Not Your Sweetie

Here's the DNC blog entry:
Sep 28, 2003

The second shoe drops

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into allegations that senior adminstration
officials revealed the name of an undercover CIA agent. They revealed the name of Joseph
Wilson's wife as political retribution for his report that President Bush's claim about Iraq buying
uranium from Africa was false.

And according to a Washington Post story this morning, the senior officials shopped the story
around to six different reporters before conservative columnist Robert Novak took the bait:

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran,
two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and
disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed
that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that
he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a
political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking
Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of
the alleged leak.

Sources familiar with the conversations said the leakers were seeking to undercut
Wilson's credibility. They alleged that Wilson, who was not a CIA employee, was
selected for the Niger mission partly because his wife had recommended him.
Wilson said in an interview yesterday that a reporter had told him that the leaker
said, "The real issue is Wilson and his wife."

A source said reporters quoted a leaker as describing Wilson's wife as "fair game."

The facts are starting to come out. Don't let the administration bury this story or let Ashcroft
get away with an investigation that doesn't hold the White House accountable.

Write letters to the editor, call talk radio shows, send this story to your friends. It's going to
take enormous public attention to keep the Bush administration from doing everything it can to
push this story under the rug.

Update: Ambassador Wilson be on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" Monday morning at 7:45.
Tune in if you can.

And in comments to our "first shoe" story, Leah Faerstein points us to this interesting quote
from the first President Bush in a speech at the CIA:

Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but
contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our
sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

Posted by Jesse Berney @ 17:13 :: Comments (19)

Open Thread 9/28