Tangled Webs (35 page)

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Authors: James B. Stewart

Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #Law, #Ethics & Professional Responsibility

BOOK: Tangled Webs
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“Yes.”
“And you recall discussing Mr. Fleischer’s future, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you recall discussing the Miami Dolphins, correct?”
“Yes, sir, I recall all that quite clearly . . .”
After establishing that Libby “clearly” remembered something as trivial as the Dolphins, Fitzgerald moved aggressively for the jugular.
“Do you recall telling Mr. Fleischer that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA in the counterproliferation division?”
“No, I don’t.”
“And is it possible that you told Mr. Fleischer during that lunch that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA in the counterproliferation division?”
“It’s possible . . . well, I don’t recall it and I recall being surprised by Russert, so I tend to think I didn’t know it then, but that’s all I really recall.”
“Isn’t it a fact, sir, that you told Mr. Fleischer over lunch that this was ‘hush-hush’ or ‘on the QT’ that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA?”
“I don’t recall that.”
Fitzgerald shifted immediately to others who contradicted Libby’s story:
“Prior to your conversation with Tim Russert on July 10 or 11, do you ever recall a conversation where Cathie Martin told you that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA?”
“No, sir.”
“And do you recall an occasion on or about July 8 where Cathie Martin came into the vice president’s office with you present, the vice president, and indicated that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, that she had learned that?”
“July 8?”
“Yes.”
“I . . . again, sir, I don’t recall. What I recall . . . all my recollection on this point is hinged on my surprise when I heard it from Tim Russert and I’m inferring the rest from that.”
Prompted by Fitzgerald, Libby gave a lengthy description of events leading up to his July 8 meeting at the St. Regis with
Times
reporter Judith Miller. As with the others, he didn’t recall discussing Wilson’s wife, and said he inferred he didn’t, since he was surprised when Russert told him two or three days later.
In any event, Libby suggested he didn’t think the fact that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA was all that big a deal.
“Is it fair to say that many would think that if Joe Wilson were hired because of nepotism, because of a contact he had at the agency, that might undermine his credibility as an expert?”
“Some people may have taken it that way. That was never what I took out of it . . . because what he did he was perfectly competent to do. He went and he sat down with the people from Niger . . . he sat down and had tea with them and asked them what they had done or hadn’t done, and ambassadors do that all the time. So I thought he was very competent to do that mission.”
“Sir, are you telling us under oath that you never thought Mr. Wilson was hired because of nepotism?”
“I didn’t know why he was hired and I did not know at this point . . . how he came to be hired . . . as I’ve tried to make clear, the best of my recollection is that I was surprised when I learned from Tim Russert that his wife worked there.”
Fitzgerald said he’d get to Russert in a minute, but first asked Libby about the vice president’s interest in getting the full story of Wilson’s mission to the public.
“Fair to say,” Fitzgerald asked, “that you went through the notes and there’s a number of times when the vice president during that week has said you need to get everything out?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell the whole story. The whole truth has to get out. Anything less than that is a big mistake?”
“Yes, sir. That’s exactly what we wanted to do.”
“And that was a constant thing that week?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the vice president, to be blunt, was frustrated that it wasn’t all getting out there and it wasn’t sort of putting the story to rest, and he was sort of getting ticked off that we needed to resolve this issue?”
“I’m not sure I would use the word ‘ticked off,’ but he was frustrated. Yes, sir, that’s a fair statement.”
“Now, tell me about the circumstances of your conversation with Tim Russert.”
Despite his many memory lapses from the period, Libby recalled and described the conversation and its genesis in great detail:
“Chris Matthews, who is an NBC correspondent, had been–has a TV show at night, and he is a rather outspoken fellow,” Libby began. “And he was saying on this television show that the vice president sent Joe Wilson out on this mission, that the vice president got a report back from Joe Wilson on this mission, that the vice president therefore knew that the uranium report was false and should have stopped the president from putting it in the State of the Union.” Libby wanted Matthews to at least acknowledge that the administration had denied Wilson’s allegations. He called Mary Matalin, Cheney’s communications person for the first two years in office, to ask how to approach Matthews, and she suggested Libby call Tim Russert.
“Do you want me to continue?” Libby asked.
Fitzgerald hesitated momentarily; there were some things he wanted to follow up on. But Fitzgerald figured it was best to just keep out of his way. “Yes, continue.”
“Okay. So I called Tim Russert. I can’t recall whether I got him on the phone right away or whether he had to call me back . . . I think I called Mr. Russert sort of late-ish on the 10th . . . I got him on the phone.” After some pleasantries, “I turned to our issues. And I said, I had two things that were bothering me. One is some things that Andrea Mitchell was saying . . . but I said, ‘I’m not really calling you tonight about what Andrea Mitchell is saying. I’m calling you about what Chris Matthews is saying.’ And then I ran through with him what it was that Chris Matthews was saying and why it was wrong and on the public record wrong . . . that he at least had to say that the White House has denied this, the CIA has denied this, the vice president’s office has denied this.”
Libby explained that at this point, Russert interrupted and said he’d have to call Libby back, a call which “came only after a long-ish delay which I was uncomfortable with,” probably the next day. “He told me, you know, he understood what I was saying, [but] that there wasn’t much he could do about what Chris Matthews was saying. He [Russert] understood that it was not complete given that the public record was the other way. And then he said, ‘You know, did you know that . . . Ambassador Wilson’s wife works at the CIA?’ And I was a little taken aback by that. I remember being taken aback by it. And I said . . . ‘No, I don’t know that.’ And I said ‘No, I don’t know that’ intentionally because I didn’t want him to take anything I was saying as in any way confirming what he had said, because at that point in time I did not recall that I had ever known this, and I thought this is something that he was telling me that I was first learning. And so I said, ‘No I don’t know that’ because I wanted to be very careful not to confirm it for him, so that he didn’t take my statement as confirmation for him.”
This was pretty much the same story that Libby had told Eckenrode. But this time he said, not once but three times, that he’d told Russert he didn’t know Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, and was taking great care not to give any impression he was confirming the identity of someone working for the CIA.
Libby kept talking, noting, “I omitted to tell you . . . as always, ‘Tim, our discussion is off-the-record if that’s okay with you,’ and he said, ‘That’s fine.’
“So then, he, Mr. Russert, said to me, ‘Do you know that Ambassador Wilson’s wife works at the CIA?’ And I said, ‘No, I don’t know that.’ And then he said, ‘Yeah, all the reporters know it.’ And I said, again, ‘I don’t know that.’ I just wanted to be clear that I wasn’t confirming anything or him on this. And you know, I was struck by what he was saying in that he thought it was an important fact, but I didn’t want to be digging in on him, and he then moved on and we finished the conversation, something like that.”
But Russert didn’t agree to speak to Matthews. “In short,” Libby concluded, “I struck out trying to get Mr. Russert to intercede . . . he was unwilling or unable. In any case, he didn’t do that. He said we should call his producer.”
From Libby’s point of view it’s understandable that he would have seized upon such a memory. It established that he couldn’t have leaked Valerie Plame’s identity to Robert Novak, since he didn’t even know it until he spoke to Russert on July 11, the same day Novak’s column was disseminated to subscribers, embargoed for release until the following Monday. By then, her identity and the fact that she worked for the CIA were already widely known in the press, according to Russert. If Libby subsequently mentioned this to other reporters, always careful to stress that he was just passing on what he’d heard from others outside the White House, he may have been gossiping, but he wasn’t leaking anything. He couldn’t have violated the protected identities act and, more broadly, couldn’t be accused of leaking any confidential information.
If Libby thought he was hearing about Wilson’s wife for the first time on July 10 or 11, surely he would have mentioned it to someone at the White House–or so Fitzgerald assumed. “Did you tell the vice president about Russert informing you this curious fact that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA?”
“I don’t recall if I told the vice president at that time what had been told me. I’m not sure if I saw him at that time and had a chance to tell him. I don’t recall telling him at that time.”
But Libby did recall with some clarity discussing it with Karl Rove. He’d gone to see Rove about the Tenet statement, and Rove had told him about the call from Novak. “Novak had told Karl that Ambassador Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. So this was confirmation of a sort from what I had heard from Tim Russert that all the reporters know that Ambassador Wilson’s wife works at the CIA. I told Karl that I had heard from Tim Russert . . . the same thing, that the ambassador’s wife works at the CIA and . . . that Tim Russert had told me that all the reporters know this. I don’t remember the exact order of the conversation, but that’s the sum and substance of what we talked about with regard to that.”
So Rove was a corroborating witness–a possible contemporaneous account of the revelation from Russert. And Libby was potentially a key witness to Rove’s exchange with Novak. But he said Rove didn’t mention what, if anything, he’d told Novak.
Fitzgerald asked Libby about his conversation with NBC’s Andrea Mitchell, and Libby described the “awkward moment” when he feared mentioning Wilson’s wife might reveal that Russert had told him about her CIA status, but not his own reporter–an account Libby conceded was “convoluted.”
“And do you remember thinking about the dilemma, that you’re concerned that you may reveal to Ms. Mitchell that Russert told you what reporters know about Wilson’s wife?”
“That’s what stuck in my mind. Yes, sir.”
“And, as you sit here today, you don’t know whether you discussed Wilson’s wife with Ms. Mitchell?”
“I don’t recall . . . what I recall for sure was this dilemma about it. That’s what I recall.”
“And as you sit here today you’re obviously saying that as of that time you didn’t recall learning this fact from the vice president even though it had happened earlier. Correct?”
“Correct. Yes, sir.”
“And you don’t recall any conversation with either Grossman, or Fleischer, or Cathie Martin concerning Wilson’s wife. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“But you do recall having a thought during a conversation with Andrea Mitchell that if this comes up, it could put me in an awkward position because I learned this from Russert and not from any of these people that I may or may not have talked to. Correct?”
“Correct.”
Libby described the trip to Norfolk on July 12, when he and the vice president discussed in some detail how to respond to Matt Cooper’s questions and more broadly how to build on Tenet’s statement. This may have been their first private conversation after the call to Russert, but Libby didn’t recall mentioning it–or the revelation about Wilson’s wife–to Cheney. Libby described taking the vice president’s dictation for an on-the-record statement from Libby, and then making calls from Andrews Air Force Base. Libby conceded that he had discussed Wilson’s wife with Cooper, putting it in this context:
“I said, you know, off-the-record, reporters are telling us that Ambassador Wilson’s wife works at the CIA and I don’t know if it’s true. As I told you, we don’t know Mr. Wilson, we didn’t know anything about his mission, so I don’t know that it’s true. But if it’s true, it may explain how he knows some people at the agency and maybe he got some bad skinny, you know, some bad information. So that was the discussion about Ambassador Wilson’s wife. . . . I was very clear to say reporters are telling us because in my mind I still didn’t know it as a fact.”
Libby recalled making a similar point that day to Judith Miller; he was “pretty sure” he also discussed it with the
Post
’s Glenn Kessler and did not bring it up with
Newsweek
’s Evan Thomas.
It was late in the afternoon, and at about 4:30 p.m. Fitzgerald suggested they adjourn, but Libby interrupted. “Can I just make one other comment about this stuff? I get a lot of information during the course of a day. I probably get . . . I tend to get between a hundred and two hundred pages of material a day that I’m supposed to read and understand and I, you know, I start at six in the morning and I go until eight or eight-thirty at night, and most of that is meetings. So a lot of information comes through to me, and I can’t possibly recall all the stuff that I think is important, let alone other stuff that I don’t think is important. . . . What I’ll normally do is I’ll gather my staff together and say, Hey, what happened here? . . . What did people say, or what happened last week when we had that meeting? Did State agree to do something, or was the Defense Department supposed to do something? And we’ll sort of pool our recollections of it and that almost always brings me a fuller recollection of what’s happened.

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