New from AP:
1. We find out that a senior White House official leaked to Bob Woodward the name and CIA status of Valerie Plame.
The newspaper reported that Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of Plame's identity, that the official talked to him about Plame in mid-June 2003.2. That official is not Libby.
Woodward and editors at the Post refused to identify the official to reporters other than to say it was not Libby.3. That official is not Rove (if you believe his spokesman).
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Karl Rove's legal team, said Rove was not the official who talked to Woodward.4. That means YET ANOTHER senior administration official - a THIRD official - was running around town leaking Valerie Plame's identity and CIA status.
I'm sorry, but we now have Karl, Scooter, and a third senior official all just "happening" to be telling numerous journalists that Amb. Wilson's wife is a CIA agent, yet we're to believe that this is NOT part of a coordinated conspiracy to spread that info? It was all just random chance that official after official kept leaking the info to the media's top players - NYT, Wash Post, NBC, TIME, etc. We're to believe it was simply "random chance", or an innocent slip of the tongue, as I believe Bob Woodward called it, that 3 senior officials all happened to "slip" in talking to the top media outlets in the nation. Now, mind you, the top officials apparently didn't slip when talking to the Topeka Times or the Billings Gazette (or any other small-bit newspaper), they only "slipped" when talking to the biggest news outlets that could broadcast this "gaffe" worldwide.
Imagine the coincidence of that.
Basically, what we have here is more evidence suggesting a possible conspiracy to out Valerie Plame conducted by at least 3 senior administration officials. THAT'S why Fitzgerald is still taking testimony. This isn't over by a long shot.
As for Woodward, there's this interesting tidbit in the article:
On Wednesday, Woodward apologized for not telling his boss, Washington Post's executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., about his being among the journalists who were told about Plame's identity, even as the investigation morphed into a national scandal.So Woodward withheld info from his editor because he wanted to protect his source (from your editors?) AND because Woodward didn't want to be subpoenaed.
Woodward held back the information because he wanted to protect his sources and because he was worried about being subpoenaed in the inquiry, according to the newspaper's Web site.
Call me crazy, but isn't trying to hide evidence of a crime in order to avoid a subpoena called obstruction of justice? It's one thing for Woodward to say he was protecting his source. It's quite another to say he was intentionally hiding the info from the prosecutor because he didn't want to testify.
I think Bob has got some explaining to do. Maybe Judy could use some more help on her Web site?
