Novak: "I'm Confident the President Knows Who" Leaked Spy's Identity

Newspaper columnist Robert Novak still won't name his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush.

"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh yesterday. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."

"So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.'"

It was Novak who first revealed that Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, worked for the CIA. Wilson had angered the Bush Administration when he accused it of twisting intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat before the war.

Novak has rarely discussed the Plame affair, which makes yesterday's discussion all the more interesting.

Back in August, Novak swore and then walked off the set of CNN's Inside Politics, just as CNN correspondent Ed Henry was about to ask Novak about his role in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the leak. Novak was suspended for his action.

***

Should the media "bug" the president? Do we need to have a "what did you know and when did you know it" moment?

Back in October, ABC News' George Stephanopoulos dropped a potential bombshell regarding the Plame investigation.(Click here to watch the video):

STEPHANOPOULOS: Definitely a political problem, but I wonder, George Will, do you think it’s a manageable one for the White House, especially if we don’t know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.

As the Center for American Progress noted, this would explain why Bush spent more than an hour answering questions from Fitzgerald. It would also change the dynamics of the scandal fundamentally. President Bush could no longer claim he was merely a bystander who wants to "get to the bottom of it."

But that was the beginning and end of any discussion of Bush's (or Cheney's) role in the Plame identity leak.

The media has been little more than a bystander throughout the investigation - getting leaks from lawyers observing grand-jury testimony - but it hasn't broken any significant stories independent of Fitzgerald's investigation.

***

This item first appeared at Journalists Against Bush's B.S.

Article Author: David R. Mark

Visit David R. Mark's author page — David R. Mark's Blog