Walter Pincus Knew Nothing About Valerie Plame?

Can it be true that the nearly-omniscient Walter Pincus of the WaPo was not aware that Valerie Plame, Ambassador Wilson's wife, was at the CIA during the "Summer of Leaks" when Matt Cooper, Judy Miller, Bob Novak, and Bob Woodard were in the know?  Did he really only learn about this on July 12, 2003?

Hmmph.  I have long suspected (point 3) that his earlier statements left him plenty of wiggle room to stun a packed courtroom with the news that he had received a leak about Ms. Plame in mid-June, about the time that Bob Woodward did.

But a Pincus push-back is underway.  The CJR runs a piece telling us this:

Then, on July 12 — two days before the immortal column in which Robert Novak mentioned that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA — Pincus was on the phone with a person he describes as an administration official (and not Lewis Libby). They were talking about a somewhat different topic, and then the official began to complain about the attention that Wilson’s arguments had been receiving. Didn’t Pincus know, the official said, that Wilson’s wife was at the CIA, and that she had cooked up the Niger trip? “It was, ‘Why are you writing about it? It’s a boondoggle. She arranged it,’” Pincus recalls.

This July 12 conversation, Pincus says, was the first time he ever heard of Valerie Plame’s CIA employment. (In previous accounts, he has not been entirely explicit about that point.) He says he has no recollection of Woodward’s mentioning Plame in the newsroom the previous month. He also says that while he was reporting the lengthy June articles on prewar intelligence, he discussed Wilson’s Niger report with members of several federal agencies. Some of those sources criticized the report on various grounds, Pincus says, but “not one person mentioned Wilson’s wife.”

And there's more!  In a Vanity Fair article available on your newstands now, Mr. Pincus says that he only learned that Joe Wilson had a wife when he got involved with a July 3 picnic at the Wilsons.

Well, here is what Mr. Pincus originally wrote in Oct 2003 to get himself a subpoena:

On July 12, two days before Novak's column, a Post reporter was told by an administration official that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction. Plame's name was never mentioned and the purpose of the disclosure did not appear to be to generate an article, but rather to undermine Wilson's report.

Folks who are determined to parse Mr. Pincus' latest pronouncement may wonder whether "the first time he ever heard of Valerie Plame’s CIA employment" means, "The first time I heard she was at the CIA", or "The first time I heard she was an analyst working on WMDs".

However, the news that Mr. Pincus was unaware that Joe Wilson was married until about July 3 is a bit of a poser.

Well, he can push back all he wants - I'll bet he still gets a subpoena, since Libby's team seems to be worried about neither time nor money.

Comments

[Sue]

I don't get it. Every reporter has said almost the same thing. In different variations, of course.

Plame's name was never mentioned and the purpose of the disclosure did not appear to be to generate an article, but rather to undermine Wilson's report.

But we are told that the WH was shopping the Plame story around. Were the reporters that dense? Or was it just another day at the office? Pushback against a critic?

[clarice]

Odd,indeed, for someone long considered by the left as "the CIA's man at the Washington Post"

[maryrose]

Pincus dropped the ball on this one. He was played. Remember the bigger they are the harder the fall. Pincus will learn that lesson sooner rather than later.

[MayBee]

Pincus, in the CJR article:
Pincus believes that the Bush administration acted obnoxiously when it leaked Valerie Plame’s identity, but he has never been convinced by the argument that the leaks violated the law. “I don’t think it was a crime,” he says. “I think it got turned into a crime by the press, by Joe” — Wilson — “by the Democrats. The New York Times kept running editorials saying that it’s got to be investigated — never thinking that it was going to turn around and bite them.”

There you go.

[larwyn]

Is it not odd IIRC that Pincus' wife was at STATE under Clinton, Joe was an Ambassador in the Clinton Admin - so they never ran into each other at State functions or just Clinton parties, or the DC
social scene.

Same with the Matthews with a wife at Vanity Fair. I still submit that if there are those glossy mags in DC that play up the "society" doings - and in DC politicians and media are "society" there have to be guest lists where all these couples and Mr. & Mrs. Andrea Mitchell Greenspan are in attendance.

Val is not a shrinking violet, men would look at her and women would give her the survey. It would not go un noticed. And the Clinton years were big party years - another reason that DC does not like GW and his early to bed ways.

He has cut off the holding of court and the seen and be seen at court which Clintons loved.

[Jim E.]

Libby didn't know Joe Wilson had a wife until July 9 or 10, right? Isn't that his *cough* story?

[Gary Maxwell]

Maybee if Pincus says that then in his heart of hearts he gets the scam. Why doesn't he feel remorse? Does it have something to do with his politics and who his wife is? Fitz is in trouble if Pincus gets on the stand and says this ( or more).

I am not back, just found a quiet moment on my brother-in-laws wireless internet connection.

[clarice]

I think it got turned into a crime by the press, by Joe” — Wilson — “by the Democrats. The New York Times kept running editorials saying that it’s got to be investigated — never thinking that it was going to turn around and bite them.”

Perhaps if Walter hadn't waited 2 1/2 years to correct his original story there would not have been so much heat under the drive to indictment.

[MTT]

It my be true that Pincus had never known that Joseph Charles Wilson IV was married, let alone married to Valerie Plame.

That JCW4 made it known in Who's Who, as well in his biographies during speeches, suggests that others at least had the chance to know his matrimonial status.

Is it plausible that Pincus really didn't know? I suppose it is.

It also plausible that he will never be called to prove this, nor that such a thing is really provable.

My guess is that what we are seeing is not so much "push-back" but "pull-back", with the underlying notion that there will be no Fitzmas this year, or ever. So WP is free to say whateverthehell he damn pleases.

The case will be dropped, dismissed, or the other shoe(s) is(are) ready to be dropped.

The Great Pumpkin will not arrive, either.

[Sue]

Mr. Pincus does anything but garner sympathy from me. He was very willing to believe the pack of lies Joe was peddling. The entire MSM was looking for ways to punish Bush for taking us to war and Joe supplied them with the ammunition. Nevermind the ammunition was less than truthful. Just like the TANG memo story. In the past, they got away with it. The story was what they wanted us to know, nothing more, nothing less.

[JM Hanes]

TM

I don't get the sense that there's quite as much wiggle-rooming going on as you do, and I'm not altogether comfortable with the implication that Pincus is being wilfully deceptive, if not actually lying. Pincus has been frankly skepitcal about any underlying illegality here, so I while I can see him protecting sources with a bit of legalese from time to time, I don't really see any particular ass covering incentives for dishonesty.

Is it inconceivable that Plame was such a nobody at the CIA that her name just never came up? If Wilson's excursion was the kind of boondoggle Clarice has described, why would her name come up? And while Wilson might have bragged on his wife in other contexts, why would he suggest in any way that he hadn't been annointed on the merits? Given his own inflated sense of worth, he'd be far more likely to promote himself as the obvious choice. He's certainly struggled to deny any substantive involvement on her part ex post facto, and I've never been sure that we should be so quick to assume that he used her as a stand in for credentials before the fact.

[TM]

I'm not altogether comfortable with the implication that Pincus is being wilfully deceptive, if not actually lying...

I guess it does not come through, but I don't think he is lying either.

I think he might be cute with his phrasing to duck a subpoena, but I can't see how he is lying about the July 3 "wife" revelation.

[topsecretk9]

Can it be true that the nearly-omniscient Walter Pincus of the WaPo was not aware that Valerie Plame, Ambassador Wilson's wife, was at the CIA during the "Summer of Leaks" when Matt Cooper, Judy Miller, Bob Novak, and Bob Woodard were in the know? Did he really only learn about this on July 12, 2003?

I love the way TM phrases this. Would Pincus be the most ignorant (CIA) reporter in DC? Nope, no way.

JM

I think your take is admirable, but think of this...why in the world was Pincus completely unmoved by the information his supposedly Senior and in the know Administration official supplied information that seemed to completely derail Pincus's big scoop?

Because he is so unethical he would not want to run down the truth in his reporting? Or was it that he already knew about Wilson's wife, her role...and Pincus was secure the real story was those "names were wrong, and those dates were wrong" and the Admin relied on KNOWN forged documents to go to war.

Pincus was one reporter uninterested in "tracking down" the behesting.

[MayBee]

Pincus obviously had doubts about the intelligence-based case for war, and he expressed them beforehand. Knowing that, I can imagine he was a ready listener to Mr. Wilson's story. As Sue said, he was happy to peddle Wilson's story to the readers of the WaPo. What bugs me, as I said a bazillion times on the other thread- is that Pincus had someone telling him NOT to believe Plame picked Wilson for the trip- and so he didn't. Now, that's a pretty gutsy call considering Pincus supposedly knew nothing about Wilson's wife. Somebody was giving Pincus bad information, and one would hope Pincus wasn't pinning all of his own credibility on Wilson's.

How exactly was Pincus persuaded Valerie didn't have a hand in sending hubby? And did those persuaders mention Valerie's CIA position at all?

[Sue]

Top,

My timeline keeps getting wonker-jawed. On July 12th, when Pincus says he first learned of a CIA wife connection, wasn't Novak's story already on the wires?

[Sue]

Maybee,

You lost me. What do you mean "...was Pincus persuaded Valerie didn't have a hand in sending hubby? And did those persuaders mention Valerie's CIA position at all?" When was Pincus persuaded?

[topsecretk9]

Sue, Yep.

[topsecretk9]

Now, that's a pretty gutsy call considering Pincus supposedly knew nothing about Wilson's wife.

No kidding, especially since July 2004 Wilson told the SSIC that Pincus (and Kristof) has misattributed him and then on to Paula Zhan a testy reply that they "misquoted" him too!

Not so sure why Pincus stuck by the guy that accused him of getting such a HUGE story so very, very wrong.

Funny, seems like Woodward finally got to Pincus that he was had and there was no smear campaign.

[topsecretk9]

How exactly was Pincus persuaded Valerie didn't have a hand in sending hubby?

Wait. from your find on the other thread...Harlow?

[MayBee]

Sue-
Me? Confusing? Never.

I'm referring to an article Pincus wrote for Nieman Watchdog:

On July 12, 2003, an administration official,... veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction.

I didn’t write about that information at that time because I did not believe it true that she had arranged his Niger trip. But I did disclose it in an October 12, 2003 story in The Washington Post.

So in all my babble, I was just saying that someone had Pincus convinced Plame didn't arrange the trip to Niger. How did someone persuade Pincus that this was the case, considering
a)Pincus claims to have known little about Wilson's wife and
b)it seems that in order to discuss whether Plame had a hand in sending Wilson, someone must discuss Plame. Did someone say to Pincus, "yeah, Plame works at the CIA but she didn't send Wilson?" If so, did that person "out" Valerie to Pincus?

I'm still not making sense.

[topsecretk9]

Pincus spent a lot of time talking to/about
Harlow

[topsecretk9]

Maybee

Read this
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh073005.shtml

[Jeff]

TM - While I am shocked that most of your commenters are uninterested in the point of your post, and remain convinced that for one reason or another Pincus is guilty of something or other, I have one small correction: Pincus was not at all involved in the (July 3) preparations for the (July 4) picnic, it was Leiby. Pincus heard about the Wilsons' twins, and evidently Wilson's marital status, from him.

I will not hold my breath for acknowledgment that I appear to have been right about how to interpret Pincus and Allen's line in their storied October 12 2003 WaPo article that in June 2003, while Pincus was reporting on Wilson's trip for his June 12 article:

No one brought up Wilson's wife, and her employment at the agency was not known at the time the article was published.

Pincus evidently was talking about himself with that last phrase. Whether you believe it's true or not, his story is consistent.

MayBee - This --

What bugs me, as I said a bazillion times on the other thread- is that Pincus had someone telling him NOT to believe Plame picked Wilson for the trip- and so he didn't. --

is not quite right. Pincus' story is that he had learned a lot about Wilson's trip, including its origins, from talking to a wide range of sources about it, and felt confident he knew how it came about. Then his source tells him. Then Novak publishes. Then he goes to the CIA and says, Is this Novak business true? And the CIA tells him, Nope. So Pincus didn't have anyone telling him determinately that it wasn't Plame until after Novak published. Again, you might not believe him. But that's his story.

[clarice]

OTOH Harlow was the public affairs officer and one shouldn't be surprised to learn he was in regular contact with reporters.

[MTT]

MayBee,

Me too, then.

Pincus didn't believe that Valerie had a hand in sending JCW4?

Why?

?

He only learned that JCW4 was married on July 3, and to Valerie Plame at that, yet he did not believe it when someone told him that Valerie had a hand in the boondoggle on July 12?

And as above, he remained incurious as to how this someone could have come to such an erroneous conclusion re: Joe-Val?

??

Who then, was it, that told Pincus that Valerie helped select JCW4?

(Armitage?)

And, who told Pincus not to believe it?

(Suggesting that they too knew Valerie's identity-Andrea Mitchell? Nick Kristof?)

???

TM, I think you are being too generous with Mr. Pincus.

This does not add up.

Nope.

[MayBee]

Jeff-
I don't disbelieve Pincus. I believe he
a) did a horrible job of looking into who Wilson was, to determine if the information he was giving him was credible
b) failed to look into who Wilson's wife was once he was told she was a part of it. He was told by a source she was involved and he dismissed it. Did he bother to look into the background of Mrs. Wilson before he dismissed it?

c)was mislead by sources he apparently trusted. Either that or he was misled by his own reporter's gut instinct. Either way, I hope he does better in the future.
d)failed to correct much of Wilson's story in a timely way
and
e)didn't use the powers of the press to push back against this investigation, which he obviously believes is misguided.

[danking70]

The could the CJR article be a fluff piece dressing him up for the slaughter?

Some reporter is going to crack soon. How will Fitz responded and move the story along?

[TM]

I have one small correction: Pincus was not at all involved in the (July 3) preparations for the (July 4) picnic, it was Leiby. Pincus heard about the Wilsons' twins, and evidently Wilson's marital status, from him.

Bah - when I wrote that post my wife had taken the darn Vanity Fair and put it heaven knows where, so I was relying on memory.

As to the Pincus version from Oct 12 2003, here is a longer excerpt:

In early June, Wilson told his story to The Washington Post on the condition that his name be withheld. On June 12, The Post published a more complete account than Kristof's of Wilson's trip. Wilson has now given permission to The Post to identify him as one source for that article.

By that time, officials in the White House, Cheney's office, the CIA and the State Department were familiar with Wilson and his mission to Niger.

Starting that week, the officials repeatedly played down the importance of Wilson's trip and its findings, saying it had been authorized within the CIA's nonproliferation section at a low level without requiring the approval of senior agency officials. No one brought up Wilson's wife, and her employment at the agency was not known at the time the article was published.

Well, it certainly seems that Pincus is describing his own knowledge as of the June 12 article. But surely this is not ruling out subsequent leaks to himself or others.

[MayBee]

TS- funny, that's the same link I landed on!

[topsecretk9]

and remain convinced that for one reason or another Pincus is guilty of something or other,

Isn't Libby guilty of disclosing Valerie Plame's covertness and damaging national security of all at the behest of Cheney and Rove?

Well, it's not in the indictment...but that never...

[boris]

It would be hard to credit Pincus with being honest and playing the issue straight. OTOH BDS is not something one is guilty of and it doesn't take much BDS to explain bumbling through a story misreading the signs and falling for the strange attractors.

[Rick Ballard]

MayBee,

A plea of incompetence by Pincus would seem acceptable, after all, he doesn't seem to remember Woodward telling him about Plame - maybe it's just a little senility?

[Rick Ballard]

Armitage, the innocently babbling brook, tips Woodward from the State side and Woodward then doesn't check with the WaPo's Mr. CIA insider to see if he's heard anything (or get the CIA slant).

Sure. Makes a lot of sense. Somewhere.

[Jeff]

MayBee - The only one of your alphabetical claims I agree with is d), and that only in part - there was not much but rather a little -- and that's enough -- that should have been corrected earlier and more straightforwardly. I do think it's important to note that Wilson says that he was to some degree slipped up by the SSCI on the question of what he said to Pincus and Kristof, and did not have an opportunity to review his own notes or whatever. But while he has a pretty persuasive case that some of what Kristof published that was misleading was Kristof's fault for garbling or whatever, that seems not to be the case with Pincus. So there is an item or two that should have been corrected earlier -- and my experience is that this is an institutional problem at the WaPo (my own least favorite examples come from the reporting of Susan Schmidt) -- but it doesn't add up to much.

Much of the rest of your accusations rest, I think, on a failure to appreciate how Pincus works as a reporter, and the limits of his style of reporting (the power of his press) due largely to how unseriously most of the reading public, certainly on the right and also on the left, takes reporting in the MSM. Most people just don't pay the kind of attention required to see what Pincus is up to. But it doesn't seem fair to blame him for that.

[topsecretk9]

On July 12, two days before Novak's column, a Post reporter was told by an administration official that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife,

This never quite squares with Pincus' call to Wilson starting that faithful day Novak bumped into Wilson's friend...July 8th...to say the Admin. was "coming after" Wilson...coming after Wilson with what if not his wife set up the trip?

[topsecretk9]

Rick

Good point.

[Rick Ballard]

TS,

He's a senile clairvoyant? Or mebbe Woodward did give him enough of a nudge for him to get in touch with Ambassador Munchausen - "the admin" isn't "the WH" - admin fits Mr. Innocent Babbler far better.

[Jeff]

topsecret - I don't believe Pincus called Wilson on July 8. Do you have any evidence? Wilson's book places the call specifically after that date and a couple of days before Novak's column was published. Sounds sorta like July 12 to me, what do you think? Or is there some other evidence you've got I'm not aware of? I don't mean to make you do my grunt work for me, I just know of no other evidence on this issue.

[clarice]

Wilson waited until after he was debunked by the SSCI to bother notifying Kristof and Pincus that he'd been misquoted--claiming for the first time he'd never told them he'd seen the "forgeries." How convenient1 Without the forgeries his story isn't much..He lets the stories ride..the SSCI shows him to be an absolute liar..THEN he moans they misquoted him..And of course, then they continue to wait..Pincus mostly retracts his story, the paper further correcting him the next day.Kristof's correction was what? A text message to Wilson?

[MayBee]

Much of the rest of your accusations rest, I think, on a failure to appreciate how Pincus works as a reporter, and the limits of his style of reporting (the power of his press) due largely to how unseriously most of the reading public, certainly on the right and also on the left, takes reporting in the MSM. Most people just don't pay the kind of attention required to see what Pincus is up to. But it doesn't seem fair to blame him for that.

Are you Pincus?
So Pincus not believing that the newly-discovered Mrs. Wilson could have played a role in sending Mr. Wilson on the trip to Niger is somehow the READERS fault?
Is there some mysterious way that he works that doesn't really involve searching for the whole story, but reporting as if he had?
Pray tell, what kind of attention is required here, Jeff?

[topsecretk9]

Wilson in his book specifies -- Pincus called between July 8th (the same day of Novak on the street) and Novak's article. If it was later (July 12th) I am perplexed why Wilson would include all the way back to July 8th.

[topsecretk9]

I don't mean to make you do my grunt work for me

Always willing to be your slave me dear Jeffy.

[Buckley]

The leaks all started after Powell got the Niger uranium set up memo(breifing?) from CIA mentioning Plame with the intent of saying Powell started the leaks on the Directorate of Operations(Plame) use of a foreign operation on the US leaders. After that leaks everywhere.

Plame had alot of pull at CIA, look who came out with her during retirement.

[topsecretk9]

"Pincus, at least, warned Wilson on at least one other occasion, when he called Wilson the week before Novak's article appeared saying, "they are coming after you."

[Syl]

Well, actually, I'm okay with Pincus not knowing.

This is what I think happened on July 12th. Armitage called Pincus and mentioned Plame and the boondoggle. So Pincus went looking for confirmation and called CIA and spoke to Harlow. Harlow told him Plame didn't send Wilson. In fact, that's what Harlow told Novak too so that's no surprise.

But this means Harlow confirmed Plame's CIA affiliation to at least TWO reporters: Novak and Pincus.

But this would be AFTER Harlow had actually looked up Val's status and discovered his 'oops' with Novak. But the cat was already out of the bag so what the hell. Instead of pushing re not mentioning the Plame name, Harlow pushed re Plame not sending Wilson.

[topsecretk9]

Besides the point, is if Pincus dismissed his sources boondoggle and the notion Valerie helped Joe get the job BUT also didn't think he was smearing, then what did he suppose they were coming after him with and why'd he call?

[clarice]

It doesn't take a genius--and Pincus surely isn't one--to see that the claim that the Administration deliberately lied to get support for the war was a damaging one, but how Pincus got the idea that the Administration intended to go after Wilson is a puzzle. The truth is they didn't.And Pincus admits he heard nothing he considered to be a smear..

"If boondoggle " is a smear than I must have slept thru all that sluts and nuts Begala-Blumenthal special sauce.

[Jeff]

So Pincus not believing that the newly-discovered Mrs. Wilson could have played a role in sending Mr. Wilson on the trip to Niger is somehow the READERS fault?

That's just an inaccurate characterization. Based on his previous detailed reporting into Wilson's trips and its origins, Pincus was skeptical that Wilson's wife did arrange his trip (which says nothing about whether she could have, whatever that's supposed to mean). But of course the very fact that he talked to the CIA after Novak's column means that he believed she could have played a role.

More generally, as TM pointed out long ago, Pincus' reporting was not nearly as pro-Joe as is sometimes assumed; nor did his reporting illustrate the bias Cheney's team and others later claimed to find here, there and everywhere. Look at his June 12, 2003 article. Here, for example, is how he handles the question of the OVP's role in Wilson's trip both on the input side and the output side:

The CIA's decision to send an emissary to Niger was triggered by questions raised by an aide to Vice President Cheney during an agency briefing on intelligence circulating about the purported Iraqi efforts to acquire the uranium, according to the senior officials. Cheney's staff was not told at the time that its concerns had been the impetus for a CIA mission and did not learn it occurred or its specific results.

If anything, that's probably a little too generous to OVP (on the output side, not on the input side).

[clarice]

OTOH--the report of the call from Pinscus is Wilson's isn't it? And written at a time when he was riding high as the whistleblower of the moment..and we know he can't tell anything exactly as it occurred..so who knows if Pincus actually said this to him.

In fact, that seems the most credible possibility.

[Jeff]

topsecret - Here's what Wilson says on p. 345 of his book:

A couple of days before Novak's article was published, but after my friend's strange encounter with him, I had received a call from Post reporter Walter Pincus, who altered me that "they are coming after you."

Wilson specifies that it was after his friend's encounter with Novak presumably because only in that context would he interpret what Pincus said as having to do with his wife. Don't you think Pincus called him on July 12?

clarice, as usual: I don't believe Pincus says he heard nothing he considered to be a smear. Do you have evidence he says that? I've seen nothing to that effect. Pincus says he doesn't think a crime was committed, which is of course quite different. Pincus says he thinks the Bush administration was being obnoxious. And you really think the administration wasn't going after Wilson? Again, there's nothing illegal per se about going after someone, after all.

One other thing: Pincus' source was in the White House (and the fact that CJR uses the more encompassing term "administration official" doesn't change that). Pincus very deliberately started using the narrower formulation -- "White House official," not "administration official" -- last fall. Unless he's pulling a Woodward and outright lying in his characterization of his source; but that would only make sense, it seems to me, where Fitzgerald doesn't know who it is, and we know that's not the case.