by Philip Curtis
ePluribus Media
Also posted on Dailykos
As the Valerie Plame outing once again enters the spotlight, former GOPUSA/Talon News Washington Bureau Chief Jeff Gannon’s June 30, 2005, column re-characterizes the incident as a covert CIA effort to discredit the Bush administration. Dismissing the potentially felonious leak of a CIA agent’s identity, Gannon once again offers a new version of the details of his own involvement in exposing a key memo in the investigation.
Jeff Gannon, as depicted in the June 2005 Vanity Fair (shown unattributed at Gannon’s Web site)
The Thrust of Gannon’s Argument
Gannon concludes, “No crime has been committed in the Valerie Plame case.” He asserts that Plame, the alleged victim of the leak, “had an obligation to protect her identity, which it is clear she did not fulfill.” As evidence of Plame’s failure, Gannon asserts:
Gannon neglects to mention that there is significant disagreement over the extent of Plame’s role in the selection of Wilson. The July 15, 2004 Los Angeles Times reports:
Rather than being the victim of a crime, Gannon implies that Plame may have been part of an organized CIA plot against the President. Gannon alleges that Joseph Wilson was selected because “those in charge of the investigation wanted to be sure of the outcome.” He further states that he was unsuccessful in convincing the FBI to investigate his inside knowledge of an anti-Bush CIA “cell”:
Did Gannon Obtain a Classified Intelligence Memo?
In his interview with Joseph Wilson published by Talon News on October 28, 2003, Jeff Gannon asked Joseph Wilson:
An October 17, 2003, Wall Street Journal article describes questioning Wilson on October 16 regarding the same memo. Did Gannon simply read about the document in the Journal or did he learn about it from an independent source? Neither Gannon nor Wilson referred to the Journal in the interview. Since the publication of his interview, Gannon has offered a myriad of responses to the question. His June 30 column clearly claims independent knowledge of the memo, stating that “I acquired knowledge of the memo and the Wall Street Journal reported on it…”
In prior statements on the issue, Gannon alternately:
- States he is bound to keep his sources confidential.
- Refuses to divulge if he has seen the memo.
- Does not dispute questions implying that he has seen the memo.
- Denies seeing the memo.
- Claims he implied he saw the memo only as an interviewing technique.
- Claims he never implied he saw the memo.
- States that if there was a meeting, he assumed there would be a memo documenting it.
- Implies he learned of the memo through the Wall Street Journal.
- Asserts he was the first news source to report on how Wilson was selected for the Niger mission.
A chronology of Gannon’s varying responses is included below.
It is unclear whether Gannon’s interview with Wilson was conducted before or after the publication of the October 17 Wall Street Journal article. In Gannon’s interview, Wilson states, “I said as much in a speech I gave to the Rotary Club last week.” Wilson had spoken to the Washington, DC, Rotary Club on Wednesday, October 8, 2003. His statement suggests that the interview took place during the week beginning Monday, October 13.
Did Gannon Ever See a Copy of the Memo?
Talon News was the only service identified by [T]he Washington Post as having knowledge of the memo’s existence…. Jeff Gannon, the White House correspondent and Washington Bureau Chief for Talon News declined to reveal whether he had seen the memo or had its contents described to him.
While he would not disclose his source, Gannon said, “I will tell you that the information did not come from inside the administration.”
“For something that is supposed to be classified, it seems that this document is easily accessible,” Gannon added. “Washington is leaking like a cheap umbrella. Just look at what’s happening over on Capitol Hill.”
Undated — jeffgannon.com:
…[T]he FBI came to my home in March 2003 [sic] to question me in connection to the leak probe…. But most of the questions were about the INR report. They wanted to know where I got it and what I knew about it. Of course, as a journalist there wasn’t much I could say without revealing my sources. I’m sure they were not satisfied, but it made me wonder why they were so interested in a document the CIA said was false.
02/11/2005 — Editor & Publisher:
Although he hinted that he had not seen a classified CIA document after all, he added, “I am not going to speak to that. It goes to something of a nature I do not want to discuss.”
02/11/2005 — CNN, Wolf Blitzer Reports:
GANNON: And the FBI did come to interview me. They were interested in where — how I knew or received a copy of a confidential CIA memo that said that Valerie Plame suggested that Joe Wilson be sent on this mission, something that everybody — they have all vigorously denied but is, in effect, true.
BLITZER: Do you have to reveal how you got that memo?
GANNON: No.
BLITZER: They didn’t ask you?
GANNON: Well, the FBI kept asking. I said, well, look, I’m a journalist, I can’t —
BLITZER: You didn’t tell them?
GANNON: Yes. Can’t divulge that. And they accepted that, and I’ve never been asked again.
02/18/2005 — CNN, Anderson Cooper 360°:
COOPER: So there was an article in which you interviewed Ambassador Joe Wilson, and you implied that you had seen a CIA classified document in which Valerie Plame ….
GANNON: I didn’t do that at all. I didn’t do that at all. If you read the question, and I provided — my article was actually a transcript of my conversation with Ambassador Wilson — I made reference to a memo. And this ….
COOPER: How did you know about that memo?
GANNON: Well, this memo was referred to in a Wall Street Journal article a week earlier.
COOPER: So that wasn’t based on any information that you had been given by the White House?
GANNON: I was given no special information by the White House or by anybody else, for that matter.
02/20/2005 — The New York Times:
Mr. Guckert denied seeing a Central Intelligence Agency memorandum disclosing the identity of Valerie Plame, a C.I.A. operative, even though he had strongly insinuated as much in an interview with her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, the transcript of which he posted on the Internet.
Mr. Guckert’s phrasing in that interview so strongly suggested he had seen the classified memorandum that it brought F.B.I. officials to his house as part of the Plame leak investigation, he said. But he said referring to the memorandum as though he had seen it was merely an interview technique. “What I said was no more than what was reported in The Wall Street Journal a week before,” he said.
03/03/2005 — Ace of Spades HQ:
This may be a question you don’t want to answer, but you’ve given unclear statements about whether or not you saw memos regarding Valerie Plame. Did you? And what sort of memos if you did? And, importantly, can you at least say when you saw memos when you did — was it after the general revelations about the matter, or before?
JG: Because of the ongoing investigation into the “leak” of Valerie Plame’s identity, I cannot comment further, especially since Congressional Democrats have asked the Special Prosecutor to interview me again.
03/29/05 — Lifelike Pundits:
If such a meeting took place, there would be a memo about it. I confronted the [a]mbassador about such a meeting referring to a memo that the CIA won’t admit exists, but says is a forgery at the same time.
05/18/2005 — jeffgannon.com:
It was my reporting the [sic] first exposed Ambassador Joe Wilson’s deception about how his [sic] was chosen for the mission to Niger.
June 2005 — Vanity Fair:
Gannon did not obtain a secret memo in the case of Valerie Plame, the CIA agent illegally identified in the press, as he insinuated in one of his articles; he’d read about it in The Wall Street Journal.
06/30/2005 — jeffgannon.com :
I acquired knowledge of the memo and [T]he Wall Street Journal reported on it….
Was Gannon Ever Called By the Grand Jury?
Gannon also offers varied responses on his contact with the Grand Jury investigating the Plame outing:
A federal grand jury has subpoenaed White House records on administration contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets in a special investigation into the alleged improper leak of a covert CIA official’s identity to columnist Robert Novak last July.
Talon News has learned that one of the journalists being targeted is Jeff Gannon, Washington Bureau Chief and White House correspondent for Talon News.
“I don’t know why I’m on the list of journalists being called before the Grand Jury,” Gannon told Talon News. “I have been an outspoken critic of the leak probe and an aggressive questioner of the motives behind it. That seems to have drawn the attention of someone with the authority to issue subpoenas.”
02/11/2005 — Editor & Publisher:
Guckert said that contrary to many press reports, he was never subpoenaed by the special prosecutor and has never testified before a grand jury in the case. But he said he was interviewed by two FBI agents in his home for about 90 minutes last year.
02/11/2005 — CNN, Wolf Blitzer Reports:
BLITZER: So they didn’t make you go testify before the grand jury?
GANNON: No.
03/03/2005 — Ace of Spades HQ:
…I cannot comment further, especially since Congressional Democrats have asked the Special Prosecutor to interview me again.
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