After October 28, 2005: Woodward Receives Confidentiality Waiver from White House Leak Source

After White House official Lewis Libby is indicted (see October 28, 2005), Washington Post editor and reporter Bob Woodward “realizes” that he was a recipient of the information that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA official (see June 13, 2003). Woodward has been scathing in his criticism of the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation, and staunch in his support of the journalists who outed Plame Wilson in their reporting (see December 1, 2004, July 7, 2005, July 11, 2005, July 17, 2005, July 31, 2005, October 27, 2005, and October 28, 2005). According to Woodward’s own recollections, he was asked by Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. to help report on the status of the investigation into the leak. Woodward will say that upon listening to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald tell reporters that Libby was the first White House official to reveal Plame Wilson’s name to a reporter (see June 23, 2003), he realizes that Fitzgerald is misinformed. Instead, Woodward had received that information from another Bush administration source 10 days before Libby. (Woodward’s source was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a fact that Woodward does not disclose to the media, and is not publicly revealed for nearly six months—see March 14, 2006). Woodward quickly telephones his source (Armitage), and will tell another reporter: “I said it was clear to me that the source had told me [about Wilson’s wife] in mid-June, and this person could check his or her records and see that it was mid-June. My source said he or she had no alternative but to go to the prosecutor. I said, ‘If you do, am I released?’” Woodward is referring to the confidentiality agreement between the two. The source agrees, but only for purposes of discussing it with Fitzgerald, not for publication. Woodward later says he tried twice, once in 2004 and once earlier in 2005, to persuade Armitage to remove the confidentiality restriction, but Armitage refused to budge. Woodward informs Fitzgerald of his contact with Armitage, as does Armitage. While Armitage has spoken to the FBI about his role in leaking Plame Wilson’s identity (see October 2, 2003), and to the grand jury investigating the leak (in which he failed to divulge his contact with Woodward—see September 22, 2004), Woodward has not spoken to Fitzgerald until now, though his name appears on numerous White House telephone and visitors’ logs during the critical period of June and July 2003. Woodward will say he is surprised not to have been contacted by Fitzgerald, and, in contrast to his earlier criticisms of Fitzgerald, will call him “incredibly sensitive to what we do. He didn’t infringe on my other reporting, which frankly surprised me. He said, ‘This is what I need, I don’t need any more.’” [Time, 11/18/2005; Washington Post, 8/29/2006] Woodward will soon give a deposition to Fitzgerald, and will write about his role in the leak for the Post (see November 14, 2005).