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He is referred to as "official
one" and he is the mysterious senior Bush administration
official who unmasked the identity of an undercover CIA operative
to Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003
and conservative columnist Robert Novak a month later.
The identity of this official
is shrouded in secrecy. In fact, his name, government status,
and the substance of his conversation with Woodward about the
undercover officer are under a protective seal in US District
Court for the District of Columbia.
But Woodward tape-recorded
the interview he had with "official one." Woodward
gave a copy of the tape to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald,
according to a Feb. 24 federal court hearing, a transcript of
which was obtained by this reporter.
Woodward emerged as central
figure in the leak of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame
Wilson in November. For the better part of two years, Woodward
had publicly discounted the importance of the Plame Wilson leak
and had referred to Fitzgerald as a "junkyard dog"
prosecutor in interviews during the course of the investigation.
He then revealed in November that he had been told about Plame
Wilson's CIA employment in June 2003--before any other journalist.
Woodward wrote a first-person
account in the Washington Post in November about the individual
who told him that Plame Wilson worked for the CIA. He identified
his source as a "senior administration official." He
also said that the interview with the official who told him about
Plame Wilson had been set up simply as "confidential background
interviews for my 2004 book 'Plan of Attack' about the lead-up
to the Iraq war, ongoing reporting for the Washington Post and
research for a book on Bush's second term to be published in
2006."
White House officials who are
sympathetic to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President
Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who is charged with perjury and obstruction of
justice for allegedly lying to a grand jury and FBI investigators
about his role in the Plame Wilson leak, say "official one"
is former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
But numerous senior officials
at the State Department, the CIA, and the National Security Council
have said that "official one" is National Security
Adviser Stephen Hadley. Hadley had been a source of information
for Woodward when he wrote Plan of Attack, according to
the book's footnotes.
Hadley was also a member of
the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which was formed in August
2002 by Andrew Card, President Bush's chief of staff, to publicize
the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG operated out of Cheney's
office. The group has become wrapped up in Fitzgerald's investigation.
The special prosecutor last year subpoenaed the WHIG's emails
and other documents.
But news reports over the past
week have given more weight to Armitage as Woodward's source,
based solely on the fact that former Washington Post editor Ben
Bradlee gave an interview to Vanity Fair suggesting that it's
fair to assume Armitage was Woodward's source. Bradlee issued
a statement a day after the article was published saying he was
misquoted and never mentioned Armitage.
One thing is for sure, neither
Hadley nor Armitage are commenting, not even to issue a denial.
Last week, Armitage's assistant at his lobbying firm, Armitage
International, said last week that Armitage would comment on
the "rumors" once Fitzgerald completed his investigation.
Hadley's spokesman would not confirm or deny anything related
to the National Security Adviser's involvement in the leak.
It does appear, however, that
Libby's defense team is actively trying to shift the blame for
the leak onto other parts of the government, including the State
Department, the CIA and the National Security Council. They have
engaged in a game of semantics, saying that when Libby testified
that he heard about Plame Wilson from reporters his testimony
wasn't limited to a specific reporter.
With Woodward's tape-recorded
interview now in the hands of the special counsel, the attorneys
representing Libby have zeroed in on three words "official
one" apparently uttered during his conversation with Woodward:
"Everyone knows it."
But one of the attorneys on
Libby's defense team wasn't supposed to mention the existence
of the tape-recorded interview in open court because it may cause
the unknown government official to come under intense media scrutiny.
"Your Honor, there is
one thing that I neglected to mention and again this is subject
to filings that have been made under seal but there is, in fact,
a transcript of a tape recording that involves official one,"
Libby's attorney William Jeffress said during the two and a half
hour hearing.
"In the particular transcript
there is, and the government filed something else yesterday,
there is a factual dispute as to what is said or what is meant
by a portion of the transcript wherein it appears the official
saying, "everyone knows it," referring to the wife's
employment at the CIA," Jeffress added. "We have not
heard that tape. If, in fact, as the transcript suggests that
one official said, 'Everyone knows it,' who did he mean by 'Everyone
knows it?'"
Libby's attorneys argued that
those three words refer to reporters, meaning that it was common
knowledge among journalists that Plame Wilson was employed by
the CIA, even though her status was classified.
Fitzgerald disagreed with the
interpretation.
"Your Honor, now that
we have sort of burned what was sealed, my understanding of that
conversation, there are people talking over each other, my understanding
is that was a reference that everyone knows it, that Mr. Wilson
is the unnamed ambassador," Fitzgerald said. "Mr. Wilson
didn't reveal himself as the unnamed ambassador until July 6.
This was prior to that time. We turned it over in an abundance
of caution but I don't believe that says it, and frankly there
is a very limited number of reporters that we found out who had
known it. I can't represent we know every reporter because we
took seriously the attorney general guidelines."
"Official one" faces
no criminal charges in the ongoing investigation into the leak
of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson and is said to be
cooperating with the special counsel's two year-old probe.
But Libby's defense attorneys
suggested during the February 24 court hearing that "official
one" is responsible for the leak.
Jeffress and Theodore Wells,
another attorney on Libby's defense team, have argued that Fitzgerald
should provide the defense with all of the evidence his investigation
has obtained regarding "official one" because it's
crucial in proving that Libby wasn't lying when he testified
that he heard about Plame Wilson's CIA work from reporters.
"Your Honor, simply it
is a fact that is key to this case to know what reporters out
there knew or had heard about Wilson's wife, what they were saying
to each other, what they were saying to government officials,"
Jeffress said. "And here is a key person, the first person
that we know of, according to the evidence, actually discussed
Mr. Wilson's wife's employment with a reporter and not only did
it then but did it again with a separate reporter later. This
is some person not in the White House."
At the February 24 court hearing,
Jeffress, Libby's attorney, in arguing that the defense should
be provided with additional evidence such as handwritten notes,
transcripts, letters, emails and phone logs Fitzgerald collected
during the investigation, said "official one" discussed
Plame Wilson's CIA status with at least two reporters, one of
whom told Libby that "official one" told him that Plame
Wilson was a CIA officer.
Sources close to the case have
identified Woodward and Novak as the reporters "official
one" spoke to about Plame Wilson.
Fitzgerald argued that Libby's
attorneys are routinely circumventing the facts surrounding the
case against Libby, which is about perjury not who first unmasked
Plame Wilson's identity.
"Your Honor, the one thing
that is clear is we should focus on what the allegations are,"
Fitzgerald said. "The indictment alleges that on Monday
Mr. Libby told [former White House press secretary Ari] Fleischer
this information about Mr. Wilson's wife and indicated that it
wasn't widely known, on a Monday."
"On Wednesday he claims
to have learned it as if it were new for the first time from
["Meet the Press's" Tim] Russert in his conversation
even though we've alleged six different conversations, more than
six conversations in the month before he discussed it with everyone
from the vice president to people at the CIA, to ranking officials
at the State Department," Fitzgerald added.
Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive NEWS
JUNKIE, to be published in April on Process/Feral House books.
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