136^th in continuing blog series on the administration push to war. October-November 2005   As the grand jury and agency investigations of the CIA leak matter draw to a conclusion, it becomes clear in retrospect that top figures in the administration calculated that the best way to get the Valerie Plame ‘nepotism’ line out would be to ‘leak’ it from the top to the top. They chose two of the most prominent reporters in the United States, Judith Miller of the New York Times and Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, on the assumption that when the Times and the Post used the story, other papers would follow suit. Ironically, neither uses it, and the choice of Miller and Woodward as initial conduits reveals some clumsiness. But it also reveals a key rigidity in the administration, a habitual and ingrained attitude that if you want something you deal through the top, the top-down mindset which also characterizes administration economic policy and foreign policy. The CIA leak is trickle-down theory applied to leaking. As speculation about the leak investigation heats up, the month culminates in the indictment of Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, for perjury and obstruction of justice.
October, 2005:

 
Oct. 13, 2005 – CIA announces that its Directorate of Operations (DO) will be replaced, in an organizational reshuffling, by the National Clandestine Service (NCS). The NCS is the organization within CIA responsible for conducting the CIA’s foreign intelligence and counterintelligence, conducting covert action, conducting liaison with foreign intelligence and security services, serving as the repository for foreign counterintelligence information, supporting clandestine technical collection, and coordinating CIA support to the Department of Defense. The NCS is also responsible for conducting foreign intelligence collection activities through clandestine human sources. Valerie Plame Wilson’s Non-Official Cover position in CIA’s Counter-Proliferation Division was in the Directorate of Operations.

Oct. 19, 2005 – Judith Miller testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee in favor of a ‘shield law’ for journalists who cite confidential sources.

October, 2005 – Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward informs Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie, Jr., that he, Woodward, was told the item about Wilson’s wife in 2003.

Oct. 27, 2005 – Bob Woodward is interviewed on CNN’s Larry King Live, where the topic of intense speculation is Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s Plame leak investigation:

“KING: We're in Washington where things are hopping and we're going to follow up again tomorrow night. We're going to lead this round with Bob Woodward as we turn to tomorrow.  

       But, Michael Isikoff whispered to me during the break that he has a key question he'd like to ask Mr. Woodward, so I don't know what this is about.

ISIKOFF: No, look, this is the biggest mystery in Washington, has been really for two years and now as we come down to the deadline of tomorrow the city is awash with rumors. There's a new one every 15 minutes and nobody really knows what's going to happen tomorrow. Nobody knows what Fitzgerald's got.   

       I talked to a source at the White House late this afternoon who told me that Bob is going to have a bombshell in tomorrow's paper identifying the Mr. X source who is behind the whole thing. So, I don't know, maybe this is Bob's opportunity.

KING: Come clean.

WOODWARD: I wish I did have a bombshell. I don't even have a firecracker. I'm sorry. In fact, I mean this tells you something about the atmosphere here. I got a call from somebody in the CIA saying he got a call from the best "New York Times" reporter on this saying exactly that I supposedly had a bombshell . . .

Finally, this went around that I was going to do it tonight or in the paper. Finally, Len Downie, who is the editor of the "Washington Post" called me and said, "I hear you have a bombshell. Would you let me in on it."

KING: So now the rumors are about you.

WOODWARD: And I said I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't.

KING: What do you think will happen?

WOODWARD: But Michael's point is exactly right. There is deep mystery here. It only grows with time and people are speculating and there are -- there is so little that people really know.

       Now there are a couple of things that I think are true. First of all this began not as somebody launching a smear campaign that it actually -- when the story comes out I'm quite confident we're going to find out that it started kind of as gossip, as chatter and that somebody learned that Joe Wilson's wife had worked at the CIA and helped him get this job going to Niger to see if there was an Iraq/Niger uranium deal.  

       And, there's a lot of innocent actions in all of this but what has happened this prosecutor, I mean I used to call Mike Isikoff when he worked at the "Washington Post" the junkyard dog. Well this is a junkyard dog prosecutor and he goes everywhere and asks every question and turns over rocks and rocks under rocks and so forth.”

At this point, of course, Woodward does have a small bombshell, namely that back in 2003 he was one of the journalists favored to receive the planted item that Wilson’s wife worked in CIA.

Oct. 28, 2005 – The term of the grand jury in the CIA leak matter is set to expire.

Same day -- The grand jury returns a five-count indictment charging I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Jr., Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, with perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1503, 1623 and 1001, in connection with an investigation concerning leaks to reporters of classified information regarding the employment of Valerie Plame Wilson.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/documents/libby_indictment_28102005.pdf

Same day – Bob Woodward is interviewed on ABC’s 7 News:

“Bob Woodward joining us live from New York. Tell us who Patrick Fitzgerald is?

    He’s probably the most focused prosecutor you could ever imagine . . .”  

Again Woodward is drawn out on his thoughts regarding the CIA leak investigation and prosecution, and again he responds without mentioning that he like Novak and other journalists received the tip about the Wilsons from an administration official, in his instance Richard Armitage.