Reportage Medialog

The fallout from the Plame affair continues, while Judy Miller sits in jail. A good piece in the Washington Post pretty much summarises what is known to date. One interesting piece of the chronology to emerge is how close Bush and Powell got to the event. One day after Karl Rove had a conversation with Robert Novak in which Rove now claims Novak told him about Plame, Bush and Powell set off for Africa.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who was on the trip, carried with him a memo containing information about Plame, as well as other intelligence on the yellowcake claim. It is on this trip that, prosecutors believe, some White House aides might have learned about Plame.

The origin of the Plame information is central to the case. Prosecutors are trying to determine if White House officials shared information about Plame based on the State Department memo, or from conversation with reporters, as Rove has testified, or somewhere else. If it turns out Plame’s identity was learned from the memo, it would undermine the GOP defense that Rove and other administration officials were simply discussing information they had learned from reporters.

While the coincidence of this trip proves nothing concrete, the very coincidence of Powell, Bush, various aides, reporters and confidential documents is certainly interesting. Could it be that Miller is protecting Powell or someone on his staff who has not really come under the gaze of the inquiry?

The other element of the case that is clear from the report is that the court decision over Miller and Cooper, and Time’s collusion with that order, is having an impact on journalism:

The showdown over sources has already impeded at least two major media outlets. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, fearing criminal prosecution, has decided against publishing two investigative pieces not related to the Plame controversy because they were based on anonymous leaks. And Time reporters have said that at least two sources have told them they would no longer provide information because the company turned over documents in the Plame case.

Finally as the article concludes, although there are strict definitional issues of when, where and how that will ultimately determine whether a crime was committed, the clearly evolving story of “the investigation has exposed how an administration that publicly deplores leaking has engaged aggressively in the practice to advance its goals.” This of course is no real surprise, but we rarely get to see it laid out in the legal clarity that the resources of a special prosecutor affords.

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