Do You Trust Robert Novak?

Columnist Robert Novak has been making the rounds on the news talk show circuit to discuss his role in the public disclosure of Valerie Plame’s name and her “connection” to her husband’s (Joe Wilson) fact-finding mission to Africa in regards to an alleged Iraqi uranium deal. Yesterday’s stop was “Meet The Press” with Tim Russert – you can read a transcript of the interview here.

Novak strikes me as one of those columnists who not only enjoys analyzing news, but also participating in the news and being part of the story. It’s as if he’s not satisfied with being on the outside; he wants to be on the inside helping his powerful friends. In the last few months, we’ve learned that the White House deliberately attempted to discredit Joe Wilson and his findings regarding an Iraqi uranium deal in Niger. Although only Scooter Libby has been indicted thus far by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, references have been made to both Vice President Cheney and President Bush in the leaking of Plame’s name to the press. Was Robert Novak part of this concerted effort to discredit Wilson and in turn, destroy the career of a CIA operative?

Naturally, Novak claims to be innocent in the whole affair and says that he was simply reporting on a relevant connection between a clearly anti-Administration envoy (Wilson) and how he was selected to go to Africa to research the Iraqi uranium claims. Plame’s role in getting her husband the assignment to go to Africa has been debated vigorously with conclusions being drawn along party lines. Whether there was a connection or not, it appears that Wilson was qualified to go on the mission, regardless of what Republicans have stated.

Should we trust Novak when he says that the leak of Valerie Plame’s name was inadvertent? I think not. There appears to be something incongruous about Novak’s claims. He states that the release of the name was inadvertent, but at the same time insists that Plame was neither undercover nor a covert operative at the time of the leak. Why the two statements? If the leak was truly inadvertent and he was unaware of Plame’s status at the CIA, then there’s no reason to repeatedly insist that she wasn’t undercover. He simply could have plead ignorance to outing a CIA operative in his disclosure of how Wilson was sent to Niger and not even addressed what her status may or may not have been.

The fact that he has denied her status as an undercover operative tells me that he was fully aware of what he was doing when he used Plame’s name in his column and that he knew he was potentially breaking the law by revealing the name of a CIA operative. CIA spokesperson Bill Harlow told Novak not to use the name in his column, but he did not tell Novak what her role was at the CIA, only that her name should not be disclosed. Interestingly enough, Novak did not heed this warning even though he acknowledges that Harlow did request that he not disclose the name. Novak has also made contradictory statements over how he learned of Plame’s name. In one instance, he claims to have been given the name by his primary source. In another instance, he claims to have found it in Joe Wilson’s “Who’s Who” entry. The latter explanation is Novak’s current stance and he claims that he misspoke in previous statements. It’s all very fishy.

Leaks are seldom inadvertent, and more typically, are done with intent to benefit oneself and/or one’s friends. In this case, the purported benefactors of the leak were to be the Bush Administration, with harm being done to the Wilson’s and other critics of the evidence used to justify the war in Iraq. What tends to get lost in this whole discussion is that Joe Wilson was right! The documents purported to support an Iraqi uranium deal in Niger have been proved to be forgeries, and the Administration already had intelligence in its hands that was skeptical of the “evidence” of an Iraqi WMD program. The Administration was simply very selective in what it revealed in its case for war. Joe Wilson exposed them, and he and his wife paid for it. To my mind, Robert Novak was a willing part of the scheme and his statements to the contrary ring hollow. His continued credibility will most likely be split along party lines.