Cross-posted at The Next Hurrah
It seems everyone is puzzling through why Russert was so damn cryptic all these years if--as Fitzgerald seems to believe--he had never gotten a taste of the Valerie Plame leak in the first place. I begin to address this question here (and link to Russert on Russert and Byron York agreeing with me--don't hold it against me). Via War and Piece, Michael Crowley dissects why Libby called Russert in the first place. And Digby adds some real wisdom here. Go to Digby if you'd like some great insight. Keep reading, though, if you'd like to consider a really pedestrian question.
If Libby didn't leak Plame's identity to Russert, who was the sixth journalist?
As we all remember, a senior administration official who might be Colin Powell or maybe George Tenet leaked to the WaPo in October 2003 that two administration officials called six journalists.
a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife.
[snip]
"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.
[snip]
It is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another. Asked about the motive for describing the leaks, the senior official said the leaks were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility."
This where the famous 1 X 2 X 6 theory came from.
But this is how I've always done the math:
- Judy
- Russert
- Pincus
- Cooper
- Kessler
- Novak
Numbers one through five are the journalists subpoenaed in July and August 2004. All made some kind of waiver agreement with their source and testified to either the FBI or the grand jury. If you believe my suspicions about Novak, he testified once early in the investigation (probably Fall 2003), and after Fitzgerald pointed out the evidence of obstruction associated with his testimony, he testified a little more truthfully.
But if you take Russert out of that list, all of a sudden we have an initial leakee who still hasn't talked to Fitzgerald--at least not as far as we know.
Now it's possible our senior administration official doesn't know what he's talking about. If it is Colin Powell, for example, he wasn't around the WH the week of July 6 to look over Libby's and Rove's shoulder as they called up these journalists. He wasn't crashing Judy's breakfast date with Libby. So maybe he just got that number, six, out of thin air. In any case, it is likely he wasn't the best informed source on the Get Wilson ratfuck campaign.
Or, Fitzgerald may have discreetly interviewed Lucky Number Six without subpoenaing him or her.
But the other possibility is that sixth journalist is still out there, quietly hunkering down, hoping to avoid the troubles that Cooper got unwillingly and Judy got deservedly.
Me, I'm putting money on Mrs. Bubbles Greenspan. It might explain her seeming bipolar coverage in the past few days. "I'm a shill! No wait--this is treason! Um, no, no, I AM a shill! Oooo, bad Scooter, Bad Scooter." And it might explain why Fitzgerald had to subpoena the guest list for Gerald Ford's birthday bash.
Russert has received a lot of criticism for not revealing his role in this whole mess. Well, there may be one out there who has revealed even less.
Update
Geez, if I'd just read my own posts, I might come up with a plausible guess, mightn't I?
If you haven't, go read the Crowley piece. You see, Libby was calling Tim Russert on July 10 to complain about a Tweety piece from July 8 which focused heavily on the Niger question and criticized Libby directly. And, we now know, hit really close to the truth.
MATTHEWS: Why would the vice president's office, Scooter Libby or whoever is running that office--why
would they send a CIA effort down in Niger to verify something, find
out there wasn't a uranium sale, and then not follow-up by putting that
information--or correcting that information--in the president's State
of the Union? If they went to the trouble to sending Joe Wilson all the
way to Africa to find out whether that country had ever sold uranium to
Saddam Hussein, why wouldn't they follow-up on that?...[emphasis Crowley's]
We know, of course, that the leakers were already hard at work on July 8. Presumably, Tweety would have called the White House--perhaps his buddy Karl Rove--for comment. We certainly know that, 12 days later, Karl Rove called Tweety to peddle the same leak. From Wilson's book:
Matthews was blunt: "I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He says, and I quote, "Wilson's wife is fair game.'" (1)
Certainly sounds like Rove may have already given him some background on this. But if it's Tweety, it's also easy to understand why Tweety wasn't subpoenaed with all the other journalists. He made it clear to Wilson, then and there, that he would confirm the contents of that phone call at least.
"I will confirm that if asked."
Which I presume means Tweety was willing to confirm it to Fitzgerald under grand jury secrecy. And this would also explain how Fitzgerald could be so certain Russert was telling the truth (because Tweety backed up his story).
Now, unlike Mrs. Bubbles, Tweety has been absolutely tireless on this matter in the last week and a half. What does he have to lose? He's been after Libby for a while, and it may be only a matter of time before the vindictive Turdblossom discovers Tweety's (possible) role in this.