Yesterday,
Dan Froomkin highlighted serious doubts about the allegation that Guckert had access to the internal intelligence memo that was leaked, leading to the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. Indeed, it looks like Guckert never had any access to the memo, but was just cribbing from the Wall Street Journal.
Froomkin cites righty blogger Tom Maguire (NOTE: there's an overkill of Kos-hatred on his site, and I have no idea who he is, so be forewarned before you click the link...but he's got a point on this one), who noted
on Feb. 11 that Guckert's interview with Ambassador Wilson (during the week leading up to October 28, 2003) occurred
after the WSJ published
an article describing the leaked memo. Most telling is the fact that Guckert seems to have read his question to Wilson about the memo straight off the Journal's pages.
From the Journal on Oct. 17:
An internal government memo addresses some of the mysteries at the center of the White House leak investigation and could help investigators in the search for who disclosed the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, according to two people familiar with the memo.
The memo, prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel, details a meeting in early 2002 where CIA officer Valerie Plame and other intelligence officials gathered to brainstorm about how to verify reports that Iraq had sought uranium yellowcake from Niger.
Ms. Plame, a member of the agency's clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested at the meeting that her husband, Africa expert and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, could be sent to Niger to investigate the reports, according to current and former government officials familiar with the meeting at the CIA's Virginia headquarters. Soon after, midlevel CIA officials decided to send him, say intelligence officials.
From the Guckert/Wilson interview (during the week leading up to Oct. 28):
An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency for clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?
In other words, it looks an awful lot like Guckert pulled his memo question straight out of the Journal, which had reported on the memo about a week before the Guckert/Wilson interview occurred. To be sure, Guckert subsequently claimed to have seen the memo and has refused to say much more, citing a need to "protect his sources." (Spiderleaf's excellent timeline notes the relevant post from Guckert's site where the latter claims to have seen the memo). However, we already know that Guckert isn't a real reporter and is prone to making self-aggrandizing claims and generally trying to make himself appear like a bigger fish than he is.
In light of those facts, I'm inclined to discount Guckert's personal claims to having seen the leaked memo. Which, in turn, means that the most explosive part of the Guckert story may not even exist. How and why he got into the WH press room are questions that still need to be answered, but it sure looks like Guckert didn't have access to classified intelligence memos other than by reading about them in the Wall Street Journal.