Doesn't appear that it was from Wilson as "Wilson will not confirm that his wife was or is a CIA operative,"...
Also of possible interest: THE TRUTH IS OUT THEREBlown cover
published August 10, 2003SNIP
Exposing an undercover operative
In a July 14 column examining the Niger fiasco in some detail, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak wrote, "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
Novak told Newsday that "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
Why he named her remains unclear. And whether he knew he was exposing an undercover CIA agent is not clear. Novak declined to be interviewed for this story.
"I have no idea whether Novak knew or not," said Wilson. "But I can't see any reason whatsoever for using my wife's name in his column. It did not advance the story at all."
Wilson says it is not even clear what supposed sin Novak's sources were hinting at.
"I can't imagine what they trying to suggest," he said. "Maybe that nepotism was somehow involved in my getting the assignment? That doesn't make any sense. We not talking about a trip to Nassau here, and I was only paid expenses."
Plame has declined requests for interviews, but Wilson said she is "doing fine."
Wilson will not confirm that his wife was or is a CIA operative, though Newsday has reported that a senior intelligence official confirmed it. Specifically, Plame was reported to be a Directorate of Operations undercover officer. (The New York Times reported Friday that Plame is "known to friends as an energy industry analyst.")
"But," Wilson said, "hypothetically, I will say that if what Novak asserts is true, then laws were broken. And if it's true, they (the administration) took off the board an important national security asset (Plame) in order to protect some yo-yo's political concerns."
He said he believes that political operatives in the White House gave his wife's name to Novak, and he thinks he knows who they are. But he's "not ready, yet" to name them. He hopes an investigation - by the FBI, Congress or both - will take care of that.
Criticism of the disclosure has been sharp, though it is not clear what will happen next, if anything.
"Frivolous and irresponsible," said W. Patrick Lang, former director of Middle East analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency.
"Vile . . . highly, highly dishonorable," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., vice chairman of the Senate's Intelligence Committee.
In a July 25 letter to FBI director Robert Mueller, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., a member of the Judiciary Committee, demanded a criminal investigation.
"Leaking the name of a CIA agent is tantamount to putting a gun to that agent's head," Schumer said. "It compromises her safety, the safety of her loved ones, not to mention those in her network and other operatives she may deal with."
The administration has said little.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied that anyone in the White House had been authorized to leak Plame's undercover status, saying, "That is not the way this White House operates."
Asked if he were ruling out administration involvement, McClellan said: "I'm saying no one was certainly given any authority to do anything of that nature . . ."
/SNIP
Why he named her remains unclear. And whether he knew he was exposing an undercover CIA agent is not clear. Novak declined to be interviewed for this story.
Where is the "Newsday" interview of Novak?
Has anyone put together a chronology of the spinning $h1t that has come out of the left?