What Novak Said Then About Import of Disclosure
The Republican talking points are belied by early news accounts of the Valerie Plame leak. Here's what Novak told Newsday reporters Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Roycea week or so after his article was published.
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
and on who sent Joseph Wilson to Niger:
Novak reported that his "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.
A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. (my emphasis)
But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be." (my emphasis)
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