October 27, 2005: Woodward Calls ‘Plamegate’ Investigation ‘Disgraceful,’ Lies about Knowledge of Administration Leaker

Washington Post investigative reporter Bob Woodward slams ‘Plamegate’ special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. In an interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, he calls Fitzgerald’s investigation “disgraceful.” When asked if he knew who might have leaked CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s name to the press, Woodward claims—falsely—that he has no idea. “I wish I did have a bombshell,” he says. “I don’t even have a firecracker.” The leak, he says, is merely “gossip and chatter” of interest only to “a junkyard-dog prosecutor” like Fitzgerald who “goes everywhere and asks every question and turns over rocks and rocks under rocks and so forth.” Woodward also claims that the CIA’s assessment of the damage likely to have been done by the leak is “minimal.” Woodward says: “They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn’t have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone, and there was just some embarrassment. So people have kind of compared—somebody was saying this was [similar to the cases of convicted spies] Aldrich Ames or Bob Hanssen, big spies. This didn’t cause damage.” Woodward is ignoring reports that the damage caused by the leak may well have been severe and widespread (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, and February 13, 2006); he also fails to note an upcoming report by his own newspaper that notes the CIA has not yet completed its assessment of the damage, but speculates as to just how severe the damage is believed to be (see October 29, 2005). [CNN, 10/27/2005; Media Matters, 10/31/2005; Media Matters, 11/16/2005; Time, 11/20/2005] Woodward does not mention that he is one of the reporters who was contacted by a Bush administration official about Plame Wilson being a CIA agent (see June 13, 2003). He has also withheld his knowledge of the case from Fitzgerald and his own editors (see November 16-17, 2005).