Bob Novak would be 'amazed' if Bush didn't
know leak source
CNN
December 15, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Columnist Bob Novak, who first published the identity of
covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, says he is confident that President Bush
knows who leaked Plame's name.
Novak said that "I'd be amazed" if the president didn't know the source's
identity and that the public should "bug the president as to whether he should
reveal who the source is."
Novak's remarks, reported in the Raleigh, North Carolina, News &
Observer, came during a question and answer session Tuesday after a speech
sponsored by the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank.
Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer urged Bush to identify Novak's source or to
say that he does not know who it is.
In 2003, Novak exposed Plame's identity eight days after her husband, former
U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the Bush administration of manipulating
prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. In the column disclosing
Plame's CIA status, Novak said the sources for his column were two
administration officials.
The identity of Novak's sources has been one of the secrets in the CIA leak
investigation.
Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, is one of Novak's sources,
according to people close to the investigation, but his other source is not
publicly known.
Novak apparently is cooperating with the criminal investigation of Special
Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, though the journalist has never said so.
The prosecutor has aggressively pursued contempt of court orders against
reporters who have refused to cooperate and Novak is not among those who have
become embroiled in court battles in the probe.
Schumer, D-New York, urged Bush to share the identity of Novak's sources if
the president knows.
"You are in a position to clear this matter up quickly," Schumer said in a
letter to the president on Wednesday.
"Unlike Mr. Novak, who can claim an interest in maintaining the
confidentiality of his sources, there is no similar privilege arguably
preventing you from sharing this information," Schumer wrote.
"You have repeatedly suggested that you would like to get to the bottom of
this affair," Schumer reminded Bush. "At one point, in 2004, you suggested that
anyone who was involved in leaking the name of the covert CIA operative would
be fired."
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