Classified Memo Naming Wilson's Wife Was on Air Force One
Posted on Fri Jul 15, 2005 at 08:05:01 PM EST
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Leaks from Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation are coming faster and faster. Now we know that Valerie Wilson's identity as a CIA Agent and the wife of Joseph Wilson was revealed in a June 10, 2003 State Department memo and that Colin Powell had it with him on Air Force One on the July 7 - 12, 2003 Bush trip to Africa - and was seen walking up and down the aisles of the Air Force One with it.
The memo was dated June 10, 2003, nearly four weeks before Mr. Wilson wrote an Op-Ed article for The New York Times in which he recounted his mission and accused the administration of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq. The memo was written for Marc Grossman, then the under secretary of state for political affairs, and it referred explicitly to Valerie Wilson as Mr. Wilson's wife, according to a government official who reread the memo on Friday.
Here's the catch: It didn't mention Valerie Plame, it mentioned Valerie Wilson. Novak's article mentioned Valerie Plame.
More details:
Investigators in the case have been trying to learn whether officials at the White House and elsewhere in the administration learned of the C.I.A. officer's identity from the memorandum. They are seeking to determine if any officials then passed the name along to journalists and if officials were truthful in testifying about whether they had read the memorandum, the people who have been briefed said, asking not to be named because the special prosecutor heading the investigation had requested that no one discuss the case.
...The memo was sent to Colin L. Powell,then the secretary of state, just before or as he traveled with President Bush and other senior officials to Africa starting on July 7, 2003.
...The special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has sought to determine how much Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman at the time of the leak, knew about the State Department memo. Lawyers involved in the case said Mr. Fitzgerald asked a number of questions about Mr. Fleischer's role. Mr. Fleischer was with Mr. Bush and much of the senior White House staff in Africa when Mr. Powell, who was also with them, received the memo. A spokeswoman for Mr. Powell said he was out of the country and could not comment on the memo. Mr. Fleischer said in an e-mail message this week that he would not comment on the case.
Mr. Fitzgerald has also looked into any role that I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, might have played. Lawyers with clients in the case have said that their clients have been asked questions about Mr. Libby's conversations in the days after Mr. Wilson's article - in part based on Mr. Libby's hand-written notes, which he turned over to the prosecutor.
Update: Tom Maguire of Just a Minute makes a good point in the comments below: The Memo and Powell's having it on Air Force One was discussed in this 2004 Newsweek article. Read this post of Tom's on the memo and how it ties to Kristof of the New York Times and even Jeff Gannon.
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