Let’s say Raw Story is correct and Stephen Hadley was Woodward’s source. It won’t surprise the BooTrib columnists. Way back on October 18th Larry Johnson sent me an email:

Had lunch today with a person who has a direct tie to one of the folks facing indictment in the Plame affair. There are 22 files that Fitzgerald is looking at. These include Stephen Hadley, Karl Rove, Lewis Libby, Dick Cheney, and Mary Matalin (there are others of course). Hadley has told friends he expects to be indicted. No wonder folks are nervous at the White House.
LJ

But, of course, Hadley wasn’t indicted, and neither were Rove, Cheney, or Mary Matalin. But, if Larry’s source was right, Hadley expected to be indicted. So, what might have happened?

October 28th came, Libby was indicted and Hadley was left hanging. Less than a week later he was telling Fitzgerald about a conversation that he had with Bob Woodward. That sounds like enough time for Hadley’s lawyers to take stock, look at the solid case against Libby, send out some feelers to Fitz, and negotiate terms to lessen Hadley’s legal exposure. But, merely revealing a conversation with Woodward would not have been particularly enticing to Fitzgerald. How does it advance his investigation? More likely, Hadley agreed to divulge a bunch of information of which the conversation with Woodward was only a small part.

The first thing to consider is this:

Hadley was admitting to a potential crime. Depending on Hadley’s understanding of Valerie Wilson’s covert status at the time he talked to Woodward, he could be guilty of violating the Intelligence Identities Act. Before he offered up this information he would have sought assurances that he would not be charged with that crime. He also probably sought to avoid charges of perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. Woodward has been signaling for months that, if he was ever called to testify, he would be a friendly witness. So, Hadley felt comfortable that Woodward would back up his story that he didn’t know Mrs. Wilson was a covert officer. And Fitz knew he was facing a daunting challenge in proving otherwise.

So, if Hadley is the source it appears that he cut a deal. The deal might entail pleading to a minor charge and possibly avoiding jail time. Or, it might entail providing extensive testimony in exchange for immunity, or minor charges. But, just using common sense, it seems unlikely that Fitz would make a deal without getting indictable intelligence about higher ups. And since Hadley is the National Security Adviser, it doesn’t go much higher.

In conclusion, it makes perfect sense that Hadley was the leaker. And if we was, things are about to get real ugly in the White House.

Some other things to remember about Hadley:

Hadley took the blame for the 16 words in the State of the Union speech. George Tenet told him to take those words out of a speech in Cincinnati in 2002. The CIA sent Hadley at least two warnings about the veracity of the Niger documents, which he claimed to have failed to pass on his boss, Condi Rice. He offered to resign.

And it was an email from Karl Rove to Hadley that exposed Rove’s conversation with Time reporter, Michael Cooper. It was Hadley that met with the head of SISMI, the Italian intelligence agency:

Today’s exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones confirmed the meeting to the Prospect on Tuesday.

So, Hadley is up to his neck in this mess.

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