Woodward Apologizes To Post Editor

Washington Post managing editor Bob Woodward apologized for not telling his boss, Post's executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., about his being among the journalists who were told about CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, even as the investigation morphed into a national scandal.

Woodward held back the information because he wanted to protect his sources and because was worried about being subpoenaed in the inquiry, according to the newspaper's Web site.

"I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets," Woodward said. "I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

In an interview with CBS News correspondent Gloria Borger, Woodward said that in the atmosphere of the investigation he was more secretive than normal and that Downie should have been informed.

Woodward told Borger that Downie said it "is a breakdown in communications but not a breakdown in trust."

Woodward testified that a senior Bush administration official told him about Plame about a month before her identity was publicly exposed, the Post acknowledged Wednesday.

Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of Plame's identity, that the official talked to him about Plame in mid-June 2003, the Post said. Woodward and editors at the Post refused to identify the official other than to say it was not I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.

Libby was indicted last month on one charge of obstruction of justice and two counts each of false statement and perjury in connection with Fitzgerald's investigation.

Plame's husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had criticized U.S. intelligence efforts before the Iraq war. On June 23, Libby told New York Times reporter Judith Miller that Wilson's wife might work at the CIA. Robert Novak, in a column published July 14, identified Plame, as a CIA operative.

Woodward's testimony in a two-hour deposition Monday would mean that another White House official told a reporter about Plame before Libby revealed her identity to Miller. A spokesman for White House adviser Karl Rove told the Post that Rove did not discuss Plame with Woodward.

William Jeffress Jr., one of Libby's lawyers, told the Post that Woodward's testimony raises questions about his client's indictment. "Will Mr. Fitzgerald now say he was wrong to say on TV that Scooter Libby was the first official to give this information to a reporter?" Jeffress said.

CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen says that while this gives defense lawyers an argument to make to jurors at trial, "it doesn't affect the core of the case against Libby because that case is based upon Libby's responses to questions posed by federal officials and grand jurors."

Cohen adds, "This tells me that the investigation is still very much alive and apparently still producing relevant information. Now, that doesn't guarantee that we'll see another indictment soon but I suspect that the person who talked to Woodward, whoever he or she is, now is sleeping much worse at night."

Woodward, famous for his investigation with Carl Bernstein of the Watergate scandal during the Nixon administration, is now assistant managing editor of the Post. In October, he was dismissive of the outing of Plame, telling CNN's Larry King that the damage from her exposure was "quite minimal."

Woodward has long been an advocate of the use of confidential sources and told Borger that like most reporters, he does not like subpoenaing.

"If we don't have these confidential sources, we are not going to get the kind of unfiltered story," Woodward told Borger. "We want to dig and agitate."