User:David Brotbacher/Libby learned from Rove about Novak article early

September 2, 2006 According to a redacted court document produced by Patrick Fitzgerald, I. Lewis Libby "indisputably" had knowledge of one of Robert Novak's sources for his column months before Novak had publicly announced it. Libby had testified before a grand jury that he learned about Robert Novak writing a column about Joe Wilson and his wife before it was published, and that he had done so from Karl Rove on July 10 or July 11. Though redacted, names known to be involved in the case can easily be placed into the document to fit the context and the amount of empty space left by the redaction.

In a July 14, 2003 column, Robert Novak wrote that the wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson was a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials had said to Novak that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had an agreement with Niger to buy "yellowcake" uranium. Recent media inquiries have revealed the main source of Robert Novak's column to be former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Novak has said that he contacted Karl Rove for confirmation of his other source's claims.

The July 9 phone call between Novak and Rove lasted fifteen or twenty minutes, according to one Washington Post source, and when Novak said he had learned Wilson's wife is a CIA operative, Rove responded, "I've heard that, too." On July 11, according to the National Journal, Rove and Libby met at the close of a White House senior staff meeting, coinciding with the date given in special prosecutor Fitzgerald's document.

Also on July 11, according to Cooper's own account, Matthew Cooper called Karl Rove for information relating to the essay written by Joe Wilson titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa". During the conversation, Rove allegedly indicated that Wilson's wife worked for the "agency," that she worked on "WMD issues," and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. On July 12, I. Lewis Libby and Matthew Cooper held a phone conversation. During the conversation, when Cooper asked if he had heard anything about her being sent to Niger, "Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too,' or words to that effect." At the end of his article, Matthew Cooper noted that during the phone conversation, Rove informed him that "things would be declassified soon."

Meanwhile, from July 7 to July 12, members of the Bush administration had been taking a trip to Africa on board the Air Force One. Many sources differ on the route the National Intelligence Estimate memo took from the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, however most agree the memo was taken by Powell on board the plane and circulated amongst its passengers: President Bush, Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Andrew Card, Ari Fleischer, and other top aides. Ari Fleischer had already been told on July 7 by I. Lewis Libby that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, according to Libby's indictment. 

Associated Press sources have said Richard Armitage ordered the head of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Ford, to send the memo to Colin Powell on July 6, and it arrived on board the Air Force One on July 7. The Washington Post sources make no mention of Armitage in this role and instead say Colin Powell had asked for the memo to be sent beforehand.

The name "Armitage" was put into parts of the document relating to June phone interviews with Bob Woodward, for example, which aligned with the Associated Press article mentioning that he had met with Bob Woodward on June 13, 2003, and another recent article by the Washington Post using sources claiming he had accidentally let it slip during the phone conversation, before a separate phone conversation with Valerie Plame about a month later. However, it was claimed in late 2005 by the Associated Press and Wall Street Journal that Armitage had been "out of the country," or "traveling," during June, with Colin Powell, causing him to be excluded from speculation. According to sources of an August 2005 Time article, Powell had already read the memo in mid-June.

On July 12, Libby took the Air Force Two with Dick Cheney from Washington, D.C. to Norfolk, Virginia and back to Washington D.C. in the same day, according to a Washington Post article. During that time, it is alleged in his indictment that Libby discussed with "other officials" aboard the plane how to handle "pending media inquiries" about Joe Wilson. In the article, the only officials other than Libby on board the plane are Dick Cheney and Catherine Martin, a press aide. On July 12, according to his indictment, Libby also expounded upon a statement he had allegedly already said to Judith Miller in mid-June, shifting from the position that Joe Wilson's wife may be a CIA operative that sent him on a mission to Niger to the position that Wilson's wife is a CIA operative.

July 12, 2003 is the date Libby has claimed since mid-April 2006 to have been the day Cheney authorized a leak of a CIA report, after having shifted his position in his grand jury testimony. According to more recent newspaper reports, Libby is now taking the defense that he did not lie willingly under oath, but was forced to take that position.