The Editorial and the article it references seem to miss the point that Libby called the CIA himself, in order to learn about Plame, and neglected to tell Fitz's investigators that he knew Plames status as a matter of -fact-, having called the CIA to discern it. That is the guts of the indictment, not "which reporter knew," or "did the reporters know before Libby did."
And to your question, Woodward's comments and letter indicate no evidence of him having spoken to Libby about Plame when the two of them talked on June 23, or met on June 27. And even if they did, those dates are after Libby called and met with the CIA on June 11 and 14 - for the "timeline fixated" folks.
BTW, once Fitz had determined there was no covert agent to be outed, he had no business spending $20 million in public money on the question.
"The Editorial and the article it references seem to miss the point that Libby called the CIA himself, in order to learn about Plame"
For the longest while I have seen you post some variation of this on every Plame/Wilson thread. I wonder where you go it.
Fitzgerald's indictment says this:
"On or about June 9, 2003, a number of classified documents from the CIA were faxed to the Office of the Vice President to the personal attention of LIBBY and another person in the Office of the Vice President. The faxed documents, which were marked as classified, discussed, among other things, Wilson and his trip to Niger, but did not mention Wilson by name. After receiving these documents, LIBBY and one or more other persons in the Office of the Vice President handwrote the names “Wilson” and “Joe Wilson” on the documents."
Actually, I see where what you have stated is mentioned later in the indictment:
"7. On or about June 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke with a senior officer of the CIA to ask about the origin and circumstances of Wilson's trip, and was advised by the CIA officer that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip.
9. On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA."
But I think the timeline is significant. It's not like Libby called the CIA out of the blue. Nor is it that this was Libby's only contact with the CIA. There was a lot of contact.
I don't think it entirely implausible that Libby would have muddled up who was the first to tell him. Or even to forget that he was told by the CIA.
Ah yes, but Woodward knew a month earlier and told Pincus about it. Pincus is a "journalist", and remember Andrea Mitchell said on TV that everyone knew. It's likely that Libby could have heard about Plame's employment through the rumor mill and that is why he called the CIA and asked the question, or perhaps he didn't even put the knowledge together at the time, it was just something he heard from someone, somewhere and didn't penetrate until he heard from the CIA that she was behind sending Wilson to Niger.
The thing is, remembering the sequence of events that took place a couple of years ago is very, very hard.
We can read something on this forum and forget the name of the article, but you still remember reading it. The thing is, sometimes it takes something to trigger that fact, like another article stating the same thing, or something completely opposite.
I thought Libby learned Valerie Plames name from some assistant secretary at the State Department, isn't that what Fitzgerald said when he announced Libby's indictments?