Now the MSM is going to hate the hell out of one of their own.
The New York Times
November 22, 2005
No Conspiracy Evidence Seen in Leak Case, Journalist Says
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE
Bob Woodward of The Washington Post said yesterday in a television interview that he had not seen any evidence that the Bush administration conspired to discredit Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who had publicly criticized the administration's rationale for the war in Iraq.
A special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has been investigating whether the administration was engaging in a conspiracy in 2003 when officials revealed to at least a half-dozen reporters on separate occasions that Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie, was a C.I.A. operative. A grand jury has indicted I. Lewis Libby Jr., former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, on charges of perjury but not conspiracy.
"Was there some sort of conspiracy, or organized effort, or effort by one person to out, to disclose publicly that Joe Wilson's wife was an undercover operative?" Mr. Woodward said, according to a transcript of his taped appearance on CNN's "Larry King Live." "I haven't yet seen evidence of that."
Mr. Woodward was among the reporters to whom officials gave information about Ms. Wilson, a fact that he concealed from his paper until last month. He gave sworn testimony to Mr. Fitzgerald but said his source had not allowed him to divulge his name publicly.
"I am protecting not a person but a relationship in the information I get for my newspaper and books," Mr. Woodward told Mr. King.
He said his source alerted Mr. Fitzgerald that he had talked to Mr. Woodward after Mr. Fitzgerald secured an indictment of Mr. Libby on Oct. 28. Mr. Fitzgerald said at the time that the first disclosure about Ms. Wilson came on June 23, 2003, when Mr. Libby spoke to Judith Miller of The New York Times.
"I went, 'Whoa,' because I knew I'd learned about this in mid-June, a week, 10 days before," Mr. Woodward said. "I then went into incredibly aggressive reporting mode and called the source the beginning of the next week," and the source then alerted Mr. Fitzgerald that he had talked to Mr. Woodward.
Mr. Woodward, who has been criticized by his newspaper and others for not telling his executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr., about his involvement in the leak case, also suggested on the program that if Benjamin C. Bradlee, The Post's former executive editor, were still the editor, he would have told him.
"If Ben - I would have told him - and I should have told Len in this case," Mr. Woodward said. |
