I’m very confused by the whole Tim Russert role in the Valerie Plame affair. Let me lay it out and maybe it will start to make sense to me as I tell the story.
For the sake of simplicity I am going to assume that Tim Russert has been largely truthful and that Scooter Libby has not. It will be easier to tell the story that way.
Ambassador Wilson wrote his famous op-ed on July 6, 2003. Robert Novak outed his wife in a syndicated column that appeared on July 14. The column was actually written on July 11.
To understand the Plame affair you have to look at events that occurred between the time Novak wrote his column on the 11th and it appeared on the 14th. It shows a deliberate effort to leak Valerie Plame’s identity.
At 11:07 AM on July 11, Matt Cooper sent an internal Time Magazine e-mail message to his bureau chief, stating: “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation…it was, KR said, Wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues who authorized the trip.”
That afternoon George Tenet fell on his sword and took responsibility for the 16 words in the State of the Union speech.
Libby called Judith Miller on the 12th and discussed, for the third time, Valerie Plame. That same day “Walter Pincus says an administration official told him, somewhat off topic, that Joseph Wilson’s wife was a CIA analyst working on weapons of mass destruction and that Wilson’s trip was a “boondoggle.”
This isn’t even an exhaustive list of who knew about Valerie Plame before Novak’s column appeared. The point is that the administration, both on Rove’s side and on Cheney’s side were trying to leak out Valerie Plame’s name. Even Ari Fleischer and Dan Bartlett from the communications shop were dropping leads in Africa. Despite this, Tim Russert claims that he didn’t know anything about it until he picked up his Washington Post on the 14th. And then he testified that his reaction was “I said, ‘Wow, look at this, this is really significant, this is really big. I wish I had known before then, but I did not.”
Now, we are going to take Russert’s word here that he is telling the truth. He didn’t know and word had not leaked to him from any of his underlings. Let’s skip forward to November 2003. An FBI agent named Eckenrode contacts him and says that he wants to discuss an issue that pertains to national security. Russert willingly agrees to talk to the FBI agent. The FBI agent reveals to him that Scooter Libby, the Vice-President’s chief of staff, has told them that he learned of Valerie Plame’s occupation from HIM. Libby said that he called up Russert on July 10 to complain about Hardball coverage on the 8th and 9th. And Libby claimed that during that conversation Russert told him that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, was responsible for sending her husband on the trip, and that all his reporters knew about it.
Let’s try to imagine Russert’s reaction to hearing this. First of all, he didn’t know about Valerie Plame until the same day everyone else learned of it from Novak’s column. Not only that, but the conversation he had with Libby had not been pleasant. He got cussed out for the coverage of Chris Matthews. He got read the riot act and then he got made into Libby’s alibi for leaking highly classified information that ruined the career of an experienced CIA officer and destroyed one of their front companies, endangering ongoing operations and endangering the lives of agency contacts. It’s no surprise that Libby’s attorney just asked Russert (moments ago), “Weren’t you elated when Libby was indicted?” Russert answered ‘no’ but under the circumstances it seems like a reasonable question.
So, during this November 2003 interview with the FBI, Russert set the record straight. Libby was full of shit. He didn’t tell Libby and it was impossible that he could have told Libby. Libby was lying his ass off. Russert recounted the whole conversation and he didn’t consider it privileged because Libby called him up and told him off. He didn’t call him up as a source. He didn’t call him up to divulge information. At least, that’s not how Russert interpreted it. Of course, Libby did divulge information. He rebutted point-by-point the allegations being made by Wilson and repeated (somewhat exaggeratedly) by Chris Matthews. In any case, Russert spilled all the beans to the FBI man.
But when it came time to answer a subpoena to appear before Fitzgerald’s grand jury, Russert resisted it with all his might. He never revealed to the judge that he had already discussed this conversation with the FBI (Eckenrode had asked Russert not to talk about their interview). Fitzgerald even made allowances that assured Russert he would not be forced to testify about other sources or other conversations. He just wanted to talk about the July 10 conversation with Libby. Russert refused.
Why?
Well, his answer is that he didn’t want to get caught up in a fishing expedition. But that was exactly what Fitz wanted to assure him would not happen. Russert says it would have a ‘chilling effect’ on his ability to report if sources got the idea he was a blabbermouth. In the end, he was allowed to give a deposition with his lawyers present rather than appear alone before the grand jury. And while Fitzgerald requested that he not talk about his deposition, he specifically assured him that it would not be illegal to do so. Russert told no one what he knew about the Vice-President’s chief of staff trying to pawn off the blame for Plame on him.
This was an election year. This was 2004. And Russert didn’t tell the public what he knew. Would we have re-elected Bush if we knew then that Scooter Libby was lying to the FBI about his involvement in the Plame case? It definitely could have made a difference. And Russert had every reason to be pissed off. So, even though he was personally affronted, he still effectively became an accessory to the cover-up and protected the Bush administration. No wonder Dick Cheney said that Meet the Press is the easiest format to control. What the fuck?
Okay, I am not any closer to understanding this. Maybe Russert just didn’t want to get tarnished with a reputation for being loose with sources, or maybe he was protecting NBC’s access to the White House. I don’t know. But it stinks.
