July 12, 2005: Novak Cooperated with Plame Wilson Investigation, Press Learns

The press learns that conservative columnist Robert Novak, who outed CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson almost two years ago (see July 14, 2003), has been cooperating with the Plame Wilson leak investigation headed by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. The news of Novak’s cooperation comes from attorneys familiar with his testimony. Novak’s lawyer, James Hamilton, refuses to comment. Novak, according to the sources, said that his Bush administration sources (see July 7, 2003, July 8, 2003, and July 8 or 9, 2003) did not identify Plame Wilson as a covert CIA official (see Fall 1992 - 1996). His use of the word “operative” to describe Plame Wilson in his column was his own formulation, he has said, and not the words of his sources. The lawyer for White House political strategist Karl Rove, Robert Luskin, has told reporters that Rove never told Novak or other reporters that Plame Wilson was a covert operative. Reporter Murray Waas writes: “Federal investigators have been skeptical of Novak’s assertions that he referred to Plame as a CIA ‘operative’ due to his own error, instead of having been explicitly told that was the case by his sources, according to attorneys familiar with the criminal probe. That skepticism has been one of several reasons that the special prosecutor has pressed so hard for the testimony of Time magazine’s [Matthew] Cooper (see July 13, 2005) and New York Times reporter Judith Miller” (see September 30, 2005). Investigators are also interested in telephone conversations between Novak and Rove, and other White House officials, in the days after the press reported the FBI was opening an investigation into the Plame Wilson leak (see September 29, 2003 and October and November 2003). And, in other testimony, a US government official told investigators that Novak asked him specifically if Plame Wilson had some covert status with the CIA. It is unclear who that official is or when he talked to investigators. [Murray Waas, 7/12/2005]