Taranto repeated false claim that Woodward revelation contradicts Fitzgerald's account of CIA leak

Written by Rob Morlino

Published

In his November 21 “Best of the Web” column, Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com editor James Taranto falsely claimed that the recent disclosure by Washington Post assistant managing editor Bob Woodward regarding the alleged outing of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame, contradicts the account offered by special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald during his October 28 press conference announcing the indictment of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.

On November 14, Woodward testified under oath that he learned about Plame's CIA employment in June 2003 from a “senior administration official” other than Libby.

Fitzgerald is investigating possible legal violations in the leak of Plame's identity and has, to date, obtained the indictment of Libby on charges of perjury, obstruction, and making false statements. At the beginning of the October 28 press conference, Fitzgerald said that Libby “was the first official known to have told a reporter” (emphasis added) about Plame's employment. Later, in the press conference, Fitzgerald repeated the statement without the qualifier. Media Matters for America previously noted that several news outlets and media figures cited only Fitzgerald's second statement without noting the first, supporting the false notion that there is a contradiction. On November 17, The New York Times also published an article on Woodward's disclosure that omitted the qualifier, but issued a correction the next day, noting that it had “referred incorrectly” to Fitzgerald's statements about Libby and that “Mr. Fitzgerald said that Mr. Libby was the 'first known' government official -- not the first -- to discuss Ms. Wilson with a journalist.”

MSNBC host Keith Olbermann wrote in a November 20 post on his Bloggermann weblog that by using the “known” qualifier, “Fitzgerald was clearly and meticulously leaving his case open in case an earlier leaker later turned up -- as evidently he just did.”

Following Woodward's disclosure, Libby attorney Ted Wells released a written statement claiming that Woodward's “disclosure shows that Mr. Fitzgerald's statement at his press conference of Oct. 28, 2005, that Mr. Libby was the first government official to tell a reporter about Mr. Wilson's wife was totally inaccurate.”

Media Matters for America previously noted that several news outlets -- including the Associated Press, The Washington Post, and others -- picked up Wells's argument when they reported on Woodward's disclosure.

From the November 21 Wall Street Journal OpinionJournal.com "Best of the Web":

The Washington Post's Bob Woodward is back in the news, having given testimony to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, whose investigation into the Valerie Plame kerfuffle is nearing the end of its second year. It turns out Woodward learned Plame's Double Secret Identity from a government source--not Scooter Libby--before Libby is alleged to have told other reporters about it. This contradicts Fitzgerald's claim at a press conference announcing Libby's identity that Libby was “the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter.”