People don't understand what happened here. Fitzgerald's theory of the case is that Libby was the FIRST leaker to the press so when Libby told the FBI and the Grand Jury that, he Libby, heard about Plame from a reporter it must be perjury.
Woodward now says he knew about Plame from other sources prior to Libby's alleged leaking, Woodward goes farther by admitting he may have discussed Plame with Libby prior to Libby's alleged leakings.
It may come down as to whether Libby confused Russert and Woodward on the telephone and whether such confusion is punishable by 30 years in jail.
Fitzgerald said "First person known" to have passed this information on to the press. But you miss an important part of his accusation. Fitz is not saying Libby committed a crime because he said he heard about Wilson/Plame from a reporter, its that he conveniently forgot the four people including Cheney who had told him that information prior to any reporter, that he had met with seven government officals on how to deal with the issue of Wilson and his wife. In fact he even forgot a meeting with Ari Fleischer where he told the press secretary that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and that was a week before he supposely told Russert. The prosecutor is after him for conveniently forgetting this earlier knowledge so he could say he was just passing on one rumour from one reporter to another. Not the whole truth if even partially true.
that "first government person to have leaked" part of the charging document is a smear of Libby - its not what he was indicted for, it was simply an additional smear of Libby by Fitzgerald to trump up the charge. just something he tossed in there to make his press conference sound more important then it really was, much like his prose about Plame and the sanctity of CIA covert status.