He told the FBI that he was at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter, Tim Russert, on July 10, 2003, and during the call, Russert said, hey, do you know that all the reporters know that Wilson's wife works at the CIA.
Scooter said that he learned this information as if it was new, and that is why it "struck him." Then, according to Scooter, he took the information from Russert and passed it on to Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, and New York Times reporter Judy Miller.
He told the FBI that on July 12, 2003, two days before Novak's column appeared in the press, that he passed the information on with the understanding that this was information he had received from a reporter, and that he didn't even know if it was true.
However, six months later in March 2004, when he testified before the grand jury on two occasions, Scooter added a new twist to his original tale.
To the grand jury, Libby said that he had learned about Valerie from Cheney earlier in June 2003, but he had forgotten all about it; and so when he had learned the information from Russert, he'd learned it as if it were new.
Then Scooter said, he passed the information on to Cooper and Miller, later in the week.
However, we now know that Scooter discussed the fact that Valerie worked for the CIA, at least 6 times before the call with Russert ever took place, not to mention the fact that according to Tim, they never discussed Valerie at all during that call.
The bottom line is that Scooter did not learn about Valerie from Tim Russert.
In the Libby indictment, Fitzgerald says that on June 12, 2003, Cheney informed Libby that Valerie worked at the CIA's Counter-proliferation Division. The CPD is part of the operations directorate, the CIA's clandestine services.
In fact, the indictment says that Scooter learned of the information about Valeria from other administration officials as well in June of 2003. On June 11, he learned about her from an Under Secretary of State and sometime prior to July 8, Scooter learned the information from someone else in Cheney's office.
On June 14, 2003, he discussed the matter with a CIA briefer and was complaining that the CIA was leaking information or making critical comments about the administration and brought up Joe and Valerie to the briefer.
He also discussed the her at lunch with White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, on Monday, July 7, 2003, which means that we have Scooter telling Ari something on Monday that he claims to not have learned from Russert until Thursday.
There was also a discussion the next day on July 8, in which Scooter asked the Counsel for the Vice President what paperwork the CIA would have if an employee had a spouse going on a trip.
In the end, Scooter had 7 discussions with government officials prior to the day when he claims he learned the information as if it were new from Russert.
In addition, the story he gave to the FBI and grand jury was that he told reporters Cooper and Miller on July 12. However, according to filings in the case, Scooter discussed Valerie at least 4 times with these reporters prior to July 14, 2003; three times with Miller, and once with Cooper.
He spoke about Valerie with Miller again on July 8, in a discussion that was in background as a "senior administration official," after which he instructed Miller to change the attribution to a "former Hill staffer."
During that conversation, Scooter said that Valerie was working for the CIA, and he discussed her employment status again with Miller on July 12.
In his conversations with Miller, Scooter never said this is what other reporters told me. He never said I don't know if it's true, or I don't even know if Wilson has a wife, according to Miller.
So, Rove and Scooter were the 2 administration officials who leaked the information to the press and the top officials in the Bush administration knew it from day one and allowed a charade of an investigation to stretch on for years on the tax payer's dime.
However, another cat is said to be ready to leap out of the bag and Rove's "demotion" yesterday is probably the least of his worries.
According to an article published today by investigative reporter, Jason Leopold, for Truthout.org, Fitzgerald is said to have presented more evidence alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury when he was asked about how he found out that Valerie worked for the CIA and whether he gave that information to the media.
"Fitzgerald told the grand jury," Leopold said, "that Rove lied to investigators and the prosecutor eight out of the nine times he was questioned about the leak and also tried to cover-up his role in disseminating Plame Wilson's CIA status to at least two reporters."
Mr Fitzgerald needs to keep it simple, wrap up the investigation, and reserve a row of prison cells in Cuba.
Evelyn Pringle
evelyn.pringle@sbcglobal.net
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