23]

[edit] January 2003

• January 2003: The National Intelligence Council, responding to the Pentagon's request, drafts a memo addressing the Niger uranium story in which they conclude the story is baseless. The memo arrives at the White House prior to the State of the Union address given later that month.^[24]
• 6 January 2003: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) asks the United States for any information related to the claim that Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium from Niger.^[25]
• 13 January 2003: The INR's nuclear analyst sends email to colleagues providing rationale on why the Yellowcake document is a hoax. The CIA's nuclear analyst does not have the documents in question and requests a copy.^[26]
• 16 January 2003: CIA received copies of the original foreign language documents on the Niger-Iraq contract.^[27]
• 27 January 2003: During a National Security Council meeting at the White House, someone hands George Tenet a hardcopy of President Bush's State of the Union address. Tenet is, he later testifies, too busy to read it and hands it to an aide who passes it to a top official in the CIA intelligence directorate who was also too busy to read it.^[28]
• 28 January 2003: President George W. Bush gives his State of the Union speech. Toward the end Bush states, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."^[29] The sentence becomes known as the "16 words." In his State of the Union speech, Bush also declares, "The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb."

[edit] February 2003

• 4 February 2003: The United States provides electronic copy of the Niger documents to Jacques Bute, then head of IAEA's Iraq Nuclear Verification Office, who was in New York, and sends a copy to the IAEA offices in Vienna as well.^[30]

[edit] March 2003

• 3 March 2003: The IAEA tells the U.S. Mission in Vienna the Niger documents were obvious fakes.^[31] Among errors reportedly identified in the documents is a reference to a Nigerian constitution in 1965.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] June 2003

• 12 June 2003: During a telephone call, Cheney told Libby that Wilson's wife worked in Counter Proliferation [178].

[edit] July 2003

• 6 July 2003: Joe Wilson's Opinion Editorial "What I Didn't Find in Africa" is published in The New York Times.^[32]
• 7 July 2003: Colin Powell receives a copy of a 10 June memo naming Valerie Wilson as Joe Wilson's wife and as a CIA officer, taking it with him on a trip on Air Force One with President Bush. The paragraph identifying Mrs. Wilson is marked "(S-NF)," signfying its information is classified "Secret, Noforn."^[33] Noforn is a code word indicating that the information is not to be shared with foreign nationals.^[34] Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer, Walter H. Kansteiner, III, and Andrew Card are on the trip, among others.
• Sometime before 8 July 2003 Robert Novak has a conversation with Richard Armitage (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State). In that conversation he is told for the first time that Wilson's wife works for the C.I.A. [Armitage didn't tell Novak her name; subsequently, after his August 2006 public disclosure that he was the "inadvertent" leak, Armitage has asserted that he did not know her name at the time.] Novak uses an edition of Joseph C. Wilson's biography in Who's Who to identify by her maiden name Valerie Plame. According to the reporters Isikoff and Corn, Armitage's leak was "inadvertent, and the Intelligence Identities Act hadn't been violated."^[35]
• 8 July 2003: Robert Novak has a phone conversation with Karl Rove in which C.I.A. agent Plame is discussed, according to an unnamed source who had been told not to talk about the case. Novak is reported to have told Rove the name of the agent as "Valerie Plame" and her role in Wilson's mission to Africa. Rove is reported to have told Novak something to the effect of, "I heard that, too." or "Oh, so you already know about it." Rove reportedly told the grand jury that at this time he had already heard about Wilson's wife working for the CIA from another journalist, but is unable to remember who that was.^[36]
• 8 July 2003: Lewis Libby meets with Judith Miller and tells her about Plame's work at the CIA. According to Libby's later grand jury testimony, he told Miller at this meeting that the Niger uranium claim had been a "key judgement" of the October 2002 NIE (still classified at that time), and that Cheney had instructed him to do so. This was false; the Niger claim was not in fact one of the "key judgements" headlined, bolded, and bulleted in the first pages of the intelligence estimate.^[37] Later, after testifying to a Federal grand jury in October 2005, Miller will write in the New York Times that on this date (and four days later, on 12 July 2003), Libby "played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance."[179]
• circa 10 July 2003–11 July 2003: Novak called Bill Harlowe, then CIA spokesman, to confirm information regarding Plame and Wilson. According to Novak, Harlow denied that Plame "suggested" that Wilson be selected for the trip, and Harlow stated instead that CIA "counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."^[38] According to Harlow, he "warned Novak in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information," that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if Novak did write about it, her name should not be revealed. Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. According to Harlow, however, he did not tell Novak directly that Plame was undercover because that information was classified.^[39] According to Novak, not only did Harlowe not tell Novak that Plame was undercover, he actually told Novak that "she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.'" Novak states that if he had been told that disclosure of Plame's name would endanger her or anyone else, he would not have disclosed the name.^[40]
• 11 July 2003: According to one source, Novak's regular syndicated column was allegedly distributed by Creators Syndicate on the newswire AP on this date.^[41]
• 11 July 2003: Matt Cooper's internal Time e-mail message bearing the time 11:07 a.m. is sent to his bureau chief, stating: "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation. . . ." Cooper writes that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." According to Cooper, Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCI" — CIA Director George Tenet — or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues who authorized the trip." Rove also told Cooper that, "there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger".^[42] Cooper would later tell the investigating grand jury that Rove concluded the conversation by saying "I've already said too much."^[43]
• 11 July 2003 (afternoon or evening): CIA Director George Tenet takes responsibility for the misleading language concerning uranium in Bush's State of the Union Address, citing a failure of the agency's vetting process.^[44] Director Tenet also (1) clarified that Wilson had reported that a businessman had made possible overtures to acquire uranium from Niger; (2) alleged that Wilson's report did not mention forged documents or even mention the existence of documents; and (3) discussed the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate conclusions regarding Iraq's nuclear program. According to an article in The New York Times, his statement was written by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.^[45]
• 12 July 2003: Ari Fleischer discusses the uranium controversy, at a "press gaggle" at the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria, where President Bush was visiting, at 9:20 AM local time. After a brief statement on the President's activities at the hospital, Fliescher answers a question regarding the previous day's statement by George Tenet. He states that the President is pleased by the report, and expresses the President's confidence in Tenet. The next question is one of accountability, which the press secretary deflects, saying, in part, "The greater truth is that nobody, but nobody, denies that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons." Fleischer cites Wilson's report as being supportive of the yellowcake claim. The conversation with reporters repeated that intelligence supported the notion that Iraq had or was trying to acquire nuclear weapons. Having said that, Fliescher reiterates the administration's position that the yellowcake claim should not have risen to the level of "presidential speech." When asked about public perception, Fleischer denies that there's a problem. "Yes, the President has moved on. And I think, frankly, much of the country has moved on, as well."^[46]
• 12 July 2003: Judith Miller again meets with Scooter Libby. After testifying to a Federal grand jury in October 2005, she will write in the New York Times that on this occasion, as on the occasion of another conversation four days earlier, Libby "played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance."
• 12 July 2003: Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus says an administration official told him, somewhat off topic, that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA analyst working on weapons of mass destruction and that Wilson's trip was a "boondoggle."^[47]
• 17 July 2003: Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, along with two other writers, Massimo Calabresi and John F. Dickerson, "first mentioned the name of Joseph Wilson's wife in an online article posted July 17, 2003. In that article Cooper ask[s], 'Has the Bush Administration declared war on a former ambassador who conducted a fact-finding mission to probe possible Iraqi interest in African uranium?'"^[48]

Cooper et al. trace the controversy surrounding President Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech and the African uranium controversy. Anonymous sources of information are attributed to "two senior Administration officials," "another official," and "an intelligence official." Named sources include Vice President Dick Cheney's assistant Scooter Libby, Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame's superior Alan Foley, and former State Department proliferation expert Greg Thielmann.

• 21 July 2003: "A Question of Trust" discussing the controversy previously reported by Cooper et al. is published online on Time Magazine's website.^[49]
• 22 July 2003: Stephen Hadley offers President Bush his resignation, an offer that is rejected.^{[citation needed]}
• 29 July 2003: In an article entitled "Spy Games" published in the National Review Online, Clifford May claims:

  On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative. That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.^[50]

[edit] October 2003

• 1 October 2003. Robert Novak's article "The CIA leak" is published, in which he wrote,

  During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it."^[51]

• 1 October 2003. As would be revealed in September 7, 2006,

He [Armitage] says he was reading Novak's newspaper column again, on Oct. 1, 2003, and "he [Novak] said he was told by a non-partisan gun slinger."
"I almost immediately called Secretary Powell and said, 'I'm sure that was me,'" Armitage says. Armitage immediately met with FBI agents investigating the leak."
"I told them that I was the inadvertent leak," Armitage says. He didn't get a lawyer, however....Armitage says he didn't come forward because "the special counsel, once he was appointed, asked me not to discuss this and I honored his request."^[52]

[edit] May 2004

• 22 May 2003: "The repository, at Tuwaitha, a centerpiece of Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons program, . . . . holds more than 500 tons of uranium . . . . Some 1.8 tons is classified as low-enriched uranium."^[53]

The Times noted that Saddam Hussein's nearly 2 tons of partially enriched uranium was not sufficient for a weapon.

However, Ivan Oelrich, a physicist at the Federation of American Scientists, in response to an A.P. query stated that the issue was whether the uranium's enrichment level was at the 3–5% common in commercial power reactors and if so, then a mere 1.8 tons would be more than sufficient.^[54]

[edit] July 2004

• 5 July 2004: European intelligence officers claim that three years BEFORE the fake Niger-Iraq documents became public, sources from a number of countries including both human and electronic picked up repeated conversations regarding illicit trade in uranium in Niger. One of the customers for the uranium discussed was Iraq.

At least three European intelligence were aware of potential illegal trade in Nigerian uranium between 1999 and 2001.^[55]

• 7 July 2004: The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence publishes its report.^[56]
• 22 July 2004: Bill Getz's column in the Washington Times alleges that Valerie Plame had been "outed" twice prior (and long prior) to her "outing" by Robert Novak. In it he states that Valerie Plame's C.I.A. "affiliation" was disclosed to Moscow in the mid 1990s by a Moscow spy.

The second "outing" occurred when the C.I.A. sent confidential documents to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana. The documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government but apparently not and their contents gleaned by Cuban agents.^[57]

• 26 July 2004: Factcheck.org releases the results and evidence of its investigation into Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address and the famous 16 words.^[58]

[edit] March 2005

• 23 March 2005: Thirty-six news organizations file a friend of the court brief on behalf of Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper.^[59] Among those organizations filing are The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, AP, Newsweek, Reuters, and White House correspondents, among many others. It was the general position of these news organizations and their reporters that neither Miller nor Cooper should be held in contempt of court for refusing to testify if no crime had been committed (i.e., no covert agent was "outed" in violation of the relevant statutes).^[60]

As evidence that it is likely that no crime had been committed, the news agencies voluntarily filed a friend of the court brief in which they state on page 5:

B. There is Ample Evidence On The Public Record To Cast Considerable Doubt That a Crime Has Been Committed. [Supporting facts and rationale are offered in subsequent pages.]

According to the news agencies, there was no need to compel these reporters to divulge their sources because it was unlikely that a crime had been committed.

See also: Plame affair legal questions

[edit] July 2005

• 20 July 2005: Robert Muller, the director of the F.B.I., wrote a letter (classified) which praised Italy's cooperation with the bureau in working to determine the source of the forged Niger-Iraq document. The F.B.I. concluded from their investigation that the documents were forged for personal profit and exonerated the Italian service from intending to influence American policy. As a result the F.B.I. had finished its investigation into the origin of the document.^[61]

[edit] November 2005

• 4 November 2005: Gen. Nicolo Pollari, Italy's chief of Military Intelligence, told an Italian parliamentary committee on secret services that Rocco Martino, a former intelligence agency informer, was the source of the forged Niger-Iraq document. He did not, however, go so far as to say that Martino was the forger. News reports have stated that Mr. Martino claimed to have gotten the documents from a contact at the Niger embassy in Rome. Mr. Pollari is also quoted as telling the committee that no Italian intelligence officers were involved in the forgery or distribution of the document. Pollari also told the committee that Martino claimed he was working for the French intelligence service. A French intelligence spokesman called Martino's claims scandalous without going so far as to explicitly confirm or deny the essence of Martino's claim. La Repubblica, in a series of articles a week earlier, claimed that Martino had "produced the forgeries from letterhead and stamps he purloined from Niger's embassy in Rome in 2000."^[62]
• 16 November 2005: According to the Washington Post, Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward indicated he learned of Valerie Plame's identity as a C.I.A. operative from a senior administration official a month before it was revealed in Robert Novak's column:

  "I was first contacted by Fitzgerald's office on 3 November after one of these officials went to Fitzgerald to discuss an interview with me in mid-June 2003 during which the person told me Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst."

The three separate Bush administration officials communicated their desire that Woodward feel free to discuss their individual conversations with him regarding any topic related to and only related to Fitzgerald's investigation.^[63] This revelation from an official, who was not Libby, would make someone else and not Libby the first person to "out" Valerie Plame.^[64]

[edit] Disclosure and scandal

[edit] July 2003

• 14 July 2003: "Mission to Niger" by Robert Novak: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.^[65] Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger. . . . The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him." (Italics added.) The story is published on Ari Fleisher's last day as White House Press Secretary.
• 16 July 2003: "A White House Smear" is published at the website of Nation magazine.^[66] Author David Corn opines that Novak's informants revealed the role of Wilson's wife in order to sully Wilson's name for the sake of revenge, "That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it." Corn's article is the first published to argue a nefarious White House role.
• 17 July 2003: "A War on Wilson," by Matt Cooper and two other writers, is published by Time as a "web exclusive." Their article indicates that some of the sources for "A Question of Trust" had informed at least one of them about Valerie Plame's status. "And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices." (Two years later, in July 2005, it was revealed that one of the officials who spoke of Plame to Time was Karl Rove.)
• 18 July 2003: British weapons of mass destruction expert David Kelly dies by suicide. NB Kelly's "suicide" was not proven beyond reasonable doubt, neither was "intent" (to commit suicide) proven, again beyond reasonable doubt — a "verdict" of suicide requires that both these criteria are satisfied, but Hutton lacked the statutory powers necessary to achieve such a high level of proof. A "written question" tabled by the Shadow Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, in July 2005, established that the Inquest had not been "closed", and that no "verdict" had been reached (see Hansard).^{[citation needed]}
• 18 July 2003: Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton is questioned by the State Department Inspector General regarding sources for the Niger uranium claims.^{[citation needed]}
• 21 July 2003: Newsday article "Columnist Names CIA Iraq Operative" by Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce attributes intelligence information independently leaked to them about Plame as coming from "intelligence officials" and a "senior intelligence official." Both authors have been subpoenaed in the Plame investigation.^[67]
• 22 July 2003 Newsday quotes Novak, on Plame's name: "I didn't dig it out. It was given to me. They thought it was significant. They gave me the name, and I used it."[180]
• 30 July 2003: When pressed, Scott McClellan tells reporters: "I’m saying no one was certainly given any authority to do anything of that nature, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest there’s any truth to it."^[68] To date [?], U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have called for investigations and a number of other senators have told reporters that some sort of inquiry is probably in order.^{[citations needed]}

[edit] August 2003

• 3 August 2003: Wilson appears on CNN Late Night with Wolf Blitzer offering his opinion on the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs:

  BLITZER: I think he's being very cautious now, given some of the missteps in the past. But do you have confidence in (weapons inspector) David Kay, that they know what they're doing?
  
  JOSEPH WILSON, FORMER U.S. ACTING AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ: Oh, absolutely, and I've had confidence in — that we would find weapons of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction programs from the very beginning of the run-up to the war in Iraq.
  
  687, the initial U.N. resolution dealing with weapons of mass destruction, demanded compliance, and it had as its objective disarmament. We had not yet achieved disarmament, so it was perfectly appropriate to continue to try and gather together the international consensus to disarm Saddam and his programs.
  
  I think we'll find chemical weapons. I think we'll find biological precursors that may or may not have been weaponized. And I think we will find a continuing interest of — on nuclear weapons. The question really is whether it met the threshold test of imminent threat to our own national security or even the test of grave and gathering danger.^[69]

Wilson's comments are similar to others connected to the intelligence community but who opposed the Iraq war — Iraqi weapons of mass destruction did indeed exist, but did not constitute an imminent threat to the United States itself. The overstated threat assessment of Iraqi WMD capability and stockpiles was the result of poor intelligence shared between the CIA and the international intelligence community.^{[citations needed]}

• 8 August 2003: Days after Wilson "publicly voiced doubts about a reported Iraqi weapons program," Wilson says he became "a target of a campaign to discourage others like him from going public . . . [and] Wilson's wife was identified by name as a covert C.I.A. operative in a column by the conservative columnist Robert Novak, a disclosure that Mr. Novak has attributed to senior administration officials." (Italics added.)^[70]
• 21 August 2003: Wilson participated in a "public panel in Washington" and is quoted as having said "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."^[71]

[edit] September 2003

• September 16, 2003: Scott McClellan says "it's totally ridiculous" to say Karl Rove was the Plame leaker.^[72]
• 26 September 2003: At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department begins looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, an aggravated felony punishable by up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine.^{[citation needed]}
• 28 September 2003: A senior administration official tells The Washington Post "that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."[181]
• 29 September 2003: Justice Department asks White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales to preserve all relevant evidence, but inexplicably grants Gonzales an additional overnight delay, and Gonzales informs White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card that night.^[73]
• 29 September 2003: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says about Karl Rove: "He wasn't involved,... The president knows he wasn't involved. . . . It's simply not true." "The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."^[74] McClellan went on to say: "The president believes leaking classified information is a very serious matter and it should be pursued to the fullest extent by the appropriate agency and the appropriate agency is the Department of Justice."^[75]
• 29 September 2003: Novak insists that he stumbled on the story himself. "'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this,' Novak said on CNN, saying the information was disclosed to him while he was interviewing a senior Bush administration official.... Novak said the administration official told him in July that Wilson's trip was 'inspired by his wife,' and that the CIA confirmed her 'involvement in the mission for her husband.' ... 'They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else,' he said, adding that a source at the CIA told him Plame was 'an analyst — not a covert operator and not in charge of undercover operators.'"^[76]
• 29 September 2003] ABC reporter asks "Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?" Rove answers "No."^[77]
• 30 September 2003: The Justice Department officially launches its full criminal investigation into the leak and requires White House to preserve all relevant evidence.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] October 2003

• 1 October 2003: Wilson told Ted Koppel on Nightline that "Washington reporters told him that senior White House adviser Karl Rove said his wife was 'fair game'." Wilson "plans to give the names of the reporters to the FBI, which is conducting a full-blown investigation of the possible leak."^[78]
• 1 October 2003: "While Novak's decision to use Plame's name begs a journalism ethics debate, releasing her name to him or any reporter may well constitute a felony.^[79]
• 7 October 2003: Scott McClellan, attempting to ignore the question of whether Scooter Libby, Karl Rove or Elliot Abrams was the leaker said, "That's correct. I've spoken with them."^[80]
• 7 October 2003: President Bush voices doubt if the leaker would ever be found.^[81]
• 10 October 2003. White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters. McClellan said he had spoken with all three, and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."^[82]
• 22 October 2003. John Kerry for President, Inc. registers the domain for Wilson's website www.RestoreHonesty.com.^[83]

[edit] November 2003

• Walter H. Kansteiner, III, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, resigns early in his term stating family issues [182].

[edit] December 2003

• December 2003 or January 2004: Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin says Rove has signed a waiver authorizing prosecutors to speak to any reporters Rove had talked to.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] January 2004

• January 2004: Vanity Fair publishes "Double Exposure," an article about Joseph C. Wilson and Valerie Plame, including a photograph of both of them in their convertible in which she is wearing sunglasses and a scarf.^[84]
• 22 January 2004: Justice Department subpoenas phone records from Air Force One [183].

[edit] February 2004

• 11 February 2004: George W. Bush insists, "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. . . . If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job. I want to know the truth. . . . Leaks of classified information are bad things."^[85]

[edit] March 2004

• 6 March 2004: The Washington Post reports that the White House agreed to turn over a log of a week's worth of telephone calls from Air Force One and other records subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the leak.^{[citation needed]}
• 8 March 2004: The American Prospect says Rove insisted he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July. Rove said he had only circulated information about Plame after it had appeared in Novak's column. This is contrary to what Rove's lawyer will later admit.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] June 2004

• 3 June 2004: President Bush announces he will hire attorney James E. Sharp if questioned by the investigation.^[86]
• 10 June 2004: A questioner at the press conference following the G8 summit asks President Bush "do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so", referring to a prior question regarding whether the President stands by his suggestion that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent's name. President Bush answers "yes", however nowhere in the public record has the President actually made the specific pledge alluded to by the questioner.^[87]
• 24 June 2004: President Bush is interviewed for more than an hour regarding the incident.^[88]

[edit] July 2004

• July 2004: In response to the Senate Intelligence Panel's Bipartisan Report, Wilson withdraws from his advisory role to the John Kerry campaign. The campaign removes the www.restorehonesty.com website.^{[citations needed]}
• 7 July 2004: The Senate Select Intelligence Committee releases its "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq."^[89] The report documents and offers some explanations as to the many failures of the U.S. intelligence community in its estimates of Iraqi weapons programs. About Plame and Wilson and the Niger trip, one CIA official said Plame "offered up his name" and Plame had written a memo recommending Wilson for the trip given his connections to Nigerien officials and "lots of French contacts." (page 39) Vanity Fair's January 2004 article "Double Exposure" states Wilson was representing a concern seeking business related to gold mining in Niger, a former French colony. As for the information Wilson gained in Niger, CIA and State Department intelligence officials believed Wilson's report actually boosted the case that Iraq was seeking uranium, but Joe Wilson appeared to spin his story the opposite way. CIA continued to mention, with the backing of British Intelligence, that Iraq have sought uranium in Niger.
• 31 July 2004:Rove says on CNN "Well, I’ll repeat what I said to ABC News when this whole thing broke some number of months ago. I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name." On ABC, he had actually denied having any knowledge of the Plame leak.^[90]

During the Republican National Convention, Rove told CNN:

"I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name. This is at the Justice Department. I'm confident that the U.S. Attorney, the prosecutor who's involved in looking at this is going to do a very thorough job of doing a very substantial and conclusive investigation."^[91]

[edit] September 2004

• 16 September 2004: The Washington Post reports that a source for Walter Pincus has revealed his own identity, letting Pincus off the hook that was still ensnaring Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper.^[92]
• 30 September 2004]: Iraq Survey Group's final report is released. It concludes that there was no evidence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium since 1991.

[edit] October 2004

• October 2004: Rove testifies before a grand jury investigating the leak of Plame's identity. Rove spent more than two hours testifying before the panel... Before testifying, Rove was interviewed at least once by investigators probing the leak. Bush, Cheney, Colin Powell were also interviewed, though none appeared before the grand jury...^{[citations needed]} [Missing quotation marks? Sources of ellipses?]

[edit] November 2004

• November 2, 2004: In the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Bush is re-elected and Republicans increase their majority in both houses of Congress.

[edit] February 2005

• 15 February 2005: A federal appeals court in Washington ruled that Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper may have witnessed a federal crime (disclosure by government officials of a CIA officer's identity) and that they would have to cooperate with the grand juries investigating the crime.^[93]

[edit] June 2005

• 27 June 2005: The Supreme Court of the United States declines to hear appeals by Miller and Cooper of the February 15 ruling above.^[94]
• 30 June 2005: Norman Pearlstine, Time Inc.'s editor in chief agrees to provide documents concerning the confidential sources of Matthew Cooper to a grand jury.^[95]

[edit] July 2005

• July 2005: Michael Isikoff reports in Newsweek that Karl Rove spoke with Matt Cooper days before the Novak story, and that it was Cooper who initiated the call and brought up Wilson and his wife. Cooper later tells GJ that the call had nothing to do with Welfare.^[96]
• 1 July 2005: Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst on the McLaughlin Group, stated: "And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."^[97]

• 4 July 2005: Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, admits to Newsweek that Rove did talk to reporters about Wilson's wife before Novak's story, but without knowing her name, in line with his assertion that he only spoke to reporters about her name after Plame's identity was revealed.^[98]

This section does not cite its references or sources. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) Any unsourced material that has been or is likely to be challenged may be removed at any time. This article has been tagged since December 2005.

• 6 July 2005: New York Times reporter Judith Miller goes to jail to protect the identity of the persons who leaked the identity of a CIA agent.
• 6 July 2005: Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, told Newsweek that Rove "did not call Cooper" to give permission to Cooper to testify.
• 7 July 2005: The New York Times reports that Cooper's release to testify resulted from negotiations involving Rove's and Cooper's attorneys.
• 10 July 2005: Newsweek quotes Rove lawyer Robert Luskin as confirming that Rove was the source who gave information to Time reporter Matt Cooper under a pledge of confidentiality, and that he subsequently released him to testify about that conversation to a grand jury.
• 11 July 2005: Rove's lawyer says, "Rove did not mention her name to Cooper."^[99]
• 11 July 2005: Cooper did not actually get a call from his "source" Rove. Read a WSJ interview by Rove Attorney Luskin and decided to testify.^[100]
• 11 July 2005: Scott McClellan dodges the "will the President fire the leaker" question. He also dodges the question, "Did Karl Rove commit a crime?"^[101]
• 13 July 2005: Matt Cooper confirmed that his source on the leak was President Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove after receiving a waiver from confidentiality signed by Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin.^{[citation needed]}
• 15 July 2005: The Washington Times quotes a former CIA agent as indicating that Plame was not a covert agent.^[102] However, other agents quickly contradicted this and pointed out that the man making the claim had left the CIA over fifteen years ago and thus had no knowledge of Plame's status after 1990.
• 18 July 2005: President Bush says that the leaker will be fired if a crime was committed. (Italics added.)^[103]

[edit] September 2005

This section does not cite its references or sources. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) Any unsourced material that has been or is likely to be challenged may be removed at any time. This article has been tagged since December 2005.

• 29 September 2005: Judith Miller released from jail after she agrees to testify.
• 30 September 2005: Judith Miller testifies for grand jury investigating Plame CIA leak.

[edit] October 2005

This section does not cite its references or sources. Please help improve this article by introducing appropriate citations. (help, get involved!) Any unsourced material that has been or is likely to be challenged may be removed at any time. This article has been tagged since December 2005.

• 13 October 2005: Judith Miller testifies for the grand jury investigating the Plame CIA leak.
• 14 October 2005: Karl Rove appears in front of the federal grand jury investigating the CIA leak. This is his fourth appearance.
• 28 October 2005: Lewis "Scooter" Libby charged with two counts of perjury, two counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice. He immediately resigns as Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff [184].

[edit] November 2005

• 2 November 2005: FOX News military analyst and retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely publicly claims Wilson had spoken to him about his wife's role with the CIA while they were waiting together in the green room before appearing together on FOX News. Vallely said this occurred on three to five occasions, first in February or March of 2002, more than a year before Novak's column. Vallely also said Wilson was proud to routinely introduce his wife as a CIA employee at cocktail parties.^[104]
• 5 November 2005: Joseph C. Wilson's lawyers dispute and challenge these claims, warning of potential legal action.^[105]
• 7 November 2005: John Batchelor announces Lt. General Thomas McInerney, USAF (ret) will appear on his radio program to confirm the statements of Paul Vallely regarding his conversation with Joseph Wilson. McInerney claims that Wilson also bragged to McInerney about his wife's job with the CIA in the green room at FOX News.^[106] Wilson and his lawyers also dispute and challenge these claims.

See also: Joseph C. Wilson#Claims made by retired generals Vallely and McInerney

[edit] February 2006

• 4 February 2006: The Washington Post reports ". . . court records show that Libby denied to a grand jury that he ever mentioned Plame or her CIA job to then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer or then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller in separate conversations he had with each of them in early July 2003. The records also suggest that Libby did not disclose to investigators that he first spoke to Miller about Plame in June 2003, and that prosecutors learned of the nature of the conversation only when Miller finally testified late in the fall of 2005." The article continues, "All three specific allegations are contained in previously redacted sections of a U.S. Court of Appeals opinion that were released yesterday. The opinion analyzed Fitzgerald's secret evidence to determine whether his case warranted ordering reporters to testify about their confidential conversations with sources."^[107]

[edit] April 2006

• 7 April 2006: The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that court documents in the federal grand jury investigation include Libby testimony that Vice President Cheney specifically directed him to release classified and bias-selected contested conclusions on Iraq WMD's from war-favoring sources cited in the National Intelligence Estimate, with the explicit goal to discredit Joseph Wilson as critic of the buildup to war.^[108] Although not a specific order to expose Plame, Libby's testimony alleges both Bush and Cheney desired him to compromise state secrets for the purpose of discrediting criticism of the Bush administration [185].

[edit] June 2006

• 12 June 2006: Special Counsel Fitzgerald notifies Karl Rove that he will not be indicted by the Grand Jury investigating the Plame CIA leak.^[109]

[edit] July 2006

• 12 July 2006 Robert Novak publicly states that Karl Rove was his "primary source" of the information that Joseph C. Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.^[110]

• 13 July 2006 In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of revealing Plame's CIA identity in seeking revenge against Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq.^[111]

[edit] August 2006

• 29 August 2006: Public disclosure that Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, "has acknowledged that he was the person who first identified Valerie Wilson as an officer in the C.I.A. to columnist Robert D. Novak."^[112]

[edit] March 2007

• 16 March 2007: Valerie Plame testifies before a Congressional Committee that she did not recommend or suggest her husband for the mission to Niger. [186]

[edit] Public statements

[edit] Statements by the Bush administration

Bush and his White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan have made several statements about the administration's response if anyone was found to have been involved in the leak:

• McClellan — September 29, 2003: "The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."^[113]
• Bush — September 30, 2003: "And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of. ... I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."^[114]
• McClellan — October 7, 2003: "Let me answer what the President has said. I speak for the President and I'll talk to you about what he wants." and "If someone leaked classified information, the President wants to know. If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates, that's not the way this President expects people in his administration to conduct their business."^[115]
• Bush — June 10, 2004 (Responding to a media question which asked "do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have . . . leaked [Valerie Plame's] name?"): "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts."^[116]
• Bush — July 18, 2005: "I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts. And if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."^[117]

[edit] Further White House reactions; possible involvement of Bush and Cheney

In the beginning the White House called the allegation that Rove disclosed classified information "totally ridiculous" and "simply not true," and stated that "if anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."^{[118][119][120][121]}

The White House continued to publicly assert that no Bush administration officials were involved in the leak until after the Supreme Court decision of 2005, the subsequent release of internal TIME magazine email, and TIME reporter Matt Cooper's decision to testify to the grand jury. Once Karl Rove's involvement was disclosed, the White House refused to comment on the ongoing investigation and stated that they would fire anyone convicted of criminal activity. Critics find an intent to protect Mr. Rove in the new specificity, while supporters say this is indicative of was what was meant all along.^{[citations needed]}

On September 29, 2003, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that "[i]f anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration," adding that Karl Rove had specifically assured McClellan that he was not involved, and that "the President expects his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct and the highest ethics."^[122]

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, regarding any suggested involvement of Karl Rove with the leak, that "The President knows" that it was not true, adding: "And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove ... He [President Bush]'s aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it."^[123]

On September 30, 2003, Mr. Bush said: "And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." He added: "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."^[124]

President George W. Bush, who has repeatedly denied knowing the identity of the leaker, called the leak a "criminal action" for the first time on 6 October 2003, stating "[i]f anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find the leaker."^[125] Speaking to a crowd of journalists the following day, Bush said "I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is — partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers."^[126]

On 8 October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that "no one has more of an interest in getting to the bottom of this than the White House does, than the President does."^[127]

On 10 October 2003, after the Justice Department began its formal investigation into the leak, McClellan specifically said that neither Rove nor two other officials whom he had personally questioned — Elliott Abrams, a national security aide, and Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff — were involved and that anyone who was involved in leaking classified information would be fired.^[128]

On 10 June 2004, eight months after the formal outside investigation was begun and five months after the appointment of a Special Counsel, President Bush was asked by a reporter, "Given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney's discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, suggesting that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent's name? ... And do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?" The President responded, "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts."^[129]

On 11 July 2005, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who had since become a grand jury witness himself, refused at a press conference to answer dozens of questions, repeatedly stating that the Bush Administration had made a decision not to comment on an "ongoing criminal investigation" involving White House staff.^[130] McClellan declined to answer whether Rove had committed a crime. McClellan also declined to repeat prior categorical denials of Rove's involvement in the leak,^[131] nor would he state whether Bush would honor his prior promise to fire individuals involved in the leak.^{[132][133][134]} Although Democratic critics called for Rove's dismissal, or at the very least immediate suspension of Rove's security clearances and access to meetings in which classified material was under discussion, Rove remained working in the White House.

Neither Rove nor the President offered immediate public comment on the unfolding scandal.^{[135][136][137][138]} Congressional Republicans remained silent on the issue of the Valerie Plame leak and a White House compromise of national security, and as of 18 July 2005, not a single elected Republican member of Congress had called for Rove to be disciplined or impeached. Rove was vociferously defended by Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman and by many conservative news outlets and commentators, some of whom followed cues laid out in a "talking points" memo, circulated among Republicans on Capitol Hill, which questioned Joseph Wilson's credibility.^[139] Among others, David Brooks, conservative New York Times editorialist and NPR commentator, attacked Wilson on 14 July 2005 by falsely alleging that he had claimed Cheney sent him on the Niger mission, and that in speaking to Cooper and others, Rove was merely correcting a reporter's misconception.^[140] In an even more extreme example of partisanship, the Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal praised Rove on 13 July 2005 for leaking Plame's identity, referring to him as a "whistleblower."^[141] Fox News's John Gibson said that even if Rove is not being truthful, he deserves a medal for leaking Plame's CIA identity because Joseph Wilson opposed the war and "Valerie Plame should have been outed by somebody."^[142][143]

On 18 July 2005, after having brushed off similar questions about the Rove scandal for nearly a week, President Bush stated that "[i]f someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."^[144][145] This was widely interpreted as a retraction of multiple earlier promises to fire anyone involved in the leak itself. Others counter this view by relying on the one previous mention of illegality, the September 30, 2003 remarks, to suggest that criminality was a prerequisite all along. Many news outlets speculated that Rove's (future) legal defense might be built upon testimony that he was ignorant of Plame's protected status at the time he outed her as a CIA employee; if it could be proven that he had heard of her CIA covert status before speaking to journalists, however, Rove could face far more serious charges. A New York Times story of 16 July 2005 suggested that the Special Counsel grand jury has questioned whether a particular top secret State Department report naming Plame may have been the source of Rove's information.^[146] Colin Powell was photographed carrying the report in Africa in the company of the President in the days following the 6 July 2003 publication of Wilson's op-ed piece. Powell is reported to have testified before the grand jury.

White House Chief of Staff, Andrew Card was informed by then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales around 8:00 p.m. on September 29, 2003, that the Department of Justice was beginning an investigation of the Plame affair, and that the next morning, Gonzalez would order the White House staff to preserve all documents which may be related to the case. Gonzalez has stated that he did not send the order to the staff because of the lateness of the hour, but speculation has suggested that he notified Card in order to give him a twelve hour head start before destruction of any incriminating documents would be prohibited.^[147] This was unusual, according to the Washington Post, since the White House Staff is usually quickly notified of any investigations so as to safeguard the integrity of any documents, emails or memoranda that might be required for the investigation.^[148]

[edit] Congressional reactions

On July 15, 2005, ninety one Democratic members of Congress sign a petition calling for Karl Rove to explain his role in the Plame affair, or to resign.^[149][150] Thirteen Democratic Members of the House Judiciary Committee call for hearings on the matter.^[151]

A Resolution of Inquiry has been offered by Rush Holt (D-NJ) and John Conyers (D-MI), requesting that the Bush Administration release all documents concerning the exposure of Ms. Plame.

Barney Frank (D-MA) and John Conyers (D-MI) have authorized the Library of Congress to research legal precedent for the impeachment of White House staffers.^[152]

A series of nationwide town hall meetings was scheduled for July 23, 2005 to review the Downing Street memo, the Plame affair, and the situation in Iraq.^[153]

Twenty-six Democratic Senators, including seven members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have issued a public statement authored by Senator John Kerry, calling for Congressional hearings to investigate the Plame leak.^[154]

On November 1, 2005, Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) called for a closed session, for only the 54th time since 1929, to discuss the Plame affair and the Bush Administration's role in pre-Iraq War intelligence.

On November 5, 2005, Senator Zell Miller (D-GA) wrote a column describing his view of the Plame affair as a "sting operation" by the Wilsons designed to pull down a sitting president. Miller claims that Joseph Wilson played a key role by "misrepresenting" the intelligence he gathered on his trip to Niger, publishing his findings in an op-ed piece.^[155]

After an MSNBC report that asserted Plame was working on tracking Iranian nuclear proliferation, U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) wrote Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss requesting a "national security damage assessment briefing to U.S. Senators regarding the public disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA officer."^[156]

[edit] Reactions of former CIA officers

On 18 July 2005, eleven former CIA officers backed Valerie Plame in a three page statement presented to a Congressional hearing^[157] and characterized the leak of her identity as damaging "national security and threaten[ing] the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering":

"Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs," the eleven said. "In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor."^[158]

Former DCI George Tenet told a Senator that he was "furious" with the Bush Administration about the leak in 2003.^[159]

Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA colleague of Plame's in the late 1980s, heavily criticized the Bush Administration's handling of the leak: "This is wrong and this is shameful. Instead of a president concerned first and foremost with protecting this country and the intelligence officers who serve it, we are confronted with a president who is willing to sit by while political operatives savage the reputations of good Americans like Valerie and Joe Wilson."^[160]

On 22 July 2005, Johnson,^[161] along with former CIA case officers David MacMichael and James Marcinkowski,^[162] former senior CIA analyst and senior fellow of the Center for International Policy Melvin A. Goodman,^[163] and retired Army colonel and DIA officer W. Patrick Lang,^[164] testified at a Senate Hearing on the consequences of the leak.

Lang emphasized his view that the Bush Administration's action in leaking Plame's identity had threatened vital national security interests over the long term, by sending the message to potential assets around the world that their identity will not be protected if they work with the CIA. "This says to them that if you decide to cooperate, someone will give you up, so you don't do it," he said. "They are not going to trust you in any way."^[165]

Fred W. Rustmann, "a covert CIA agent from 1966 to 1990," was briefly a supervisor of Valerie Plame Wilson during her early career at the CIA, although he left the agency before she went undercover: "'She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat,' he told The Washington Times. 'Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this. A lot of blame could be put on to central cover staff and the agency because they weren't minding the store here. . . . The agency never changed her cover status.'"^[166] It is not clear how Mr. Rustmann, who left the Agency in 1990, would know this, since Plame is said to have gone undercover after 1990.^{[citation needed]} And investigations by the FBI and by journalists revealed Rustmann's comments to be "baseless"; friends and neighbors of the Wilsons had no idea that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA before reading about it in Novak's column.^{[167][168][169]}

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA case officer and Middle East specialist who became the director of the Project for the New American Century's Middle East Initiative, and a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, dismissed the damage caused by outing Valerie Plame: "The revealing of Valerie Plame's true employer," he writes, "has in all probability hurt no one overseas. You can rest assured that if her (most recent) outing had actually hurt an agent from her past, we would've heard about it through a CIA leak. Langley's systemic sloppiness — the flimsiness of cover is but the tip of the iceberg of incompetence — has repeatedly destroyed agent networks and provoked 'flaps' with some of our closest allies. A serious CIA would never have allowed Mr. Wilson to go on such an odd, short 'fact finding' mission. It never would have allowed Ms. Plame potentially to expose herself by recommending such an overt mission for her mate, not known for his subtlety and discretion. With a CIA where cover really mattered, Mr. Libby would not now be indicted. But that's not what we have in the real world."^[170]

However, Larry C. Johnson noted that Plame's outing probably did compromise national security through revealing her cover company: "every time that someone like this is outed, it's not just the person. In this case, it's the front company. It's other NOCs who may have been exposed.... But what I do know for certain is, we're not just talking about Valerie Plame. We're talking about an intelligence resource, a United States national security resource that was destroyed by these White House officials that went out and started talking to the press about this. Reckless. And they have — they have harmed the security of this country."^[171]

[edit] Public opinion

In a poll conducted July 13 — July 17, 2005 by ABC News, a plurality (47%) of people surveyed said the White House was not cooperating fully with the ongoing investigation; the remainder either had no opinion (28%) or thought the White House was fully cooperating (25%).^[172] According to the poll, "75 percent say Rove should lose his job if the investigation finds he leaked classified information. That includes sizable majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats alike — 71, 74 and 83 percent, respectively."^[173]

A CNN poll dated 22 July — 24 July found that 49% of respondents say Rove should resign, 31% said he should not, and 20% had no opinion. USAToday

In a poll commissioned by Newsweek and published 8 August 2005, 45% believed Rove "guilty of a serious offence", 15% "not guilty of a serious offence", and 37% responded "don't know."^[174]

[edit] Initial reactions posted online

• September 2003: Whereas David Corn had predicted that the investigation would die in the CIA — that George J. Tenet would protect the Bush White House through his purported loyalty to it,^[175] the anonymous political blog Just One Minute (JOM) writes: "Evidently not. One guess — Mr. Tenet, pondering Bush's declining poll numbers and faced with in-house annoyance, decided to do the right thing. One presumes that, with Congress back in town, Mr. Tenet checked with his supporters on both sides of the aisle before proceeding."^[176]
• 30 September 2003: "White House Counsel's Memo on Leak Probe", New York Times: "Text of an e-mail to White House staff Tuesday from counsel Alberto R. Gonzales about the Justice Department's investigation about the leak of a CIA officer's identity."^{[citation needed]}
• 30 September 2003: "Remarks by President Bush to the Travel Pool After Meeting with Business People" in Chicago, IL:

  "I know of nobody — I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.
  
  "And again I repeat, you know, Washington is a town where there's all kinds of allegations. You've heard much of the allegations. And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information — outside the administration. And we can clarify this thing very quickly if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out. And I would hope they would.
  
  "And then we'll get to the bottom of this and move on. But I want to tell you something — leaks of classified information are a bad thing. And we've had them — there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are."^[177]

• 30 September 2003 Chris Matthews interview of Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie:

  MATTHEWS: Don't you think it's more serious than Watergate, when you think about it?
  
  GILLESPIE: I think if the allegation is true, to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative — it's abhorrent, and it should be a crime, and it is a crime.
  
  MATTHEWS: It'd be worse than Watergate, wouldn't it?
  
  GILLESPIE: It's — Yeah, I suppose in terms of the real world implications of it. It's not just politics.^{[citation needed]}

• 30 September 2003: "Heads-Up-Gate" by Wyethwire bloggers: "The first rule of scandal is that the cover-up is worse than the crime. With that in mind, we ought to be looking to see if any effort was made to prevent the CIA from requesting a Justice Department investigation. And we ought to find out who warned the White House Counsel that something was up, so that Alberto Gonzalez could warn the White House staff in his now-famous e-mail."^[178]

[edit] Later developments and public reactions to them

[edit] October 2003

• 1 October 2003: "The CIA leak" by Robert Novak, Townhall.com.^[179]
• 1 October 2003: "Probe targets White House. Bush ordered his staff to cooperate as the Justice Dept. announced a full-scale inquiry into the CIA leak. Justice left open the possibility of a special counsel by Ron Hutcheson and Shannon McCaffrey, Philadelphia Inquirer: "The developments raised the prospect of a full-blown White House scandal while Bush is sinking in job-approval polls, struggling to win international help in Iraq, and grappling with Congress over his request for $87 billion more in war-related spending."^[180]
• 1 October 2003: "Iraq puts Cheney in harsh spotlight. Role: His broad influence on White House policy makes the low-profile vice president a high-profile target for Democrats" by Susan Baer, SunSpot.net: "CIA Director George J. Tenet says Dick Cheney was not briefed on Wilson's conclusions. Nor has Cheney been tied to accusations that the White House punished Wilson for his role in forcing the retraction by blowing his wife's cover as a CIA operative."^[181]
• 1 October 2003: "Leak inquiry is a chink in Bush's moral armor" by Warren P. Strobel, Philadelphia Inquirer: "...revelation of a Justice Department criminal investigation into whether administration officials — believed to be at the White House - leaked the name of a CIA officer to get at a Bush opponent."^[182]
• 2 October 2003: "Investigating Leaks," op-ed New York Times: "Attorney General John Ashcroft has put himself and the president in a very dangerous position with his handling of the Justice Department's investigation into how Robert Novak got the name of a C.I.A. operative for publication in his syndicated column. After career lawyers conducted a preliminary investigation into the leaking of the officer's name, Mr. Ashcroft chose to proceed with a full investigation within the Justice Department. He did so despite department guidelines that would have permitted him to appoint an outsider, who would serve at Mr. Ashcroft's discretion but could make independent decisions. Instead, Mr. Ashcroft has decided to leave the investigation under the authority of the department's counterespionage office. That office employs career lawyers who routinely investigate this sort of leak and have the security clearances to do so with dispatch."^[183]
• 2 October 2003: "Attorney General Is Closely Linked to Inquiry Figures" by Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Lichtblau, New York Times: "Deep political ties between top White House aides and Attorney General John Ashcroft have put him into a delicate position as the Justice Department begins a full investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer." Names of inquiry figures associated with Ashcroft are: Karl Rove and Jack Oliver.^[184]
• 2 October 2003: "FBI Narrowing List of CIA Leak Suspects" by Curt Anderson, AP.^[185]
• 2 October 2003: "FBI Creates Team to Investigate CIA Leaks", AP: "Overseeing the investigation is John Dion, a 30-year career prosecutor who has headed the counterespionage section at the Justice Department since 2002."^[186]
• 2 October 2003: "Outside Probe of Leaks Is Favored" by Dana Milbank and Mike Allen, Washington Post: "Confronted with little public support for the White House view that the investigation should be handled by the Justice Department, Bush aides began yesterday to adjust their response to the expanding probe. They reined in earlier, broad portrayals of innocence in favor of more technical arguments that it is possible the disclosure was made without knowledge that a covert operative was being exposed and therefore might not have been a crime.... At the same time, administration allies outside the White House stepped up a counteroffensive that seeks to discredit the administration's main accuser, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, whose wife was named as a CIA operative. Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie gave a string of television interviews with the three-part message that the Justice Department is investigating, that the White House is fully cooperating and that Wilson has a political agenda and has made 'rash statements'."^[187]
• 3 October 2003: "More vicious than Tricky Dick" by John Dean: "I thought I had seen political dirty tricks as foul as they could get, but I was wrong. In blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame to take political revenge on her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for telling the truth, Bush's people have out-Nixoned Nixon's people. And my former colleagues were not amateurs by any means."^[188]

Regardless of whether or not a special prosecutor is selected, I believe that Ambassador Wilson and his wife — like the DNC official once did — should file a civil lawsuit, both to address the harm inflicted on them, and, equally important, to obtain the necessary tools (subpoena power and sworn testimony) to get to the bottom of this matter. This will not only enable them to make sure they don't merely become yesterday's news; it will give them some control over the situation.^[189]

• 10 October 2003: "Why the Federal Conspiracy and Fraud Statutes May Apply Here" by John Dean.^[190]

[edit] June 2004

• 4 June 2004: "The Serious Implications Of President Bush's Hiring A Personal Outside Counsel For The Valerie Plame Investigation" by John Dean.^[191]

[edit] July 2005

• 22 July Two former C.I.A. officers Larry C. Johnson^[192] and James Marcinkowski^[193] present their testimony to a joint session of Congressional Democrats:
  • "I wouldn't be here this morning if President Bush had done the one thing required of him as commander in chief — protect and defend the Constitution," Johnson said. "The minute that Valerie Plame's identity was outed, he should have delivered a strict and strong message to his employees." "This says to them that if you decide to cooperate, someone will give you up, so you don't do it," Larry [Johnson] said. "They are not going to trust you in any way." Johnson, who said he is a registered Republican, said he wished a GOP lawmaker would have the courage to stand up and "call the ugly dog the ugly dog." He asked, "Where are these men and women with any integrity to speak out against this?" "I expect better behavior out of Republicans."
  • Marcinkowski, a former CIA case officer and a former prosecutor testified that "the exposure of Valerie Plame's cover by the White House is the same as the local chief of police announcing to the media the identity of its undercover drug officers. In both cases, the ability of the officer to operate is destroyed, but there is also an added dimension. An informant in a major sophisticated crime network, or a CIA asset working in a foreign government, if exposed, has a rather good chance of losing more than just their ability to operate. . . ."^[194]

[edit] April 2006

On 6 April 2006, it was widely reported that George W. Bush authorized Libby to disclose the prior-to-then classified October 2002 NIE on Iraq's weapons program to Judith Miller to rebut charges by Joe Wilson, according to documents filed in federal court detailing Libby's grand jury testimony.^[195][196] White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirmed that the president authorized the declassification to rebut charges by war critics, but declined to specifically address Libby's testimony.

In a court filing on May 12, 2006, Fitzgerald included a copy of Wilson's op-ed article in The New York Times "bearing handwritten notations by the vice president."^[197] (See photo.)

Fitzgerald's filing declares that Libby ascertained Plame's name from Cheney through conferences by the vice president's office about "how to respond to a June 2003 inquiry from Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus about Wilson's trip to Niger". In the filing, Fitzgerald states:

It was during a conversation concerning Mr. Pincus’ inquiries that the Vice President advised the defendant that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. (To be clear, the government does not contend that the defendant disclosed the employment of Ms. Plame to Mr. Pincus, and Mr. Pincus’s article contains no reference to her or her employment.) The article by Mr. Pincus thus explains the context in which the defendant discussed Mr. Wilson’s wife’s employment with the Vice President. The article also served to increase media attention concerning the then-unnamed ambassador’s trip and further motivated the defendant to counter Mr. Wilson’s assertions, making it more likely that the defendant’s disclosures to the press concerning Mr. Wilson’s wife were not casual disclosures that he had forgotten by the time he was asked about them by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and before the grand jury.^[198]

[edit] May 2006

In a May 24, 2006 court filing, Fitzgerald asserted that "To the best of government’s counsel’s recollection, the government has not commented on whether it intends to call the Vice President as a witness, and the representations it has made regarding the identity of potential government witnesses have been limited to responses to the defense assertions in defendant’s Third Motion to Compel."^[199]

[edit] August 2006

Main article: Valerie Plame

At the end of August in 2006, Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, acknowledged that he initially disclosed Plame's employment with the CIA to Robert Novak.^{[200][201][202]}

[edit] September 2006

Main article: Valerie Plame#The Fitzgerald Grand Jury Investigation

• Robert Novak publicly disputes details of Armitage's disclosures provided in interviews and news reports.^[203]
• The Wilsons' civil action, which includes initially Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been amended to include Armitage.^[204]

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• CNN Special Reports: CIA Leak Investigation compiled by CNN; incl. interactive timeline in Case History. Last updated, February 2007, to include Libby trial events. Accessed February 17, 2007.
• The Criminal Investigation: Timeline compiled by The Washington Post June 13, 2006. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Interactive Graphic: Timeline of a Leak compiled by The New York Times September 14, 2006. Accessed November 17, 2006. Last updated, January 8, 2007. Accessed February 17, 2007.
• Special Coverage: Iraq Aftermath compiled by FindLaw September 13, 2006. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Timeline: The CIA Case compiled by NPR June 13, 2006. Accessed November 17, 2006.
• Brewster Jennings was a front for Valerie Plame, Jean C. Edwards, Robert Ellmann, Paul Jennings (of the Anglo-Irish Bank), and others. The Boston accounting firm Burke Dennehy at the same address and phone number was in turn a front for Brewster Jennings.
• Plame's Brewster Jennings associate Jean C. Edwards is in the attendees lists of three Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics conferences where she spied on Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Russia, and E. European countries involved in nuclear proliferation.