Headlined "At War on Wilson?" and posted online in July, the Time.com article detailed how since the publication of the New York Times Op-ed, "Administration officials have taken public and private whacks at Wilson." It also noted, "Some government officials have noted [in private] to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official."

In other words, Time.com was getting anonymous administration tips about the same information Novak received. But from whom?

Dissecting the piece, it's interesting to note the three administration officials who were quoted. The first two were then-spokesman Ari Fleischer and CIA director George Tenet. But their quotes about Wilson and his trip were made in front of a group of reporters. The third administration source, whose quote came during "an exclusive interview" with Time, was Libby. He denied Cheney had anything to do with requesting Wilson's trip or that he knew about the former ambassador's subsequent report.

One of the simplest shortcuts in journalism when trying to identify an anonymous quote or source of information is to see who is quoted on the record within in the same story, since often during an interview with reporters, sources will interrupt and suggest a specific fact or quote be on background or off the record. So it's hard not to wonder: During his "exclusive interview" with Time, did Libby, as an aside, pass along the information about Plame, and ask that it not be attributed to him? Or did Time independently confirm the CIA operative's identity from other administration sources, and then talk to Libby? We aren't likely to ever get an answer, but the questions are intriguing.

And there are other small clues. According to a Wednesday USA Today article, "Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, met with officials at the [CIA's] Non-Proliferation Center before the invasion of Iraq to discuss reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Africa."

Plame works at the Non-Proliferation Center. The paper noted that she did not attend the meetings with Libby, but it's plausible that he found out about her employment while he was there.

Libby and Cheney, in highly unusual moves, visited the CIA several times before the war, in what many observers saw as an attempt to pressure analysts to produce more damaging assessments about Saddam Hussein's arsenal or any connection with al-Qaida.

According to a Washington Post report on Monday, Cheney and Libby continued to press the story about 9/11 hijacker Mohammad Atta's meeting with an Iraqi spy in Prague long after the intelligence community had dismissed it. The two even insisted, on the eve of Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations Security Council last February, that the charge be included in Powell's indictment of Iraq defying the council's resolutions.

Someone so steeped in CIA intelligence could have been a helpful source on the Plame story.

Several more telling clues about Libby came Wednesday during an MSNBC appearance by Larry Johnson, a former counterterrorism official at the CIA and the State Department.

Earlier in the week Johnson, who calls himself a registered Republican who donated to the Bush campaign, made a media splash with his appearance on PBS's "Newshour" by confirming that Plame did indeed work undercover for the CIA. It was a key assertion because since Novak's column first ran, the columnist had tried to back off the claim he made in July that she was an operative. Instead, claimed Novak, she was simply an analyst -- the implication being, making her identity known was not that big a deal. Johnson shot that theory down, and to date nobody from the CIA, or any other reporter, has come forward to question his veracity (though several critics have noted that his claim that Plame was an operative "for three decades" was implausible since Plame is only 40.)

Appearing on Wednesday's "Buchanan & Press," Johnson told the hosts, "I know the name of the person that spoke with Bob Novak," and that the person worked "at the White House," and more specifically, "in the Old Executive Office Buildings." The vice president's office is located inside the Old Executive Office Building.

And when Buchanan asked Johnson point-blank, "Scooter Libby. Now, is Scooter Libby the name you heard?" Johnson said simply, "I'm not going to comment on that."

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