Woodward testifies of being told about Plame Wilson's CIA post
Says he got news a month before name was aired
WASHINGTON -- Bob Woodward, an assistant managing editor at The
In a deposition, Woodward told the special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, that the official told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame Wilson worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.
Fitzgerald interviewed Woodward about the conversation after the official alerted the prosecutor to it on Nov. 3, a week after Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby, was indicted.
Citing a confidentiality agreement in which the source freed Woodward to testify but did not allow him to discuss their conversations publicly, Woodward and Post editors refused to give the official's name or provide details of the testimony. Woodward did not share the information with his executive editor, Leonard Downie Jr., until last month, and the only Post reporter whom Woodward said he remembers telling in 2003, Walter Pincus, does not recall the conversation taking place.
Woodward said he also testified that he met with Libby on June 27, 2003, and discussed Iraq policy as part of his research for a book on President Bush's march to war. He said he does not believe Libby said anything about Plame Wilson.
He also told Fitzgerald that it is possible he asked Libby about Plame or her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. He based that testimony on an 18-page list of questions he planned to ask Libby in an interview that included the phrases ''yellowcake" and ''Joe Wilson's wife."
Woodward said in his statement, however, that ''I had no recollection" of mentioning the pair to Libby. He also said his original government source did not mention Plame Wilson by name, referring to her only as ''Wilson's wife."
Woodward's testimony appears to change key elements in the chronology Fitzgerald laid out in his investigation and announced when indicting Libby three weeks ago. It would make the unnamed official -- not Libby -- the first government employee to disclose Plame Wilson's CIA role to a reporter.
It would also make Woodward, who has been critical of the investigation, the first reporter known to have learned about Plame Wilson from a government source.
The testimony, however, does not appear to shed new light on whether Libby is guilty of lying and obstructing justice. It does not appear to provide insight into the role of senior Bush adviser Karl Rove, who remains under investigation.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Rove, said that Rove is not the official who told Woodward about Plame Wilson and that he did not discuss Plame Wilson with Woodward.
William Jeffress Jr., one of Libby's lawyers, said yesterday that Woodward's testimony undermines Fitzgerald's public contentions about his client. Libby has said he learned Plame Wilson's identity from NBC journalist Tim Russert.
''If what Woodward says is so, will Mr. Fitzgerald now say he was wrong to say on TV that Scooter Libby was the first official to give this information to a reporter?" Jeffress said last night. ''The second question I would have is: Why did Mr. Fitzgerald indict Mr. Libby before fully investigating what other reporters knew about Wilson's wife?"
Fitzgerald has spent almost two years investigating whether officials illegally leaked classified information -- Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA operative -- to discredit allegations made by Wilson.
A Fitzgerald spokesman declined to comment yesterday.
