ED" ITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

OR THE DISTRI CT OF COLUMBIA 

IN RE: JOHN DOE 

Grand Jury No. 03-3 
3rd & Constitution, N.W. 
Washington, D.C. 20001 

Friday, March 5, 2004 

The testimony of I. LEWIS LIBBY was taken in the 

presence of a full quorum of the Grand Jury, commencing at 

10:40 a.m., before: 
RON ROOS 
Deputy Special Counsel 
United States Department of Justice 

PETER ZEIDENBERG 
Deputy Special Counsel 
United States Department of Justice 

KATHLEEN M. KEDIAN 
Deputy Special Counsel 
United States Department of Justice 

PATRICK FITZGERALD 
Special Counsel 

U.S. Attorney's Office, Chicago 
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PROCEEDINGS 

I. LEWIS LIBBY 
was called as a witness and, after first being duly sworn by 
the Foreperson of the Grand Jury, was examined and testified 
as follows: 

EXAMINATION 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. And Mr. Libby, if you could state your name for the 
record and spell your name? 
A. I. Lewis, L-e-w-i-s; Libby, L-i-b-b-y. 
Q. And do you have a nickname? 
I A. I do. I 
Q. Okay. And that is --
A. Scooterf1. 
I I

Q. Okay. Andcanyougiveusabriefdescriptionof 
how you got the name "Scooter" so no one spends their time 
thinking about that? 
A. Are we classified in here? It's --my family is 
from the south and it's less, it's less uncommon than it is up 
here. 
Q. Okay. Good morning. There's a glass of water in 
front of you. That's not from a prior witness, so feel free 
to use it. 
A. Thank you.
I I 

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Q. Let me just introduce myself again. My name is Pat 
Fitzgerald. I'm a Special Counsel in this matter, joined by 
other attorneys with the Special Counsel's Office seated at 
the table. And this Grand Jury is investigating possible 
offenses of different laws that include Title 50 of the Unitec 
States Code, Section 421, which concerns the disclosure of the 
identity of a covert agent; Title 18 of the United States 
Code, Section 793, which is the illegal transmission of 
national defense information; or Title 18, Section 641, theft 
of government property; or Title 18 United States Code, 
Section 1001, false statements. That means that this Grand 
Jury is investigating those offenses. It doesn't mean there's 
any determination been made whether or not those offenses have 
been committed. I can also tell you that a Grand Jury is 
entitled to charge any other offense that they determine has 
been committed if they learn about that offense during the 
course of this investigation. But generally the investigation 
concerns the possible illegal disclosure of classified 
information. Do you understand the general nature of the 
investigation? 
A. Idolsir. 
Q. I should tell you that you have a constitutional 
right to refuse to answer any question if a truthful answer 
would tend to incriminate you. Do you understand that you 
have that right? 
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A. I do, sir. 
I 

Q. And you should understand that if you choose to I 
answer questions, any answer that you do give can'be used 
against you by the Grand Jury or in any other legal 
proceeding. Do you understand that? 
A. I do. 
Q. And you should understand that if you choose to, 
I 

answer questions, you could stop at any time and decide not to 

I 

answer any further questions based upon your Fifth Amendment 
privilege. Do you understand that? 

A. I do, sir. I 
Q. In simple terms, just because you answer a hundred 
questions doesn't mean you have to answer the next question. I 
Do you understand that? 
A. I do. 
I 

Q. And you have a right to consult with an attorney, 
and if you could not afford an attorney one could be appointed 
by the Court for you. Do you understand that? 
I 

Q. And in fact, you are represented by an attorney. 
Is

1 

that correct? 

A. That is correct. 
I 

Q. And could you just state your attorney's name and 
spell his last name? 
I 

A. Joseph A. Tate, T-a-t-e. I 
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Q. And is he in the building today? 
A. He is. 
Q. And you understand that the Grand Jury will allow 
you a reasonable opportunity to leave if you need to consult 
Mr. Tate prior to answering any questions. Do you understand 
that? 
A. I do, sir. 
Q. And, and are you an attorney yourself? 
A. I am. 
Q. And do you understand that any testimony that you 
give is under oath and that if you make any deliberate false 
statement about a material or important fact, you could be 
prosecuted for perjury? Do you understand that? 
A. I do understand that. 
Q. And what that means is that if someone were to make 
a false statement they should assume that anything we ask 
about during the course of today's Grand Jury is something 
that is material or important to that investigation. You 
understand that? 
A. Yes,sir. 
Q. And because it's critical for the Grand Jury to know 
all the facts, witnesses may not know the context for a 
question, so they should assume that it's important to the 
Grand Jury. 
A. Yes, sir. 
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Q. And 1/11 give you a brief example which we discussed 
prior to your coming in with your attorney, which is that if 
we were investigating a fatality involving a car, we might 
want to find out whether it was an accident or foul play, and 
if a witness knew about a person involved in the accident 

lhaving an argument just prior to the, the traffic fatality, I 
they should tell the authorities about the argument and not 
think ahead and think that it puts their friend in a bad 
light. They should just state the facts and let the 
authorities decide what really happened. Do you understand 

Q. And you also understand that we may ask questions 
labout state of mind, which is what people thought, believed or 
understood, and that may be important to the Grand Jury in 
order to determine motivation? 

A. Yesfsir. 
I Q. And if, if someone does commit a false statement or 
lcommit perjury. they could be prosecuted by up to five years 
in jail for each such false statement. Do you understand 
that? 

A. Yes, sir. 
MR. FITZGERALD. And I will remind you, as I remind 
the Grand Jury, that it's important to tell witnesses what the 
/consequences are for perjury so that we make sure that all I 

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witnesses understand the seriousness of the proceeding. We 

I 

are not at all prejudging any witness by telling them what 

I 

their obligations are and you shouldn't take my advising Mr. 
Libby of those obligations as any indication by us that we're 
prejudging whether a witness will be truthful or not. 

I 

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

I 

Q. And I will also tell you, as you were advised prior 
to coming in, in the presence of your attorney, that based 
I 

upon your conduct in this investigation and in particular I 
contact with reporters, you, among others, are a subject of 
the investigation. And that does not mean that anyone has I 
decided to charge you with any crimes, but just is to advise 
you of the serious nature of the proceeding. Do you 
understand that? 

A. I do. 
Q. And do you have any questions about the nature of 
the proceeding? 
A. No, sir. 
Q. And are you prepared to proceed? 
A. I am. 
I 

Q. Okay. Why don't you tell the Grand Jury what your 
job titles are and then give us a brief explanation of what 
your duties are? 
I 

A. I have three job titles at the moment. One is 
I 

Assistant to the President; one is Chief of Staff to the Vice- 1 

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President; and the last is National Security Advisor to the 
Vice President. 

And as National Security Advisor to the Vice 
President it's my job to advise him on issues of national 
security, to meet with and represent him in inter-agency 
meetings or occasionally meetings with outside parties to 
describe his views or to learn from them, to gather 
information to repeat back to him. It's part of my job to 
listen to what other people in the White House are saying, to, 
to meet with foreign leaders on occasion and to report those 
things back to him. It's my job to work with the White House 
staff, to be --to develop policy and to implement policy, anc 
to take that information and go back and explain that to the 
Vice President. Occasionally it's part of my job on his 
behalf to talk with the press and to relay his positions to 
the press if he so wishes or to other issues what the White 
House is doing. 

Q. Okay. And so in effect, you're an assistant both tc 
the President himself directly and to the Vice President 
himself? 
A. That is correct, sir. 
Q. And can you tell the Grand Jury what security 
clearance level you have? 
A. I have a TS, Top Secret, and a secure 
compartmentalized intelligence clearance, and clearances in 
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numbers of boxes along the way, numbers of compartmented ' 

intelligence. 

Q. Okay. And can you tell us in the course of your 
ldaily work how much contact you have with the intelligence 
community and how much access you have to classified 

A. Oh, I have a lot of access to classified documents. 
11 meet every morning --my day usually starts at 7 o'clock in 
the morning, or sometimes a little earlier, and 1/11 get an 
intelligence briefing. 1/11 sit down with someone from the 
Agency, usually with the Vice President, and we have a book of 
intelligence that they provide with this, and he is there to 
answer questions from us and to take questions that we ask 

lback to the Agency and get us further information. That 
meeting usually goes 30, 45 minutes. I also receive the 
product from the Agency that morning which can be --I usually 

Iget a little extra, so it can be anywhere from 20 to 150 pages 
that I get every morning. Usually it's somewhere in the 
middle, 30, 40 pages. 

Then during the day I attend meetings and frequently 
the Deputy or one of the top officials from the Intelligence 
Agency will be at that meeting and will discuss policy issues, 
~iberia, Haiti, Iraq, those sorts of things. 
I also will occasionally be part of a principals 
meeting where the Director of Central Intelligence is present. 1 

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And during the day I will receive other written products from 

the Agency and go through those. 

Q. And just so we're crystal clear, I think it's 
obvious, but when you refer to the Agency, you're referring to 
the CIA? 
A. I'm sorry. Central Intelligence Agency. 
( Q. And that's fine. You can keep referring to the 
Agency. I just want to make that, that clear. 
And do you, yourself, at times read the raw 
intelligence reports to see what1 s behind some oi the 
summaries that you're given? 

I A. Yes. I 

Q. And does the Vice President do that as well? 
I I 

A. Yes. Sometimes they're presented to us by the 
briefer and sometimes I will show him one that the briefer has 
shown me. 
I Q. And so is it, is it a practice with the people who 
are dealing with you on a regular basis to bring with them not 
just finished product but also to give you sometimes the raw 
documents behind that because of your interest in seeing them? 
I 
A. Occasionally. It's not all that common, but 
occasionally. 
Q. With what frequency do you have contact with the I 

press in your, in your job? 
I A. It, it goes in spurts. Usually there may be periods1 

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when I don't see them. You know, when a reporter is doing a 
profile of the Vice President, for example, they will call oul 
office. They, they call around to talk to kids he went to 
high school with, now they're no longer kids. They'll talk tc 

family members, they want to talk to people he works with, 
they'll talk to other Cabinet officials. And one of the 
people they often like to talk to is me because I work wihh 
him every day. And they'll say, you know, sit down and say, 
what's it like? Usually these contacts will come through our 
press person. We have a --I have an assistant who is charged 
with being in charge of relations with the press, and so we 
try and funnel most of those types of requests. 

In addition, 1/11 get calls from reporters about 
things that they're hearing. You know, we hear the 
President's going to make a trip or something. And they'll 
call me and usually 1/11 defer that to somebody else. And 
then sometimes I am charged to go talk to the press about an 
issue along the way. 

Q. And three questions. You mentioned there is someone 
on your staff who is charged with dealing with the press. And 
what is that person's name? 
A. Currently it's a person named Kevin Kellums. Before 
Kevin Kellums it was someone named Cathie Martin, Catherine 
Martin, I guess. And before that, it was Mary Matalin. 
Q. And at what point did Mary Matalin leave and did 
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Catherine Martin take over, approximately? 

A. Well, Cathie worked as a Deputy to Mary before Mary 
left. I think Mary took us through the mid-term elections, so 
that would be November of 2002, and I think Mary left right 
about --sometime in that period. Maybe somewhere between 
then and the New Year, I think, and Catherine just sort of 
took over. 
Q. And you mentioned that sometimes you're charged with 
dealing with the press directly rather than through your press 
people. And who would tell you to do that? 
A. Well, Cathie would recommend it usually and then I 
would talk to them. Occasionally somebody from the press that 
I know and they'd call, but usually I would have to talk to 
Cathie. 
Q. And in your understanding, did you need to check 
with the Vice President in order to talk to the press and get 
authorization to talk --
A. I don't need to. Sometimes I do. 
Q. And have there been occasions when the Vice 
President has told you that you are to speak to the press 
rather than other people? 
A. Yes. 
Q. And when you deal with the press, what is your 
understanding of the ground rules of what they can do with the 
information you share with them? 
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I A. Well, there are different ground rules. There's on- 
Ithe-record, which means they can quote me by name in the I 

piece. So they can say, Lewis Libby said such-and-such. 

And then there are other gradations after that. One 

of them is background in which I think they --this varies by 

reporter actually, but it usually means, I think, that they 

can say --sometimes they call me a senior administration 

official, because they want to make their piece look 

important --so they'll say senior administration official 

said such-and-such. 

There's something called deep background, which 
~usuallyJI think, means they just get to say it as if somebody 
1said it but they doni t really tag it. Some people use that to 1 

mean a government official, and sometimes these are actually 

negotiated, you know. The press person will sit down and say 

here's what you can say about it. 

And then there's something called off-the-record. 
When you talk off-the-record it is supposed to not ever be 
lrepeated by the reporter to anybody, including their editors. 
They're supposed to --it's something you tell them so they 
lcan get it in their head and it informs them as to what they 

can say, what they can ask about, but they're not supposed to 
lgo and repeat it to anybody, and they're not --certainly not 
Isupposed to write about it. 

Q. Okay.
I 1 

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A. They're not supposed to even call someone and say, 
you know, Libby told me in an off-the-record comment. They're 
not supposed to do that. Theyf re just supposed to say, you 
know, I'm wondering about this, what about this, without 
citing it to anyone. Sorry. 
Q. No. And let me see if I can illustrate that with ac 
example. You mentioned that people may call you to ask i the 
President's going to be taking a trip. And if the President 
were in fact taking a trip next week, and you spoke to a 
reporter on-the-record, is it fair to say that the reporter 
could say Lewis Libby told, you know, this reporter, quote, 
the President will be taking a trip to England next week? Is 
that your understanding of on-the-record? 
A. That is on-the-record, although I might not confirm 
it for him, but I might say that's an NSC issue because it's 
the President traveling. But if I did say to him, the 
President is traveling, they could then say, Lewis Libby said. 
Q. And that would be if you had an on-the-record 
conversation? 
A. Correct, sir. 
Q. If you had a background conversation that said --
and it may be that this is a topic that you wouldn't discuss, 
traveling, just to use as a hypothetical, you said on 
background the President is traveling to England next week, 
they could write in the story, a senior administration 
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official said the President is traveling next week. Is that 
your understanding of --

A. Yes. 
Q. --on background? 
A. Yes. 
Q. And your understanding of deep background is that 
they could report in the story that, you know, the reporters 
have learned that the President is traveling to England next 
week, but not cite a senior administration official and 
certainly not quote you? 
A. Yes,sir. 
Q. And if it was deep background, the reporter could 
now know that the President was traveling to England next 
week, but they would not write that in the story, they could 
not tell their editors, but to the extent that they informed 
how they thought about the issues they were writing about, 
that information would be given to them on deep background. 
Is that your understanding? 
A. I thought you asked about deep background just 
before that. 
GRAND JUROR. Off-the-record. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Oh, off-the-record. Thank you. 
WITNESS. Off-the-record, they could, they could 

know it in their head but they couldn't call anybody, not just 
write about it. They couldn't call one of the other 

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government agencies and say, I understand that the President's 
taking a trip. They can just call --they might call up and 
say, you know, what's the President doing next week? But 
they're not supposed to refer to it to anybody. 

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

I 

Q. Okay. So off-the-record is more even --more 
stringently controlled than deep background? 
A. Yes, sir. That's how I understand the terms. 
Q. okay. And do you have ground rules when you talk to 1 
reporters about how they would verify any quotes they might 
attribute to you either as by name or by senior administration 
official? 
I 

A. Yes. A, the ground rules may be set in the 
beginning of the conversation or as the conversation goes 
I 

along sometimes you say to them, okay, this you can say on- 
the-record, and this you can't. This is for off-the-record or 

something else. Often when I deal with them, if you're asking 
about me personally, I often deal with a reporter and I say up 

front, everything I say in this conversation is off-the- 
record. If there's something I say that you would like to put 
into a question, or write into an article, call back, usually 
to Cathie Martin, or my press person, or Mary Matalin at that 
point, and she will then tell you if it's okay for you to use 
it or not. So usually I'm just strictly off-the-record. 

Q. Okay. And do you ever have the reporters call you I 
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1 back directly to verify a quote for something you gave them 
2 on-the-record or on background? 
3 A. It probably has happened over the course of three 
4 years. It's not the normal, but it probably has happened. 
5 Q. And in this case, one of the matters being focused 
6 on in this investigation is a column written by Robert Novak 
7 in July 14, 2003. I ,take it you're familiar with that column 
8 as we sit here today? 

A. Yes, sir, I am. 
Q. And there's some information contained' in that 
I article concerning the employment --the alleged employment of 
l1 

former Ambassador Wilson's wife at the CIA. Do you know that 

l2 

1 

fact that it's contained in the article? 

l3 

1 

A. Yes, sir, I know it's contained in the article. 
1 
Q. And were you a source for Mr. Novak about --in that 
article about the employment of Mr. Wilson's wife at the CIA? 
l6 

A. No, sir. 
l7 

1 I 

18 Q. Were you a source for any information for Mr. Novak 
19 in that article? 
20 A. No, sir. 
21 Q. Do you know if you spoke to Mr. Novak at or about 
22 the time the article was prepared? 
23 A. I have, I have a recollection that I did speak to 
24 Mr. Novak once in that general time frame, but my notes 
25 indicate, notes that you have, indicate to me that in fact 

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that was a week and a half or so after the article appeared. 

Q. Do you have any recollection of speaking to him 
before the article appeared? 
A. Maybe a year and a half before the article appeared, 
but not any time near the article. 
Q. And to the extent that the Grand Jury is familiar 
with the, quote, sixteen words, closed quote, that have caused 
controversy since then, were you involved in either the 
drafting or vetting of those sixteen words? 
A. No, sir, I don't think I was. It may have been in a 
draft that I saw, but I don't think so. 
Q. And there's a document known as the NIE, the 
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I National Intelligence Estimate, that concerned in part efforts 

by lraq to obtain uranium. Did you review the NIE at some 

point in 2002 or 2003 concerning Iraq and efforts to get 

uranium? 

Q. And do you recall whether or not there were any 
I 1 

ldoubts expressed in the, in the NIE about the allegation that 
IIraq had tried to get uranium from Niger? 

1 

A. The NIE has a fairly clear declarative sentence in 
lthe section on uranium and Iraq, and it says something like, 1 

Iran (sic) began vigorously trying to procure uranium, 

something like pretty close to that. And that is unqualified 

in the section on uranium. There are some sections towards 

the back, and I'm sorry I haven't reviewed the document, and 

I'd be happy to look at it if you like, there are some 

sections towards the back in which State Department expresses 

some doubts about uranium. I think it had to do with whether 

lor not someone could actually procure, actually get the 

1 

uranium as opposed to trying to get uranium, if you follow 

what I mean. And I think they had some doubts --well, that 

were unrelated about the rockets or the about the centrifuge 

tubes, whatever they proved to be. So that's my recollection. 

I could look at the document and tell you. But I recall that 

there was something in the back of the document, not in the 

section itself but way in the back. 

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Q. Okay. And do you know if that was --just going 
from memory, whether the part in the back was in text or in a 
footnote, do you remember? 
A. It's not a footnote in the sense that you or I use 
the term where there's a little --you know, a little --small 
little number six, and you go to the six at the bottom. I 
think it was in a blue box, if I recall, but I haven't looked 
at this in awhile. It might an appendix actually. I'm not 
sure if it was in the text or an appendix. 
Q. And for the record, the document is not in front of 
you so we're just asking you your memory. 
One clarification. In describing the NIE report you 
referenced Iran making efforts to get uranium. Did you mean 
to say Iraq? 

A. Excuse me. 
Q. Okay. Your testimony is --what your recollection 
is concerns Iraq, not Iran? 
A. My, my apologies. 
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Q. Okay. Let me direct your attention then forward to 
May, 2003, and in particular to an article that appeared in 
the New York Times on May 6, 2003 written by an author named 
Kristof, K-r-i-s-t-o-f. Do you recall that article being 
published in or about that time? 
A. Idolsir. 
Q. And do you recall how you first learned of it? 
A. Someone came in and told me about it or I saw it 
flipping through the paper. I, I don't really recall. 
Q. And do you recall reading it at or about the time it 
was published? 
A. Yes. 
MR. FITZGERALD. And why don't we put a copy of 
that article front case need refer to it? 
1 And for the' record, that is Grand Jury Exhibit 3. 

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BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. And is it fair to say that in that article, the 
article is critical of the administration in terms'of stating 
that, for example, one quote, "It's disingenuous for the State 
Department people to say they were bamboozled because they 
knew about this for a year," close quote? 
I 

A. That sounds ,critical. I haven't seen anything --
one insider said? 
Q. Yes. 
A. Yes, so he is quoting somebody else, yes, sir. 
There is a not very nice statement in there. I 
Q. Okay. And is it fair to say that according to this 
article, the White House and State Department kept citing 
documents which proved to be a forgery? I 
A. Can you --you're asking me what's in the --
Q. Yeah, well, let me ask you. Do you remember whether 
or not --without reading it for a moment, whether this was an 
article that was very critical of the administration? I 
A. The article --the bulk of what they were saying in 
the article is critical. Yes, sir. 
I 

Q. And do you recall they're criticizing, according to 
the article, and I'm not saying this is true or false, 
but thel 

premise of the article was that the White House and the State 
Department had actual knowledge that documents that had been 
forged and kept citing them to the public, and that this was I 

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disingenuous on the part of the administration? 

A. I, I don't actually recall whether this article 
said, said that, but I don't dispute it. I just don't recall 
it. I haven't read it recently. 
Q. Do you recall any reaction that you had to the 
article when you read it at the time? 
A. Yes. I recall --can I just glance at it for one 
second? 
Q. Oh, yes. You can read --take a moment and read the 
whole article. 
A. I mean, my major reaction to this article had to do 
with this passage about being told that a person involved in 
the Niger caper more than a year ago --told the --the person 
involved in the caper, the caper more than a year ago said 
that the Vice President's Office asked for an investigation of 
the uranium deal. That, that, either at the time, or 
subsequently caught my eye. 
Q. And the article contends, for example, at a certain 
point, quote, "There are indications that the U.S. government 
souped up intelligence, leaned on spooks to change their 
conclusions and concealed contrary information to deceive 
people at home and around the world." Do you see that in the 
third paragraph? 
A. There are indications that the U.S. --yes, I see 
it. And that's not good stuff. 
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Q. And then the sixth paragraph, is that a reference tc 
what you were recalling, llI1rn 
told by a person involved in the 
Niger caper that more than a year ago the Vice President's 
Office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a 
former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In 
February, 2002, according to someone present at the meetings 
that envoy reported to the CIA and State Department that the 
information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had 
been forged." Is that, is that what stuck in your mind about 
an allegation that the Office of Vice President had --

A. Right, because that had to do basically with us. I 
do recall that. 
Q. And who did you discuss this article with once you 
read it and saw that there were allegations that attacked the 
credibility of the President, the Vice President, State 
Department and basically the administration? 
A. I discussed it with my Deputy, probably discussed it 
with the Vice President. I don't specifically recall 
discussing this back then. The article was a little bit of a 
sleeper from my point of view in the sense that it came out, I 
noted it, I didn't pay much attention to it for a while, and 
then it sort of built momentum as it went along. So the day 
or two that it came out, I don't recall talking about it all 
that much except I talked to my Deputy about it. 
Q. And as you sit here today, you don't recall whether 
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or not you talked to the Vice President within a couple of 
days after the article came out? I 

A. I, I don't recall. It's --I don't recall. 
Q. And did the Kristof article, as you say, gain 
momentum over time? 
I 

A. Yes. 
Q. ' Okay. And can you tell us what happened as it 
gained momentum over time in terms of who you spoke to? I 
A. weil, the, the content of it sort of kept coming up. 
It didn't go away readily. At some point in ~une Walter 
Pincus was thinking --was doing --was calling our office, 
I 

calling probably Cathie Martin at that point, and wanted 

some --to ask questions about the article. Well, about the 

substance of it. And so Cathie talked to me about it at that 
point, and at some point around then 1, talked to the Vice 
President about how we would respond to this. I also talked 
to --at some point in this time frame I talked to our 
briefer, our Central Intelligence Agency briefer, to ask him 
if in fact we --he had any record of us asking about this, 
and I talked to the Vice President about that fact somewhere 
in there too. 

Q. And what's the name of your briefer? 
I 

A. Craig Schmall, at that point. 
Q. And do you know how to spell the last name? 
A. I think it's S-c-h-m-a-1-1. I 
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,Q. And do you know if during this time between the * 
Kristof article in early May, and the Pincus article, which 

lwill eventually come out on June 12th, if you spoke to Marc 
Grossman from the State Department about the events described 
in the Kristof article? 

I I don't, I don't recall it. Secretary Grossman 

A-
attends interagency meetings that I'm at, so I see him in that 
period, throughout that period probably once a week or more, 
but I don't recall a discussion with him about it. 

I Q. Do you recall if you ever asked Secretary Grossman 
lwhether or not the State Department had sent the former 
lambassador in response to a request from the Vice President? 
I 
A. The State Department had sent him? 
Q. Yes. 
A. No, I don't recall that. 
Q. And do you recall whether or not Mr. Grossman ever 
told you that he understands that Wilson was claiming that the 
l~ice President had sent him on this trip? 

A. That was the claim in the Kristof article, if I 
Irecall, but I don1 t recall Mr. Grossman repeating it, or 
saying that he knew it of his own --I just don't recall a 

1conversation with Secretary Grossman about this. 

Q. And do you know --do you recall any conversation 
lwith Secretary Grossman about who was responsible for sending 
l~ilson on this trip to Niger? 
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I A. I, I don't recall a conversation with him about it. I 

Q. And do you know if you ever discussed with Secretary 
Grossman whether Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? ' 
A. No, I don't recall ever discussing that. 
Q. And is that something that you would remember if you 
I 
had that conversation? 
I, I don1 t recall the conversation. I, I just don1 t 

A. 
recall the conversation. 
Q. YO; mentioned that there came a time when you talked 
to the Vice President about Walter Pincusl article. And can 
you tell us who was present when you talked to him and what 
was said? 
A. I talked to him on the phone. I don't think it was 
anyone present when I spoke to him on the phone. He was 
relaying to me some information that he had learned in the 
first part of the conversation. And in the second part of the 
conversation he gave me instructions as to what I should, what -
I should say to reporters, and from the time frame I'm pretty 
sure we were talking about --specifically about the Pincus 
article. 
Q. And why don't you tell us, first, what information 
the Vice President told you he had learned, and then what he 
told you to do with it? 
A. Okay. Well, I had some notes that I took down at 
Ithat point. But my best recollection sitting here is that he I 
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had been speaking to someone who was either from the CIA or it 
was someone who had spoken to someone from the CIA, and he wa: 
relaying to me what the CIA had said about how this came 
about. And it says something like --my notes about it say 
something like, he was sent at our request, our behest or 
something, and then it says something about it being a 
functional office. So he told me that, that they had said 
that the person was debriefed in the region, if I was --if I 
recall correctly, and that had made maybe --hadn't made a 
written report, made an oral report, but there was a report, 
something along those lines. There are notes of this which I 
think you all have. Then he switched --so he told me that. 
And in the course of describing this he also said to me in 
sort of an off-hand manner, as a curiosity, that his wife 
worked at the CIA, the person who --whoever this person was. 
There were no names at that stage so I didn't know Ambassador 
Wilson's name at that point, or the wife's name. And I made a 
note of that also. 

He then went on to say, here's what we'd like you to 
say to the reporters, I think it was Pincus, as I said before, 
and he gave me three points. The first point was that we did 
not request a mission to Niger. The second point, as I 
recall, was that we had not gotten a report back from the 
mission to Niger until --or we hadn't seen any such report 
until after the State of the Union, when these newspaper 

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articles started. And there was a third point which is * 

that --I think, was that he had seen the National 

Intelligence Estimate and that that's what he took to be 

authoritative. I think those were the points. I remember 

this from my notes more than actual recollection but I looked 

at the notes in connection with this inquiry. He then said tc 

make these several points and I asked him if he also wanted me 

to make an earlier point which he had made in the first half 

of the conversation, which I think I omitted to tell you, 

which was that the Office of the Vice President, the State 

Department and the --some other bureaucracy, maybe Defense 

Department, had asked questions about this --about an earlier 

report about Niger, that it wasn't just the Office of the Vice 

President asking questions. And I asked the Vice President --

I went ahead and numbered, I sort of numbered these as he was 

talking to me, and I remember numbering that one the fourth 

point and saying, do you want me to --excuse me, should we 

say, when I talk to the press that we were not the only office 

asking this question? And he quite rightly said, no, we 

shouldn't say that, that should be said by the Agency because 

we didn't know that. That was all we knew was what we had 

asked, and it would be better to get the State (sic) 

Department spokesperson, who at the time was I think Bill 

Harlow, to be the one who would say that to the press. And 
Ithat's about what I recall from the conversation, according to 

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the notes. 

\ 

Q. And we'll go through the notes in a moment. You 
just referred to Bill Harlow as the State Department 
I 

spokesperson. 

A. I mis-spoke, I'm sorry. Central Intelligence Agency 
spokesperson. Thank you. 
Q. Now, in --you referenced that you recall the Vice 
President told you something about a functional office. Can 
you explain what you understood a functional office to mean? I 
A. The State Department and the agency, to my 
understanding, have regional offices, that is an office which 
focuses in a given region of the world such as the Middle East 
or Europe. They also have some offices which look globally at 
a type of problem like proliferation. Maybe there's one for 
ecology or something, I don't know. But anyway, one of the --
a functional office, for instance on counterproliferation 
which is the one I think that was involved here, would have a 
global look at the problem. There might be a terrorism 
office, for example, that would look at terrorism globally. 
It would not be limited to Middle East or Southeast Asia, or 
Northeast Asia. 
Q. And did you understand, when he told you that this 
former ambassador's wife worked at the CIA, do you have an 
I 

understanding or whether or not she worked in that functional 

I 

office? 

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A. Well, that's interesting. I'd have to look at the 
note. I think --my recollection is that I knew she worked ir 
the function --is that the note indicates I knew 'she worked 
at the functional office. 
Q. And we'll come back to the note in a minute. Before 
we look at your actual notes, how certain are you from memory 
that the information about the wife working in the functional 
office at the CIA, the wife of this former ambassador, was 
information that Vice President Cheney imparted to you as 
opposed to information that you imparted to Vice President 
Cheney? 
A. Oh, I'm pretty certain of that. 
Q. And what makes you certain? 
A. I sort of remember him saying it, you know, in an 
off sort of curiosity sort of fashion. That's my recollectior 
of it anyway. 
Q. Okay. And since we weren't there --
A. And also since I wrote it down like that, it would 
indicate to me it was something I was taking down as he was 
speaking. Sometimes I make my notes as he speaks. Sometimes 
it turns out I didn't need to write it down, but I don't want 
to make him --you know, he is the Vice President. I don't 
want to make him take time to repeat himself, so I try and get 
some stuff and then if I figure it's not important, I can get 
rid of it later. 
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Q. And what was it about the way he discussed thatofact 
\ 

with' you that sticks in your mind or lets you know it was a 
curiosity or off-hand? 

. 

A. It came out of order. You know, he was going 
through the order, and as I recall, it came in later. And 
tone of voice, as I recall it. I think I'm recalling 
accurately. 
Q. And what, what was different about the tone of 
A. Sort of the way --it wasn't like the other tone of 
voices which was much more matter of fact and straight. It 
was just a little bit of a curiosity sort of thing. 
Q. And not to mince words, but when he was curious, was 
he curious about it in a sort of a negative way? Did he think 
that was sort of odd that a former ambassador's wife worked in 
the functional office at the CIA? 
A. I wouldn't say negative, but I would say it was a 
1fact that, you know, it wasnl t --not everybody's wife works 
there, so it was a new fact, thatls all. 

Q. Did you take it --have any understanding whether or 
not Vice President Cheney thought that that fact might have 
played into his selection as the envoy for this trip? 
A. No, we didn't, we didn't discuss that. It was 
just --he just said what he said. 
Q. Did you take --get any indication from the Vice 
I I 

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President --

I 

\ 

A. You talking about in that conversation? 
Q. In that conversation. 
A. Yeah, I don't recall that. 
I Q. And any indication in that conversation that the I 
Vice President thought this might be sort of nepotism that she 
worked at the Counterproliferation Division and the envoy went 
Ion this trip? 

I 

I, I don't recall that. 

I A-

Q. Now, let me --before I show you the notes, let me 
go back in time to a conversation you said you had with the 
briefer. 
A. With the what, I'm sorry? 
Q. With the briefer, Craig Schmall. 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Do you recall whether that took place before or 
after the conversation you just described with the Vice 
President? 
A. No, I think I have a date in my notes. I don't 
I I 

recall. 

Q. Okay. And was that an in-person meeting with the 
Ibriefer, your daily meeting? 
I 

A. I meet daily with him. Whether I passed this 
question to him in the briefing or over the phone, I'm not 
Isure. I 
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I Q. Okay. And do you know if the Vice President I participated in this conversation or not? 

I I 

A. I would think not. If it was, if it was in person. 
usually I don't take his time with questions. And my --so my 
guess is that I would either do it on the side or before he 
got there in the morning. I don't usually ask the briefer 
questions and make him sit there while I ask a question. So 
my recollection of it would be that normally I don't do it 
that way. 
Q. Okay. Let me show you a note that is Bates Stamped 
(either 2307 or 2921. And --1 
MS. KEDIAN. 2307. 
MR. FITZGEFLALD. 2307 --
MS. KEDIAN. We're going to mark this as Exhibit I 

I BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

I Q. 1/11 ask you to look at that Exhibit, 51, and ask 
lyou if that's a note reflecting your conversation with the I 
briefer, Craig Schmall, about your inquiry, your question? 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And is that your handwriting? 
A. Yes,sir. 
Q. And a couple of things. This is the first one of 
your notes we're taking a look at. Is it fair to say that you 
lhave your own little shorthand? I 

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A. Yes, sir, my apologies. 
\ 

Q. And yourself, you refer to yourself as SL? 
A. Yes. 
Q. And you refer to the Vice President in your notes 
with a Y with a line on the top of it? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And some of your notes have a date. Can you tell 
the Grand Jury what the date is of these notes? 
A. It looks like 6-9, June 9. 
Q. And also, you refer at times to OVP in your notes? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And what does OVP mean? 
A. Office of the Vice President. 
Q. And before we get into the substance of this note, 
what do you do with these notes after you, after you write 
them? 
A. It depends. I have different types of notes that I 
treat differently. 
Q. These types of notes, what would you do with them? 
A. This type of note, looks like a note that I wrote to 
save --so I probably wrote down the note --
Q. I'm going to put a different document --I'm 
sorry --I'm sorry --
A. This looks like a note that I wrote to save, I wrote 
and put in some file or something. 

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Q. And any particular reason you would do that? I'm 
\ 

trying to understand which --what would cause you to write a 
note in your daily practice? 

A. Normally what I do is I, I have --as I say, I have 
different types of notes. One type of note I have are sort of 
action items that I'm going to take up with the Vice President 
that day. It may tend to look like a list and it can have 
anything on it, all sorts of different subject matters would 
be covered. So I could cover something --as my Chief of 
Staff job I may have something about his residence, you know, 
there's a leak in the roof. Or I might have something about 
Iraq, or I might have something about tax policy, or 
Congressional, or an old friend of his. So it's just anything 
that I need to talk with him about that day, and 1/11 put all 
those down. Those notes I tend to throw out. But if I --if 
there's something on there, written on there, that I think I 
need to save, I will copy that material or write it on a 
different sheet of paper and then save that page and then 
throw the other notes out so I don't have to struggle through 
all those old notes again. 
Q. So for example, putting aside any personal matters 
you might have, like fixing a leak in the house, if you had a 
discussion about an upcoming trip overseas and it was in your 
list of things to sort of cover with the Vice President, if 
you covered that topic with the Vice President, would you 
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cross it off? 

A. Usually. 
Q. And if you --
A. Or sometimes I cross it off if I didn't cover it, 
but I don't think it's worth covering. Sometimes I write them 
down and decide, ah, it's not worth bothering with. Sometimes 
I don't get to talk to him about everything and a day or two 
might pass when I didn't get to that point, and then I'll just 
cross if off, you know, it's no longer important to raise with 
him. So crossing off is my way of saying to myself, I don't 
have to read that line again. 
Q. Okay. 
A. More than --that he --than I have discussed it 
with him. 
Q. And if one of the things you do on a given day is 
I 

then have meetings with the Deputies or principals meetings, 

I 

will you take notes at those separate meetings? 

A. Yes. 
I 

Q. And will you keep those notes? 
I 

Q. And this is a note that you kept from June 9th, 
I 

2003. Anything about the topic that made you want to keep the 
note for your file? 

A. Well, it was in the press at this point that we had 
purportedly made a request for this mission, and so I checked I 
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with my CIA briefer and he told me there was no OVP request 
about this, so I wrote down what he told me so I'd have a 
record of it in case I forgot and wanted to check, I'd have 
something to check. So --

Q. Okay. And just transliterating this note, it says, 
Craig --and that would be a reference to Craig Schmall? 
A. Correct. 
Q. It says, "No OVP request re uranium procurement." 
Is that your handwriting? 
A. Correct. 
Q. Is that what it says? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And then above "uranium procurement" it says --is 
that year after yellowcake? 
A. No, that's Iraq and Africa yellowcake. Is that what 
you1 re asking? 
Q. Okay, yes. 
A. I apologize. I will apologize repeatedly today for 
my handwriting and my little symbols. 
Q. Okay, so that Q is Iraq? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And the A --
A. It's an AFR for Africa. 
Q. Africa yellowcake? 
A. I think so. 
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Q. And then below it, it has a dash. Is that SL -*-is 
\ 
that Scooter Libby or the Vice President --

A. That's correct, yes. 
Q. And then below that it says, was DR request in 3-03? 
A. There was a --DR is Secretary of Defense Donald 
Rumsfeld, and that he apparently --according to Craig he had 
lmade a request in March of '03. 

I 

Q. And so does this indicate to you that it was on June 
9th that you made the request for the briefer, Craig Schmall, 
Ito find out whether or not the Vice President's Office was I 
responsible for this request for a mission? 

A. Maybe. Let me --if I can explain? 
Q. Sure. 
I A. If I took this note directly, that would indicate it1 
was on June 9. If, what I did, is I wrote this note down in 
my list of action items, then June 9 might be the date that 
the action item --the date of the listing in the action 
items. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. Now, let me show you what 
is --we have the Bates Stamp No. 3079. 
MS. KEDIAN. And this will be marked Exhibit 52.

I I 

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. And for the record, some of the copies we're showing 
you have an unusual marking at the top that's not an official 
classification which is being addressed, but I can assure you 
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there's no --nothing sensitive in here that the Grand Jury 
canrt see. So --

A. Thankyou, sir. 
Q. --that shouldn't be a distraction. Okay. And if 
you look at that document, is that also dated June, 9, '03? 
A. It may be one thing on this sheet actually which --
Q. Well, I'm not going to show it to anyone but you, 
We're not going to put it on the screen. 
A. Thankyou, sir. 
Q. Okay. 
A. Yes, it says June --6-9-03 and --
Q. And does this have Q next to June 9-03? 
A. Yes, it has what you probably think is a Q. 
Q. Okay, what is it? What is next --the thing that 
looks like a Q, what is it? 
A. It's a little symbol that means I may want to later 
come back and make a note about that. 
Q. Okay. And we're not going to talk about any of the 
entries other than those relating to --
A. Yes, that would be best, I think. 
Q. Okay. If you go down, the fourth entry, the fourth 
tick mark, do you see the same reference there, Craig --
A. Yes, I do, sir. 
Q. --no OVP request for uranium procurement? 
A. Yes, sir. 
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Q. And under that does it say, ttScootertl Libby or Vice 
President? 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And under that, was DR request in 3-03? 
Q. And above uranium procurement, what does it say 
above uranium procurement? 
A. I, I think it says --this one is less clear than I 
the other one. I think it's the symbol for Iraq, but I'm not 
sure, and Africa yellowcake. 
Q. Okay. And does that --looking at that entry, just 
that entry on the page, does that mirror the entry on the 
I 

document --

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. --Exhibit 51? 
A. This is one I copied over. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. And we will deem marked but 
not put before the Grand Jury this page, and deem it as 52 for 

the record. We'll keep that separate so that the only entry 
that's in the record is that particular entry. 

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. And is there a reason you would copy it over onto 
the Exhibit 51 in exactly the same format with the --in terms 
I 

of indents and punctuation? 

A. Yeah, the indentsmean something tome. I mean, it I 
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tends to indicate to me --it's why I write on unlined paper. 
It tends to indicate to me something about how the content is 
in the order and what it means. 

Q. Okay. So looking at 51, does the Iraq or Africa 
I 

yellowcake written above the line have some relevance to --
the lines written above the line? 

A. I think it has to do with another re. And I think I 
what happened here was this was the first time I wrote it down 
probably and I wrote Africa yellowcake, and then I also wanted 
to make clear Iraq, so I put the Iraq. And as you'll see, 
l 

it's really trivial, and I apologize, but it's directly over 

I 

the re, and it shouldn't be, so I think I wrote that second. 
I think I wrote Africa yellowcake, and then I went back and 
put in the Iraq directly above the re on the, on the note 

I 

sheet. 

Q. And do you have a practice at times of taking things 
off the list of what's deemed marked 52 and recreating a 
separate sheet --
I 

A. Yes. 
I 

Q. --in the identical format? 
A. Yes, sir, because then normally I would discard the 
sheet. 
Q. And the sheet then being what has been deemed marked 
1 

A. Yes. The ones that are sort of action item lists I I 
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would normally discard when I was done with it after I had 
made sure to take down anything I thought --take down 
separately anything I thought I needed to keep. 

Q. Okay. And looking at June 9, '03, the first check 
on that item on that page, does that indicate the President 
was interested in the State of the Union and the Kristof 
article? 
A. Yes. 
Q. And do you recall what the occasion was that, that 
you came to learn that the President was interested in the 
Kristof article? 
A. I, I don't. It could be something that somebody 
said to me that I --it doesn't mean that I observed it. It 
may be something someone said to me and I wrote it down. 
Q. Any recollection of discussing with the Vice 
President the interest of the President in the Kristof 
article? 
A. I don't, I don't have a recollection of it. 
Q. Did you ever recall talking to the President himself 
about the Kristof article? 
A. No, I don't, I don't thinkso. 
Q. And do you ever recall Vice President Cheney talking 
to you about the President's interest in the Kristof article 
in particular? 
A. Specifically that? I don't, sir. The way this note 
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lis written, I take it to be something that someone told me 
that I wanted to mention to the Vice President, not something 
the Vice President said to me. 

Q. Okay. And do you have any recollection as to who 
would have told you that? 
A. No, sir. It could have been a senior staff meeting, 
it could have been 15,or 20 of us gathered. It could have 
lbeen somebody saying something. 

Q. Now, have you come to learn, back to 52, have you 
come to learn that there was a report prepared by the Bureau 
of Intelligence and Research at the State Department commonly 
known as INR on about June 10th of 2003? 
A. Yes, sir. The FBI told me about it. 
Q. Okay. And when you say the FBI told you about that, 
that would be some time after October 1st of 2003 when the 
investigation began? 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. Prior to that time had you ever heard of the 
lexistence of an INR report concerning the trip to Niger and I 
the role played by former ambassador Wilson? 

A. Yestsir. 
Q. Okay. And tell us how you learned of it. 
1I A. At the end of September there was a meeting in the I 
situation Room underneath the White House, Classified Meeting 
I ~oom,and it was a very long meeting that covered several I 

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subjects. Towards the end of the meeting, we were in a very 

small group which included the Secretary of State, and the 
Secretary of State in that meeting alluded to the fact that 
there was a memo from the State Department --so this was like 

September, late September of '03, that there was a memo from 
the State Department written much, much earlier which talked 
about a meeting in which this assignment came about, I guess 

the origins of the assignment, Ambassador Wilson's assignment. 

Q. And was that --did that meeting in the Situation 
Room occur at a time after the investigation had become public 
in the Washington Post? 
A. I --if I recall, it became public in the Post on 
September 28 or so? 
Q. Yes. 
A. Is that correct? So it was a couple days after 
that. 
Q. Prior to Secretary Powell mentioning that document, 
had you ever heard of the existence of the INR report prior to 
that date? 
A. I don't have any recollection of an INR document 
prior to that date. 
Q. And do you recall going back to June loth, assuming 
the document --have you, have you since read that document by 
the way? 
A. No. No, sir. It was handed to me --during my 
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interview with the FBI and my lawyer said, if you haven't- read 

\ 

the'document,you shouldn't read it now, and so I gave it 
back. 

Q. Okay. When looking at the document did it look like 
lsomething you had read before in the brief time that you had 
it? 

A. No, sir. 
Q. And did it --do you recall during the time period 
prior to June 10th ever asking Secretary Grossman questions 
about what role, if any, the 0ffic.e of Vice President had 
played in causing this mission, this trip to Niger by the 
former ambassador? 
A. I --you referred to this before. I really don't 
recall a discussion with Secretary Grossman, who is from the 
State Department. And my understanding was that it was the 
Central Intelligence Agency mission and so I don't, I don't 
recall a discussion with him about whether the State 
Department had a role in it. 
Q. And --but you did understand the person who went 
was a former ambassador? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And in the Kristof article, there was a claim that 
the former ambassador reported to the State Department what 
his findings were. Correct? 
A. Actually, I had forgotten that. Maybe that was on 
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my mind at the time. 

Q. As you sit here today do you know whether or not yo^ 
ever spoke to Secretary Grossman about having him find out 
information about what caused this former ambassador to be 
sent to Niger? 
A. I don't recall it. 
Q. Do you know if you spoke to anyone else at the State 
Department about that, about that question of who was 
responsible for sending Ambassador Wilson to Niger? 
A. I don't recall a discussion with people from the 
State Department about it. 
Q. And do you recall discussing it with anyone else at 
that time, any other agency? 
A. Well, the discussion with Craig Schmall, and I, I 
may have tried to speak to --I tried to speak at some point 
during this period to John McLaughlin who is the Deputy at the 
Central Intelligence Agency which would have been the people 
to send him. Again, during an interview with the FBI agents 
they raised an incident which I spoke to Bob Grenier who works 
for McLaughlin, or is a Deputy for McLaughlin, for John 
McLaughlin. And I don't --I recall talking to Bob Grenier 
about something and it could have been this inquiry, but I 
don' t, I donf t really recall the discussion in detail. 
Q. And do you recall ever having a discussion with Marc 
Grossman before, during or after a Deputy's Committee Meeting 
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where Marc Grossman told you that he had learned the former 

s\ 

amb&sadorfs wife had worked at the CIA in the 
Counterproliferation Division? 

A. No, I don't. 
Q. Do you recall any conversation at any time when 
Secretary Grossman told you that the former ambassador's wife 
worked at the CIA? 
A. I, I doni t recall. 
Q. You have no memory of that whatsoever? 
A. Sorry, sir, I don't. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Now, why don't we look at the 
notes from your, from your conversation with Vice President 
Cheney, and I think their page references are Bates Stamp No. 
2919 or --

MS. KEDIAN. This has previously been marked as 
Exhibit 6. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. Okay. And is this a note, is this a note you 
referred to as --
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. --your notes of the conversation? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And starting in the upper left corner it has a date. 
24 What do you read the date to be? I1 A. Well, it's a little --it gets a little confused. 11 

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read it to be 6-12-03, but over the 12 is a symbol that I-use 

\ 

which means that I dont t know that it's a 12. It's on or 
about the 12th, or it's a guess basically. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. And we might --do we have 

the original document here? 
MS. KEDIAN. We do. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. Oh. But looking ahead to --what's the first entry 
to the right of the date? 
A. A "T" for telephone. 
Q. And then what is the --why don't you interpret for 
us what the first line says? 
I A. It says that I was --this, this was a note that I 
took after I took the note, sometime after I took the note, 
and it's putting down that this was a note of a phone call 
between me and the Vice President about uranium and Iraq, the 

l~ristof New York Times article. 

Q. And then continue down to the next entry which seems 
to have something written before the parenthesis? And we'll 
put in front of you the original document. 
A. Yes, it's just a bullet --
Q. Okay. 
A. --that's before it. What happened with this 
document is I wrote the --I took the note without the heading 
is my recollection. And I went back later and added that 
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heading --

MR. FITZGERALD. Well, why don't we turn that off 
for the moment --
MS. KEDIAN. Okay. 
WITNESS. Sorry. 

I 

MR. FITZGERALD. --because I don't want you to 
look up. 
WITNESS. So I took the note without this, this 
heading on --about the telephone and what it was. I made 

I 

this up later is my recollection of it. And so the note for 
some time read just like that, without the top line. And I 
went back later and added the top line when I came across the 
note. And that's my recollection anyway. I 

And what, what it says after that is, I am writing 
down here something that the Vice President had told me 
someone had told him, although it doesn't reflect that which 
he usually would, that's what this is. And it says, took 
place at our behest, dash, functional office. And then --

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. Go ahead, I 'm sorry. 
A. And then below that it says, debriefing took place 
here, meaning D.C., I assume. And then it says, and there was 
a meeting in the region. And then initially when I first 
wrote it, this four was not, was not there, and the box was 
I 

not there. I wrote down OVP and Defense and State expressed 1 

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strong interest in issue. 

Q. Okay. 
A. And at some point, as I recall, I went and --from 
the spacing, esoteric, but from the spacing I, I recall that I 
went back and wrote in, because at some point, I think after 
he initially said it, he told me, I guess 
Counterproliferation,,whichI think the CP is, and then his 
wife works in that division. 
Q. okay. 
A. And then he switched from debriefing mk about what 
someone had told him to giving me the points that he thought I 
should make in talking to the press. 
Q. Okay. 
A. And he said, didn't know about the mission, didn't 
get a report back, oh, and didn't have any indication of a 
forgery. This is a mixed line. Didn't have an indication of 
a forgery, was from CIEA. I guess I had --it should say, 
didn't have any indication of a forgery until the IAEA or the 
first indication of a forgery was from the IAEA, but I just 
mixed it up when I was writing it. 
I 

Q. Okay. And then above the three ticks down below, 
one, two and three --
A. Uh-hum. 
Q. --there's something crossed out. Do you know what 
that says? I 
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A. Idonrt. 
Q. Now, you mentioned that at first you didn't write 
four, or put it around the brackets --
A. Yes. 
Q---but on the day of this conversation did you put 
the brackets and the four around it --

A. Yes. 
Q . --at some point? 
A. Yes. 
Q. And was that because you were suggesting that in 
addition to the three points dictated below that the Vice 
President wanted you to make, that you might also want to make 
the fourth point? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Okay. And then the arrow next to it attributes 
something to the Vice President. If you could tell us what 
that says? 
A. It says, hold, get the Agency to answer that. So as 
he went through his points I made these notes, one, two and 
three to clarify in my mind what it was I was doing, and then 
I wrote down point four and suggested should I also --or 
said, should I also say OVP, and Defense and State --it 
wasn't just us, it was several offices asking about this? And 
he quite rightly said, no, you should get the Agency to say 
that. 
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I Q. Okay. Looking back up at the top, do you know what 

I 

was under the 12 when you wrote it in terms of --is the two 

correcting something, if you can tell? 

A. I might have written 18 and then switched it to 12 
lwhen I realized it wasn't the 18th. That's a guess. I
I can't 
really tell without a microscope or something. 

Q. Okay. And forgetting the top line which starts with 
June 12th, '03 and ends with New York Times article --
A. Yes. 
Q. --is there anything below that other than stamps 
and Bates Stamps No., but all the blue ink below that, that 
lwas written during the conversation that you had with the Vice 

I I

President? 

A. Yes, sir, I think so. 
Q. And that was a telephone, telephone conversation? 
A. Correct, sir. 
Q. And does that --do you know whether you were in the 
White House at the time? 
A. I don't, sir. 
Q. Do you know whether the Vice President was in the 
I I 

White House at the time? 

A. I don' t, sir. 
Q. Okay. And as far as the top line goes, aside from 
the correction to the date, where it says, telephone, Vice 
l~resident re uranium and Iraq, Kristof, New York Times I 

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article, do you know when that was put on the page in blue 

ink? 

A. I think I wrote it at the same time that' I, I did, 
lat least the first of the dates --
I 

Q. Okay. And do you know whether that was during the 
I I 

conversation or at a later time? 

A. No, I think that was a later time. 
Q. And do you know how much later? 
I I

A. I don't. My --I have a --my recollection of it is 
I came across the note which because it was in the middle of a 
conversation I didn't take the time to write the heading, and 
then I used it, set it aside, and then I came back to it. And 
when I came back to it, I realized there was no heading on it. 
I 

I didn't want to have to puzzle out twice what it was, so I 
lwrote a header on it. 

I 

Q. Okay. And so do you know if that was added in June, 
I I 

July, August, September or October? 

A. I don't know. It might have been in June but I 
don't know. 
Q. Okay. And do you know, was this added before or 
after the investigation began? 
A. I think it was before the investigation began. 
Q. Do you know if you --did you add anything in terms 
of notes, the dates or what it concerned when there was a 
request to review documents? Did you go back and add 
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anything? 

I 

A. No, I donlt think so. 
Q. So to the best of your recollection, this would have 
I 

been added, the entry date, some time after your conversation 
with Vice President Cheney but before this investigation 
began? 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And do you know if you went back and reviewed it 
I 

again to change the date from June whatever it was to June 
12th? 

A. I'm sorry? 
Q. Do you know what, what caused you to go back and 
review the date and change it? 
A. I think what happened was I initially wrote it and 
then realized that wasn't the right date and that it would be 
inaccurate because this was for my discussion with Pincus and 
the Pincus discussion was before his article. So the one 
thing I think I know about June 12 was that it wasn't the 12th 
because the article appeared on the 12th, and it would have 
been before that. 
Q. And so this was a conversation you had with Vice 
President Cheney in the context of figuring out what to say to 
Mr. Pincus who was writing a piece following up on the Kristof 
article? 
A. It was, it was to prepare to say something to the I 
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press and I think it was with Pincus in mind. Yes, sir. 

Q. And as you sit here today, is it possible that 
you're the person who had learned that the former ambassador's 
wife had worked in the functional office in 
Counterproliferation and that you had told Vice President 
Cheney that on this date? 
A. I don't think so, sir. 
Q. And is that from your --first of all, is that based 
upon your memory? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And anything about the document that would indicate 
that it was Vice President Cheney who told you the information 
rather than the other way around? 
A. Well, the way the, the way the line is drawn, and 
then it doesn't say SL saying this, it looks like him saying 
it. I wouldn't normally write down something I said because I 
said it. I don't I wouldn't need to. 
Q. Okay, so the --
A. So I think in this case, usually when I wrote 

something down that I say, I put SL colon, and then the 
statement. So I was hurried here because I was trying to not 
hold him up and get down everything that he said accurately, 
and I think that's what he said. And I, and I have this 
recollection of him saying it, so --

Q. And you have --and your recollection about that was 
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that he said it in a --how would you describe --

A. Offhand, sort of curious, curiosity-type manner. 
I Q. 
fact? 
And did you respond in any way to that, to that 1 
A. I don't think so. 
Q. What did you think of that fact at the time? 

A. Curiosity. , Doesn't --might mean nothing, might 
I 1 

mean something, I don't know. 

Q. ~nddo you know if on or about June 12th Marc 
Grossman from the State Department had had a conversation with 
1 

you about Wilson's wife working at the CIA? 

A. I don't recall anything about a Grossman 
conversation, sir. 1 

Q. And do you recall if you ever had a conversation 
with Mr. Grenier in which you discussed Wilson's wife's 
employment? 
A. I don't think I discussed Wilson's wife's employment 
Iwith, with Mr. Grenier. I think if I discussed something it 
1 

was what they knew about the request about Mr., about Mr. 

I 

Wilson. I don't recall the content of the discussion. 

Q. And do you recall if there was an urgency to the 
Iconversation when you spoke to Mr. Grenier? 
1 

A. I recall that I was reaching Mr. Grenier --I was 
trying to reach Mr. McLaughlin and couldn't, and spoke instead 
to Mr. Grenier. And so if I did that instead of just waiting 
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for Mr. McLaughlin, it was probably something that was urgent 

I 

in the sense that my boss, the Vice President, wanted, wanted 

to find something out. Not, not necessarily in the real 

I 

world, but he wanted an answer and usually we try and get him 
the answer when we can. 

Q. So it is fair to say in looking at the document that 
the three points the Vice President wanted you to make were 
I 

that --he didn't know about the mission, there wasn't a 
report given back, you need to look at the --

I 

A. Thank you. Sorry. 
Q. That he didn't know, the Vice President didn't know 
about the mission, that the Vice President's Office didn't 
receive a report back, and that there wasn't an indication I 
that the documents were a forgery until the IAEA so indicated? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And that your suggestion that you pointed out the 
trip took place at the behest of other agencies as well was, 
I 

was rebuffed by the Vice President who thought the better 
course was to have the Agency, CIA, come out and say that I 
themselves? 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Now, did you talk to Mr. Pincus at the Washington 
I 

Post? 

I 

A. Yes, sir, I did. I 
Q. And did you talk to him prior to the article on ~unel 
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12th? 

\ 

A. Yes, sir, I did. 
Q. And do you recall what you told him? 
A. I told him that I didn't --that the Vice President 
didn't request the mission. I think I told him that we did 
not get a report back from the mission. And I assume from 
this note that I also told him about the IAEA. There is an 
article which eventually comes out. Looking at that might 
refresh me about whether I told him other things but --
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. Why don't we get out the 

June 12th Pincus article. 
MS. KEDIAN. That's part of Exhibit 3. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. Let me take a moment and read the article and see if 
it refreshes your recollection as to anything else that you 
may have told Mr. Pincus. 
GRAND JUROR. Since it's almost noon, is this line 
of questioning going to take much longer? 
MR. FITZGERALD. No, we'll wrap it up shortly in 
time for lunch. 

WITNESS. I don't mean to hold everybody up, but 
there is a part where he talks about us --do you know where 
that is in the article? 

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. No, but why don't we just take a moment and read, 
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read the article just to see if anything else rings a bell. 

A. My, my apologies. (long pause) I don't know where 
he --we could be the source for some of this, I don't know if 
I --it doesn't refresh me as to what I said to him. 
Q. Okay. Can we just --two questions. In there it 
indicates in one paragraph, "Cheney and his staff continue to 
get intelligence on the matter but the Vice President, unlike 
other senior administration officials, never mentions it in a 
public speech." Do you know if you told that to Pincus or 
not? 
A. I might have. It's, it's true, he did not talk 
about it in a speech. The "Continue to get intelligence on 
the matter" is causing me to stumble a little bit in that I 
don't, I don't think after --a few days after --it was the 
Vice President who asked the question, and a few days after he 
asked it, we got sort of a temporary answer from the Agency. 
And then I don't, I don't know that we got anything until the 
l~ational Intelligence Estimate came out which had a very I 
definitive statement, that they had begun to buy uranium. So 
I don't when it says "on the matter," I don't know that we 
got anything more about Ambassador Wilson's trip, not at my 
level in any case, or the Vice President's level. There was 
continued intelligence about Iraq and uranium, so that looks 
llike phrasing that --
lhave said it anyway. 
it doesn't look like the way I would II 

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Q. Okay. And the last question is, the next sentence, 
\ 

do you know who the source for the quote --source for the 
information that says, "he and his staff did not learn of its 
role in spurring the mission until it was disclosed by New 
York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on May 6th --" 

I A. Yes. 

Q. II --according to an administration official --" 
A. That, that could be me, which would be consistent 
with the first of my bullets, that I didn't know, we didn't 
know about the mission and we didn't in fact know that we had 
had a role in it because it was the CIA' initiative it turns 
out, and that could have been --I could have said that to 
I 
I 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. Why don't we break for 
lunch. 
GRAND JUROR. We'll be back at 1 o'clock. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay, 1 o'clock. 
GRAND JUROR. Thank you. 

I MR. FITZGERALD. You can step outside, and wait at 

I 
the door, and we'll take care of the documents, and we'll just 
come back at 1 o'clock. Thank you. 
WITNESS. Thank you. 

I 
(Whereupon, the witness was excused at 12:02 p.m.) 
(Whereupon, the witness was recalled at 1 :15 p.m. ) 

GRAND JUROR. I'll remind you, you're still under 

I 

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oath. 

'\ 

WITNESS. Thank you. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: I 

Q. Mr. Libby, I mis-spoke when I invited you back in. 
In your conversations with Mr. Pincus prior to the 
June 12th article, did you understand from, from your 

I 

conversation with Vice President Cheney whether or not there 
was any problem with you telling Mr. Pincus that Wilson's wife 
worked at the CIA? 

A. No, he was not telling me to mention that part and I 
didn't understand that to be part of what I was supposed to 
talk to Mr. Pincus about. 
Q. And did you think there was a reason you couldn't 
tell Mr. Pincus that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 
I 

A. No, it just wasn't a particularly powerful point 
compared to the other points. I didn't understand it to be a 
point worth mentioning in that context. 
Q. The Vice President obviously thought it was I 
important enough to share with you, or interesting enough to 
color the background. Fair enough? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And you thought it interesting enough to write in 
1 

your notes. Correct? 

I 

A. Just a slight emendation of that. I --as I said, 
I 

often take my notes as he1 s speaking because I don1 t know what 
I1 

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is going to later be important. So I took the note because he 
was saying it. But it was not a point that I even considered 

\ 

as something that I was going to be discussing with Mr. 
Pincus. 

Q. And when you wrote your note it was something that 
you recalled as sort of the change of tone when the Vice 
President told you about it as being curious. Fair, fair to 
say? 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. And did you think that might help elucidate Mr. 
Pincus' view of what had happened here? 
A. It was not one of the points he was giving me to, to 
discuss with Pincus and the points with Pincus seemed on their 
face directly in line sufficient and that's, that's what I 
did. So that's, that's what I covered with Mr. Pincus. 
Q. Did you limit yourself to the four corners of 
exactly what was written in the three bullet points in your 
notes when you spoke to Mr. Pincus? 
A. Within the boundaries of that pretty much, I think. 
Q. Did you consider there to be any sort of prohibition 
when you're just discussing the fact that the ambassador's 
wife worked at the CIA when you spoke to Mr. Pincus? 
A. No, sir. 
Q. And in terms of telling the story to you in context, 
the Vice President referenced that fact in telling you. Did 
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you pee any reason why you shouldn't reference that fact in 
giving the context to Mr. Pincus? 

A. No, sir. 
Q. Do you know if you talked to Mr. Pincus about 
Wilson' s wife? 
A. No, I, I believe I didnot, sir. 
Q. Can you rule out the possibility that you told Mr. 
Pincus about Wilson's wife during that conversation? 
A. I have no recollection of having discussed it with 
Mr. Pincus and I don't think I did. 
Q. Can you rule out the possibility that you did, in 
Iyour mind? 
A. I don1 t think I did. 
Q. And I understand that it's very clear that you don't 
think you did. I'm just saying, can you rule out that you 
didn't do that when you spoke to Mr. Pincus? 
A. I don't quite know what to say, sir. I don't think 
I did. I have no recollection of doing it. It's not what I 
Iset out do. I don't believe I did. Just "rule out the I 
possibility" is an odd phrasing to me. I'm, I'm reasonably 
certain I did not. 

Q. Let me give you an example. The President of the 
l~nited States called you in and said, this is super-super I 
lsecret that we can't even tell you the clearance level this is( 
lat, and this involves the most sensitive intelligence I 
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gathering matters ever to be conducted by the United States. 

~ ,\ 

And lyou went and had a meeting with a reporter afterwards, and 

we said, do you recall telling that person that information. 
YOU could say, not only do I not remember, there's no way I 

I 

could have done that. And I guess, now I'm asking you here, 

you indicate that the information about Wilson's wife you 

didn't understand to be a prohibition on it. So I'm simply 

I 

asking that, even though you think you didn't talk with Pincus 

about it, is it possible that you did? 

1 

A. Well, I didn't think it was under the super-super 
I 

secret categorization. So in that part of the analogy. it was1 
nothing like that about what he said. But as I say, I don't 
think I talked to Mr. Pincus about it. 

Q. Is it possible you did? 
I 

A. Best of my recollection of the conversation, no. I 
did not talk to him about it. 
Q. Now, this conversation you had with the Vice 
I 

President was prior to your speaking to Mr. Pincus. Correct? 
The conversation --

A. Yes. Yes, sir. 
I 

Q. And you spoke to Mr. Pincus before he printed the 
I 

June 12th article? 

A. Yes, sir. 
I 

Q. So the conversation with the Vice President was some 
time before June 12th. Correct? 
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A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And was that the first time you had heard from 
anyone, as far as you can recall, that Wilson's wife worked at 
the CIA? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And you have a recollection of this being a new fact 
as you heard it? 
A. Yesfsir. 
Q. And so that based upon your recollection, not your 
notes, that you recall that that's the first time that you 
heard about the former ambassador's wife working at the CIA? 
A. Yes, sir, although my recollection is not perfect. 
That was my recollection. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Now, if I could show you a 
document that Ms. Kedian will tell us what it's marked --
MS. KEDIAN. Grand Jury Exhibit 53. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. And again we will deem it marked, but not make it --
just make the full text available to you, and then if we need 
to show it to the Grand Jury at some point, we'll redact it. 
Are those notes that you made? 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And are they dated June 3rd, at least in the upper 
left corner of the page? 
A. Yes, sir. 
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Q. Okay. And do they indicate that one of the 
things that's on this --is this the notes that consist of 
your things to do with the Vice President that you'make each 
day? 
A. I have things to do with the Vice President and I 
have things to do on my own. This is probably things to do 
with the Vice president, but they look alike, they look alike. 

Q. Okay. 1/11point you to one entry. 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. It says on there, talk to VP about alter Pincus 
article. 
A. Yes,sir. 
Q. Does that indicate to you that --at least as of 
June 3rd, you had a note to yourself that you should talk to 
the Vice President about the article that Walter Pincus was 
preparing to write? 
A. Not quite, sir. It indicates to me I was going to 
talk to him about a Walter Pincus article. But there could 
have been a prior Walter Pincus article that said something --
There were Walter Pincus articles in May, towards the end of 
May, and it could be that what I want to talk to him about is 
something that was in a prior article. It, it, it could mean, 
but it doesn't necessarily mean, the article that he was 

preparing for June 12th, that eventually appears on June 12. 

Q. Okay. Did you, between June 3rd and June 12th, did 
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you talk to Walter Pincus to provide information as regards 

I 

any article other than the June 12th piece he wrote? 

A. No. But this mark here might just be something that 
I 

in an article --if we were to go back and look at his 

I 

articles before June 12th, I might see something that, that 

I --caught my eye back then and I wanted to talk to the Vice 

President about. 

Q. Right. And I understand. The bracket is --
I 

A. I did not talk to Walter Pincus about any I 
drafting --his drafting any other article. 
Q. So this item refers to talking to the Vice 
President, looking forward to the article that would appear on 
I 

June 12th or refers to something that had appeared before June 

I 

3rd that was already written and published that you wanted to 
call the Vice President's attention to or discuss? I 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And as you sit here today, I realize it's awhile 1 
back, do you know if this --does Pincus --does an article by 
Pincus prior to June 3rd stick in your mind? 
A. There were some articles by Pincus in May, towards 
the end of May, third week, fourth week of May where Director 
Tenet was talking about the intelligence from the war, it's is 
my recollection anyway. So there are some articles from 
I 

Pincus, you know, he writes periodically and there were some 1 
articles from Pincus in that period. But I don't know what 

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this refers to. 

Q. Okay. And as you look at this entry now, do you 
have a belief as to whether or not this was looking backward 
to a past article, or looking forward, or you don't know? 
A. I don't know. My recollection is that the Pincus 
article was around for awhile. When I say that I mean to say 
that I had heard from Cathie or someone that he was doing &hi: 
article for awhile is my sense of it. So it could be either. 
Q. And now, there came a time --did there come a time 
when you spoke to a David Sanger of the New York Times? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Okay. And did you speak to him in early July? 
A. From reviewing my notes I have seen that it was Jull 
2nd. 
Q. Okay. And independent of your notes fixing a date, 
do you have an independent recollection of sitting down with 
Mr. Sanger and speaking to him? 
A. Very vague actually, but yes, I have some 
recollection. 
Q. Did you meet with him in person or did you speakby 
telephone? 
A. In person and he had someone with him as I recall. 
Q. Do you know if it would be James Risen, R-i-s-e-n? 
A. Yeah, I think that sounds right. From my notes that 
sounds right. 
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Q. Okay. And had you ever sat down with David Sanger 
before? 
A. Yes, he was at a dinner I was at. It's 'not a common 
occurrence for me but I had met him before. 
I 

Q. Was that the first time you sat down with him as an 
official source for an article? 
A. It's not common for me to sit with him. It could be 
the very first, I'm not sure. 
Q. ~nddo you recall from your discussion with Mr. 
Sanger if you had any conversation about ~mbassador Wilson, 
I 

either by name or by description as the former ambassador, or 

I 

his wife in that meeting? 

A. I don't. I have looked --we have some notes of 
that conversation, and in looking through the notes of it, I 
don't recall anything about the wife. I can't recall if 
there's anything about, about, about the Ambassador Wilson 
trip as I sit here, but it would be in the notes. 
I I recall that he was --my impression is that he was 

primarily interested in the Colin Powell presentation, the 
presentation of Secretary Colin Powell had made to the U.N. in 
February of '03. 

Q. And did you provide him information about your 
recollection of how the Colin Powell presentation was put 
together? 
A. Yes, sir, that's my recollection of it. 
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7 3 

Q. And have you looked since that time at an article on 
\ 

July 8th by David Sanger? 

A. I suspect I did. I don1 t recall it. 
Q. In that article the relevant sentence I wanted to --
sentences I wanted to call to your attention. Let me pull out 
a copy. One indicated that Wilson had said that he reported 
back, that the intelligence was likely fraudulent, indicating 
that the intelligence by Iraq trying to get uranium, and it 
said, White House officials say his warning never reached 
them. Do you know if you would have provided information to 
David Sanger indicating that the warning by Wilson never 
reached the White House? 
A. I, I actually --I don't know that Ambassador Wilson 
actually warned that the documents were fraudulent. There is, 
to my knowledge, all I had seen was one memorandum which may 
or may not still be classified in which is a report about 
Ambassador Wilson's trip. And in that report --may I 
continue? 
Q. Sure. 
A. In that report there are denials from the Niger 
government --this is actually in Director Tenet's July 11th 
statement about it, there are --public statement so it's not 
classified --there are denials in the first part of the 
report from the Niger government that they ever provided 
uranium. But there is also an assertion from a former 
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Nigerian, I think prime minister, that in fact an Iraqi I delegation had come to Niger seeking to open relations and thf 
Niger government, the prime minister, interpreted that to meal 
they were interested in purchasing uranium. So in fact, 
within Ambassador Wilson's --within the report of Ambassador 
Wilson's trip and his finding was evidence that Iraq was 
trying to acquire uranium and that's what the CIA eventuaLly 
puts into the NIE which is also unclassified now. 
As to the fraudulence of the documents, I don't 
think Ambassador Wilson as I have seen later, had ever 
actually seen the documents. I don't know if he opined on 
whether they were fraudulent or not. 
Q. Let me draw your attention ahead to July 6th --
A. Yes, sir. 
Q --when three things happen. First, there is the 
Op-ed in the New York Times by Joseph Wilson. Secondly, he 
appears on Meet the Press with Andrea Mitchell as the host. 
And third, there's a piece in the Washington Post talking 
about his Op-ed in the New York Times and giving some further 
information. Do you recall which of those two articles you 
read that day and whether or not you saw Wilson on Meet the 
Press? 
A. I don't think I saw Wilson on Meet the Press with 
Andrea Mitchell on cable, you know, on television. I don't 
know if I read the articles that day. It was Sunday and often 
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I take the day off, but I think I read them --I read them 
subsequently. 

Q. And what was your reaction when you reads the Op-ed 
piece by Joseph Wilson? 
A. I recall that it was, you know --here was this guy 
saying it was him who had done it. He was saying that we 
had --he was saying that, that he thought that he had sort 01 
definitively proven in his trip that there was no attempt by 
the Iraqis to purchase uranium in Niger. And that's not what 
his report actually proved. He was saying that we had asked 
for the trip, or he said that the next day on television, I've 
forgotten which, and that was not the case. He was saying 
that because we had asked about the trip, the Vice President 
must have gotten a report back about his trip and that was not 
the case. He was saying, because his report was definitive, 
which it wasn't, and because the Vice President had asked, 
which he hadn't, the Vice President must have gotten a 
response, which would have convinced the Vice President that, 
that Iraq had not tried to buy uranium, and therefore the Vice 
President must have twisted the facts, or other people must 
have twisted the facts. And as I was indicating, the premises 
were wrong, we didn't get his report. What we did get was 
intelligence from the CIA, not that one piece but the 
considered judgment of the CIA that in fact Iraq had tried to 
buy uranium. The Vice President had not asked for someone to 
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go on a mission to Niger, so therefore he didn't get that, 

\ 

report back. So there were a lot of things in there that wer 
wrong. There was a place later in his article where he said, 
if I'm wrong about my report, if they discounted my report fc 
some reason, then I have no complaint, although I'd be 
interested in knowing why they say that. And that made me 
hopeful that when it was explained to him that in fact his 
report didn't disprove it, and the CIA took his --did not 
find his bit of intelligence as definitive, you know, we 

lthought that that was hope that he'd then withdraw his 
accusation. 

I Q. Now, is it fair to say that the article was viewed 
as an accusation by many, including the administration? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. If you accepted the premises of his article, his Op 
ed, as being true, it would indicate that the Vice President 
knowingly allowed the President to lie to the American public 
and the world about what the United States government believec 
labout Iraq's activities with regard to uranium. Fair to say? 
I A. Not quite. Because he, he is straight forward in 
saying, all I know about is my report. And if they have 
other, other evidence then there's other evidence. But if 
they're relying on my report, then it's not, you know --then 
it would be improper to say what he said assuming my report is 

Iright, but it may not be. That's what he said. 

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Q. But it's fair to say that most people took away, fror 
\ 

that article as reported as an assertion by Wilson that the 
government misled the American people, not as a I'm not sure 
what happened and I want an answer? Is that fair to say? 

A. I, I don't --if you look at his article, I think he 
does say in there, I may --if there's other information, 
there's other information, he was pretty careful about that. 
Maybe people read it too quickly, as you say, and took away a 
different interpretation of it. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Sure. Why don't I give you a 
copy, which is Exhibit --

MS. KEDIAN. Three. 

MR. FITZGERALD. --3. And does it start with 
Joseph C. Wilson --oh, this is the Washington Post. Do we 

have the Op-ed piece? 

MS. KEDIAN. Yes, I'm sorry. 

MR. FITZGERALD. Are you reading the New York 
Times or --

MS. KEDIAN. I 'm sorry, I handed you --

WITNESS. I have a July 6 New York Times piece. 

MR. FITZGERALD. Oh, then you can keep reading. 

1/11 read the same thing you're reading. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. Doesn't the second paragraph say, "Based on my 
experience with the administration in the months leading up to 
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the war I have little choice but to conclude that some of the 
intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was 
twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." 

A. Right, some, "some of the intelligence," yeah. 
Q. Are you, are you telling me --well, what was your 
reaction when you read this article? Were you angry? 
A. It's a, it's a bad article. And I don't mean to, 
pick words with you. I'm just saying, within his article, as 
we go on, he does say that all he knows about it is what he 
knows about so --
Q. Well, let me ask you --
A. Just giving him credit for that. I'm trying to give 
him credit for that. 
Q. Were you angry were you read the article? 
A. Yes, because --well, angry? I was concerned 
because it didn't seem to me an accurate portrayal of the 
facts. But I was also confident that when the facts came out 
it would be --you know, it's, it's hard to counter a false 
accusation even with clear facts. But I was confident that 
the facts were quite clear, that in fact his cable was not 
definitive, that we had not asked for the report, that the 
report did not in fact reach the Vice President or me prior to 
the State of the Union, and we were not the people who were 
putting it into the claim. So the underlying facts I thought 
were quite solid, saying this was wrong, but it's disturbing 
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to h~ve something like this out there. 

I 

Q. Was it fair to say you were upset when you read the 
article? 
A. There were a lot of articles to come out that, 
l 

that say bad things about the administration and I guess I've 
gotten a little bit inured, inured to them. But I didn't 
like --I did not like the article. 

Q. Were you upset? 
I 

A. I guess I was upset. I was disturbed by the 
I 

article, didn't like the article. Upset's a fair word, I 
guess. 

I 

Q. And did you discuss it with the Vice President? 
A. Yes. 
I 

Q. Were you uncertain --
I 

A. I'm just trying to think about when. See, he was 
in --I didn't discuss it when I first got it, but I'm sure I 
did shortly thereafter. He was in Wyoming, I think, over the 
July 4 weekend. So I probably didn't see him until, you know, 
Monday or Tuesday, I've forgotten when it was, after that, 
and

l 

I would have discussed it shortly thereafter. I didn't see 

I 

him on --if I read it on Sunday, I did not see him on Sunday. 

Q. Do you know if you discussed it by telephone with 
Vice President Cheney? 
I 

A. I don't think I spoke to him by phone that weekend. 
Q. And can you tell us about the first time you I 
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discussed the article with Vice President Cheney? 

\ 

I 

A. You know, I don't remember it in any detail. It was 
the same claim that we had had around since May. It's just 
now it had a name of it. Now we knew it was Ambassador 
Wilson. And there was this, you know, accusation of twisting 
the facts directly by somebody by name. So it was a concern. 
I Q. Do you recall any reaction, whether he was upset? 
A. I'm sure he was upset. I don't recall the 
conversation all that clearly, but I'm sure he was upset. 
I Q. And in terms of accusations against the 
administration, putting aside the truth or falsity of it --

A. Yes, sir. 
I Q. --we understand your view and as we said, the Grand 
l~ur~

is not here to determine what the truth or falsity of 
particular assertions are --

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. --this as an accusation was a direct accusation 
that the Vice President was dishonest, if you followed the 
inferences that Mr. Wilson made, that the President was 
dishonest and that the country was misled into war. Is it 
fair to say that that was the --perhaps the most serious 
attack on the administration's credibility thus far in the 
Presidential term? 

A. It was a serious accusation. I'd, I'd have to go 
back, back over the administration to evaluate it compared to 
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lother attacks, but it was, it was a very serious attack. 

Q. Well, as you sit here now, can you think of any 
other time in the administration where someone directly came 

lout by name and accused the administration of deliberately 
exaggerating and twisting intelligence with regard to specifi 
facts? 

A. Well, the sixteen words had been around. That the 
1 sixteen words were false and shouldni t have been in there, ha 

lbeen around for awhile, and I can't remember exactly when 

1the --what level of attack came from what. But' this - - that 
was certainly --this realm of issue reminds me, comes to 
I as a very serious attack from it. I don't recall 

mind, 
sitting here whether there was anything in tax policy or any 
other policy that quite amounts to this. 

I Q. And given that the sixteen words were believed to 
lhave been part of a speech setting up the administration's 
case for war against Iraq, is it fair to say that this was a 
very, very serious matter during the week of July 7th through 
the 14th at the White House? 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And was it a discussion of --that was --was it a 
topic that was discussed on a daily basis? 
Q. And it was discussed on multiple occasions each day 
in fact? 
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A. Yestsir. 
Q. And during that time did the Vice President indicatc 
that he was upset that this article was out there which 
falsely in his'view attacked his own credibility? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And do you recall what it is that the Vice President 
said? 
A. I recall that he was very keen to get the truth out. 
He wanted to get all the facts out about what he had or hadn't 
done, what the facts were or were not. He was very keen on 
that and said it repeatedly. Let's get everything out. He 
wanted to get it all out. That, that I recall. 
Q. Do you recall if you ever discussed a copy of the 
article with Vice President Cheney --in front of you when he 
talked about? 
A. Physical copy in front of him? I don't recall that. 
He often cuts out an article and keeps it on his desk 
somewhere and thinks about it and I subsequently learned that 
he had such an article from the FBI agents who talked to me. 
Q. And had you seen that copy of the article before the 
FBI showed it to you during the course of the investigation? 
A. I, I don't recall it. It's possible if it was 
sitting on his desk that, you know, my eye went across it. I 
don't, I don't recall him pulling it out and saying something 
to him, but we talked about the article a fair amount. 
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MR. FITZGERALD. And let me show you a copy of* the 

\ 

article with handwritten notes on it. 
MS. KEDIAN. Grand Jury Exhibit 8. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. And in looking at Grand Jury Exhibit 8, can you tell 
us if you recognize the handwriting at the top, top of both 
pages? 
A. Yes, sir. It looks like the Vice President's 
Q. Okay. And I take it you're familiar with his 
handwriting? 
A. I am. I couldn't necessarily pick it out from 
similar handwriting, but this looks like his handwriting to 
me. 
Q. Okay. And is it fair to say that there's various 
items underlined in this copy? 
I 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Does that include the sentence, "1 have little 
choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related 
to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate 

I 

the Iraqi threat?" 

I 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And does it also include handwriting at the top of 
the page that says, that reads, "have they done this sort of 
thing before?" 
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A. I'm sorry, are you asking me if that appears at the 
top of the page? 
Q. Yes. 
A. Yes, sir, it does. 
Q. And does it say beneath that, send our --"send an 
ambassador to answer a questionl1? 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. And does it say below that, Itdo ordinary send people 
out pro bono to work for us?" 
A. It does, sir. 
I Q. And does the top of the page have a note that 
continues over to the second page, "or did his wife send him 
Ion a junket?" 

Q. And do you recall ever discussing those issues with 
Vice President Cheney? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And tell us what you recall about those 
conversations. 
A. I recall that along the way he asked, is this normal 
for them to just send somebody out like this uncompensated, as 
lit says. He was interested in how did this person come to be 
selected for this mission. And at some point after we learned 
that his wife worked at the Agency, you know, he --that was 

lpart of the question. 

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Q. Okay. And is it fair to say that he had told you 
back in June, June 12th or before, prior to the Pincus 
article, that his wife worked in the functional office of 
Counterprol.iferation of the CIA. Correct? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. So when you say, that after we learned that his wife 
worked at the Agency, that became a question. Isn't it fair 
to say that you already knew it from June 12th or earlier? 
A. I believe by, by this week I no longer remembered 
that. I had forgotten it. And I believe that because when it 
was told to me on July 10, a few days after this article, it 
seemed to me as if I was learning it for the first time. When 
I heard it, I did not think I knew it when I heard. 
Q. Okay. So let me back up a moment. We'll get to the 
July 10 conversation. 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Do you recall when the Vice President told you do we 
ordinarily send --or did the wife send him a junket, when you 
had that conversation? Do you know when that was in relation 
to the July 6 article? 
A. I don't recall that conversation until after the, 
until after the Novak piece. I don't recall it during this 
week of July 6. I recall it after the Novak conver --after 
the Novak article appeared I recall it, and I recall being 
asked by the Vice President early on, you know, about this 
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envoy, you know, who is it and --but I don't recall that, 

I 

early on he asked about it in connection with the wife, 

although he may well have given the note that I took. 

Q. And so your recollection is that he wrote on July --
that you discussed with the Vice President, did his wife send 
him on a junket? As a response to the July 14th Novak column 
that said, he was sent because his wife sent him and she works 
at the CIA? 
A. I don't recall discussing it --yes, I don't recall 
Idiscussing it in connection with when this article first 
I 

appeared. I recall it later. 

Q. And are you telling us under oath that from July 6th 
to July 14th you never discussed with Vice President Cheney 
whether Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 
A. No, no, I'm not saying that. On July 10 or 11 I 
I I 

learned, I thought anew, that the wife --that, that reporters 

I 

lwere telling us that the wife worked at the CIA. And I may I 
have had a conversation then with the Vice President either 
late on the 11th or on the 12th in which I relayed that 
reporters were saying that. When I had that conversation I 
had forgotten about the earlier conversations in which he told 
me about --reflected in my notes that we went over this 
morning, in early June, before the Pincus article, when he had 
told me about that the wife worked at the CIA. I had just 
forgotten it. 

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Q. And just fix the, the person --who did you speak to 
on July 10th or llth that you recalled learning again, 

thinking it was for the first time, that Wilson's wife worked 

at the CIA? 

A. Tim Russert of NBC News, Washington Bureau Chief for 
NBC News. 
Q. And so we'll come back to that conversation in a, 
moment. 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Is it your testimony under oath that you don't I 
recall discussing Wilson's wife working at the CIA between the 
July 6th date when the Wilson's Op-ed appeared and your 
I 

conversation with Tim Russert? 

I 

A. That's correct, sir, but my --I don't really --I 
I 

don't recall discussing it. What I do.recal1 is being 

surprised when I talked to Mr. Russert on the 10th or the 

llth, and I am inferring from that surprise that I hadn't 
ltalked about it earlier in the week. I simply do not recall 

I 

any discussion early in the week about Mrs. Wilson. What I do 
recall is that I was surprised when I heard it from Mr. 
Russert. 

Q. Let me ask you this. Do you recall going to lunch 
on July 7th with Ari Fleischer? 
A. I do, sir. 
Q. Okay. And do you recall what you discussed over 
I I 

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lunch with Ari Fleischer? 

A. Yes, it had been scheduled for some time. Ari was 
leaving the White House. He was a friend, is a fr,iend. And 
we had decided we would get together for lunch before he left 
as sort of a good-bye lunch. And we discussed the Miami 
Dolphins, because we're both Miami Dolphins fans; we discussed 
his plans for the future, what he was going to do, work in New 
York, I think it was, or start a consulting-type firm if I 
I 

recall; and you know, it had been fun to work together; and we 

1 
probably also discussed the uranium business because it was a 
very hot topic at that point. I don't recall it as clearly as 
I do the Miami Dolphins and his plans for the future because 
that was the point of the lunch. 

Q. And in the discussion, discussing the uranium issue, 
do you know if you discussed Mr. Wilson? 
I 

A. I don't recall it, but I suspect we did because it I 
was a very --you know, that was just --now, but I don't 
recall it. 
Q. And on July 7th, do you recall if at the 6:45 
briefing in the morning you and the Vice President asking 
I 

Craig Schmall about Mr. Wilson and the circumstances of his I 
trip? 

A. I don't, but it makes sense because the article had 
come out the day before. 
Q. And do you recall if at the senior staff meeting at I 
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8:45 that day whether or not Karl Rove and others discussed 
\ 

that we needed to get a message out about Mr. Wilson, which is 
that the administration and the Vice President in particular, 
did not send him to Niger and that his report did not resolve 
the issue? 

I 

A. That sounds right. There was a day --I recall a 
I 

day or maybe two when Karl spoke about it at the senior staff 
meeting. In one of them, I made some notes about it. 

I 

dOn'tl 

recall the date, but that would --it was right in that day --

I 

it was within a day of that, if it wasn't that day. I 

Q. And are you aware that at 9:22 that day Cathie 
Martin, the Press Secretary, e-mailed Ari Fleischer with four 
talking points to get out --the talking points concerning the 
Vice President's position which included the fact that the 
Vice President didn't send Wilson to Niger? We can show you 
that e-mail, I believe, as an exhibit, and see if that 
refreshes your recollection that the Vice President's press 
II 
person was addressing this issue to Mr. Fleischer that day. 
MS. KEDIAN. Grand Jury, Grand Jury Exhibit 54. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 
Q. And 1/11 just read into the record, July 7th, 9:22, 
response to Joe Wilson. Four bullets. 
The Vice President's Office did not request the 
mission to Niger. 
The next bullet : The Vice President's Office was 
I1 

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not informed of Joe Wilson's mission. 

Next bullet: The Vice President's Office did not 

receive a briefing about Mr. Wilson's mission after he 

returned. 

Final bullet: The Vice President's Office was not 

aware of Mr. Wilson's mission until recent press reports 

accounted for it. 

A. Yes. 
Q. Do you, do you recall if you were aware of those 
talking points at the time, on July 7th? 
A. I don't know that I saw this e-mail, but those were 
our basic talking points that we tried to get out, and I 
recall that Ari some time that day, it might have been at the 
1 olclock, made a statement which covered these types of 
points. And so therefore, it's quite likely I talked to him 
about it at the lunch as well. 
Q. And I believe if we checked, it might be at 9:36 
I I 

that morning that Ari Fleischer, in a press gaggle, made the 
points that the Vice President did not request the trip, or 
know about it, or get briefed on the results. 

A. That actually sounds right, sir. 
Q. And thereafter, after the 6:45 briefing with the CIA 
briefer, and the senior staff meeting, and then Cathie 
Martin's e-mail, and Ari Fleischerls press gaggle, you then 
lwent to lunch with Mr. Fleischer about noon? I 

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A. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 
Q. And do you have any recollection as you sit here now 
discussing Mr. Wilson with Ari Fleischer? 

A. I don't, I don't recall it, but it's pretty --it --
you know, it makes sense and it's pretty likely. I just don't 
recall that, that part of the discussion with, with Ari. I 
think, if we were --as we were discussing uranium in that, 
period what I would be particularly concerned about was the 
NIE and what the, what the NIE had actually said because we 
I 

were still in a stage before, as I recall, before' Ari 
Fleischer came out and said it was a mistake to have the claim 
about uranium in the State of the Union. It was a big issue I 
as to whether that --this was a much bigger issue than the 
Wilson trip as to whether or not it was a mistake to have it 
in the State of the Union. And there was this NIE which had 
this assertion about the uranium. So I suspect that would 

I 

have also been my focus for a discussion with --

Q. And --
A. Sorry, sir. 
Q. Do you recall if you discussed Mr. Wilson's wife 
during the lunch with Ari Fleischer? 
A. I don't recall discussing the wife. Because I was 
surprised at the discussion a few days later with, with Tim 
Russert, I would think that we did not discuss the wife. I 
just --but I don't recall. 
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Q. And as you sit here today, you do recall that that 
was the day that Ari Fleischer addressed some questions about 
Mr. Wilson's article at the press gaggle. Correct? 
A. I've seen the transcript since then, so that's what 
I recall really. 
Q. And you recall that some time that day, but not by 
lunch time, Mr. Fleischer, or some time after lunch either 
that day or the next, Mr. Fleischer issued a statement 
indicating in effect that the President didn't stand behind 
the sixteen words. Is that correct? 
A. I recall from looking at the record that it was the 
7th that he made that statement, and that was the day I had 
the lunch. 
Q. And you recall that you had lunch with Mr. 
Fleischer? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And you recall discussing Mr. Fleischerls future. 
Correct? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And you recall discussing the Miami Dolphins. 
Correct? 
A. Yes, sir. I recall all that quite clearly. I had a 
lot of conversations during this period about this other stuff 
and I just don't recall it as distinctly as I only had one 
conversation about the Miami Dolphins in that period, so --
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Q. Do you recall telling Mr. Fleischer that WilsonO1s 
\ 

wife worked at the CIA in the Counterproliferation Division? 

A. No, I don't. 
Q. And is it possible that you told Mr. Fleischer 
during that lunch that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in the 
Counterproliferation Division? 
A. It's possible --well, I don't recall it and I 
recall being surprised by Russert. So I tend to think I 
didn't know it then, but that's all I actually recall. 
Q. Isn't it a fact, sir, that you told Mr. Fleischer 
over lunch that this was llhush-hushll 
or "on the q.t." that 
Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 

A. I don't recall that. 
Q. Do you recall discussing Mr. Wilson's wife's name 
with Mr. Fleischer? 
A. No, I don't think I knew it until the Novak article 
Q. And what do you recall Mr. Wilson's wife's name to 
be? 
A. From the Novak article, Plame. Valerie Plame. 
Q. And how would you pronounce it, in a hard A or in a 
French way? 
A. I guess just what I said, Plame, like blame, I 
guess. 
Q. Rhyming with blame? 
A. I guess, yeah. 
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I Q. And as you sit here today do you recall whether or 
lnot you discussed whether or not Mr. Wilson's wife worked in I1the Counterprolif eration Division? I 

A. I do not recall discussing Mr. Wilson's wife at all 
with Ari. All I recall is --from that week is the Tim 
Russert conversation. 
Q. So as you sit here today, it's your testimony that 
I 

prior to your conversation with Tim Russert you neither 
Idiscussed Wilson's wife's employment with either the Vice 
President or with Ari Fleischer, following the ~ul~ 

6th 

A. I'm sorry, my mind wandered. You're asking about --
could you repeat it? I'm sorry. 
Q. Sure. From July 6th up until the point when you 
spoke to Tim Russert, but not after, is it your testimony that 
you have no recollection of discussing Wilson's wife's 
employment at the CIA with either Vice President Cheney or Ari 
Fleischer? 
A. Yes, sir. In that period I have no recollectionl 
that's correct. 
Q. And do you recall discussing with Cathie Martin 
between July 6th and July 10th the fact that Wilson's wife 
worked at the CIA? 
A. No. As I say, when I heard it from Tim Russert, 
lwhich was on the 10th or the llth, I was surprised by what I I 
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heard, and that's all I really recall from that week. So.1 

'\ 

donl't recall any other discussion earlier in that week about 
it. 

Q. Prior to your conversation with Tim Russert, do you 
lever recall telling Cathie Martin that Wilson's wife worked at I 
the CIA? 

A. No, sir. 
Q. Prior to your conversation with Tim Russert on July 
10 or 11, do you ever recall a conversation where Cathie 
IMartin told you that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 

I 

A. No, sir. 
Q. And do you recall an occasion on or about July 8th 
where Cathie Martin came into the Vice President's Office with 
you present, and the Vice President, and indicated that 
Iwilsonls wife worked at the CIA, that she had learned that? 

I 

Q. Yes. 
A. I --again, sir, I don't, I. don't recall. What I 
recall --all my recollection on this point is hinged on my 
surprise when I heard it from Tim Russert and I'm inferring 
the rest from that. I don't recall much about the --anything 
about that subject in the week. What I recall from that week 
is being concerned to get the statement --a clear statement 
out from the CIA, the Agency, from Director Tenet, and there 
lwas a lot of discussion during that week, as you've probably I 

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seen,in my notes, and I was very much focused on getting the 
main part of the case out about whether --about what the CIA 
had told us in October and subsequently about uranium, and I 

Idonlt recall these discussions that youf re referring to. 

Q. And is it fair to say that this reason this became 
such a hot issue that week was the sort of the firestorm that 
came as a result of the July 6th Wilson Op-ed piece? Correct? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And just so we're clear, I understand what you J 
recall about your conversation with Russert, but the time 
period before that, are you telling this Grand Jury you have 
Ino recollection of having the conversation on any day that 
lweek in which Cathie Martin told you in the, in the presence 
lof the Vice President that Wilson1 s wife worked at the CIA? 

A. I have no recollection of that conversation. My 
lfirst recollection is Tim Russert telling me that. 
I Q. Now, do you recall a conversation in which Cathie 
Martin told you and the Vice President that Bill Harlow, the 

1public affairs person at the CIA, had been receiving calls 
f rorn Andrea Mitchell and David Mart in about the controversy 
about the State of the Union address? 

A. I recall that there were --that the CIA was 
Ireceiving calls from --yes, I recall something about that. I 
donf t recall the Cathie Martin part, but it makes sense that 
1it was Cathie that told us. 

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Q. And do you recall being instructed by the Vice 
President that you should call Andrea Mitchell and David 
Martin? 
A. It sounds right, sir, yes. 
Q. Do you recall calling Andrea Mitchell? 
A. Yes, I recall calling Andrea Mitchell and I recall 
calling David Martin. 
Q. And do you know how many times that week you spoke 
to Andrea Mitchell? 
A. My recollection is that I talked to her once about 
an incorrect report, and then after my phone call with Tim 
Russert I spoke to her again. I think on the second 
conversation, I'm not sure whether it was that week, or early 
the next week or some time the next week. 
Q. So you have two conversations with Andrea Mitchell. 
One before your Russert conversation and one after your 
Russert conversation? 
A. That's my general recollection, sir. 
Q. And do you recall the subject matter of the 
conversation you had with Andrea Mitchell before you spoke to 
Tim Russert? 
A. Yes. She had said something incorrect in one of her 
television appearances, and I was trying to correct that. 
Q. Do you know what it was that she said that had been 
incorrect? 
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A. There were two things being --in that period that 
people were saying incorrectly that touched on the Vice 
President's Office. One had to do with Halliburton. I think 
this had to do' with the Wilson claim that we had sent him, but 
I'm not sure. I'd have to see what --if I looked at what she 
said that week I might be able to figure it out. 
MR. FITZGEWLD. Okay. And why don't we show you 
the July 8th transcript of Andrea Mitchell speaking at 6:40 

p.m. 
MS. KEDIAN. Exhibit 55. 
(Long pause while witness reading) 
WITNESS. I think I see something here. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. Are you finished reading the article? 
Q. Something ring a bell when you read it? 
A. Yes, it says towards the bottom of the page here it 
Isays, .the White House blamed an October CIA report for I 
ignoring Wilson's information and not requesting the original 
documents in which the charge was based for more than a year." 
And this was not --two things, it was not right. I don't 
think anybody blamed the CIA for ignoring his information. In 
fact, I think he --the CIA had looked at his information, had 
found that it, as reported in the NIE in October, had found --

lin fact, far from ignoring it, they looked at it and found I 

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that it did not contradict the claim, and in fact supported 

1 

the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger. So 

--but phrased this way, that we blamed --that the White 
House blamed an October CIA report for ignoring the 

information, quite to the contrary. I think it was argued 
that the CIA had properly taken everything into consideration 
and it still concluded, as they said in the October NIE, whick 
was six months after Ambassador Wilson's report, had still 
concluded that there was good grounds, and in fact had 
concluded flat out that Iraq had begun to try, vigorously 
trying to procure uranium. So there wasn't a criticism of the 
CIA for ignoring Ambassador Wilson as she said. I think 
thought the CIA was right in how they evaluated it. But 
phrased like this, it would likely be a subject that got the 
CIA upset. 

Q. And is it fair to say that earlier in the transcript 
that Ms. Mitchell, who had been the person to interview Mr. 
Wilson on Meet the Press just two days before, had discussed 
Joseph Wilson in that brief TV segment, and also played a news 
clip from his Sunday TV appearance? 
A. Yes, it shows that here. 
Q. And do you recall, looking at that transcript, 
whether regarding his discussing Joseph Wilson and playing a 
clip, when you talked to Andrea Mitchell before you spoke to 
Russert, you talked to Andrea Mitchell about Joe Wilson? 
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A. I'm sorry, sir, I was --I was trying to look at the 
clip that you were referring to and I didn't hear your 
question. I'm sorry. 
Q. In your conversation with Andrea Mitchell, the first 
conversation that week which you recall happened before you 
spoke to Mr. Russert, do you know if you spoke to Ms. Mitchell 
about Ambassador Wilson? 
A. I think if I, if I spoke to her earlier that week 
this probably was the subject that I was speaking to, speaking 
to her about. I would have to be sure I --it would be better 
if I looked at everything she said that week, but I think this 
was probably it. It could also have been the Sunday show 
because I don't, I don't have the benefit of knowing what day 
I spoke to her on that --did you say it was the 8th or --
I Q. Well, she had --her appearance on TV was the 8th. I 

l~nd I believe if we look at some notes, we might be able to I 
locate, that the Vice President --there's an indication that 
the Vice President told you to speak to Andrea Mitchell on the 
8th. 

A. Well, that would have been before this broadcast 
then most likely. And this is a 6:30 --am I reading this 
right, it's a --
Q. Yes, it's a 6:30 broadcast.
I I 

A. So if it was during the day that day, maybe he was 
lreferring to an earlier thing, that's all I'm saying. I don't1 
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Q. Do you have any recollection of discussing 
Ambassador Wilson with Andrea Mitchell in that conversation 
you had, the first conversation that week? 
A. There was something Andrea said earlier that week 
that I think I discussed with her and I think that it was 
probably Ambassador Wilson, that was wrong. And it may not 
have been this one actually. This may be the one that I --I 
lalso complained to Tim Russert about something she had said, 
and maybe that1 s what this is, and maybe I was co'mplaining 
about something earlier. Maybe it was the Sunday show, I 
don1 t know. 

I Q. And do you know, do you have a recollection of 
whether or not you discussed Ambassador Wilson's wife when you 
lspoke to Andrea Mitchell during the conversation that week 
Ithat occurred prior to your speaking to Russert? 

A. I, I do not believe that I spoke to her about, about 
Ambassador Wilson's wife prior to my conversation with Tim 
Russert. 
I Q. And is that because it's your testimony that you 
don't believe you remembered at the time that you had learned 
labout Ambassador Wilson's wife the month before? 

A. Yes, sir. And I have no recollection of talking to 
lher about that at that point. She's a member of the press. 
JNO~
somebody in the White House, and that would have a 

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I separate impact on me and I just don't believe I did talkato 

1her 'about that. 

1 Q. And so you would have a more specific recollection 
if you spoke to a press person --

A. Ithink--
Q. --than if you spoke to someone in the White House? 
I --I think, yeah. 
A-

Q. Do you remember Bob Novak calling you on July 8th? 
I 
A. Calling me? 
Q. Yes. 
A. No, sir. 
Q. Do you know if you spoke to him at all prior to the 
l~ul~
14th column appearing under NovakJs byline? 

I A. No. I remember I had one conversation with Bob 
INovak in this period. My recollection of it is that when I 
spoke to him he had all of the basic facts that we have in our 
Icase, by which I mean the type of facts that Cathie Martin 
gave to Ari Fleischer that morning that the Vice President 
Ididnlt request the mission; the Vice President was not 
informed of his mission; that we did not --that the Vice 
l~resident did not receive a briefing about the mission after 

I

he returned, the Vice President nor I at the higher levels; 
land that the, the Vice President was not aware of the mission 
luntil later on, and what we saw was actually the NIE. I 
1recall that that type of points Mr. Novak had. I have a note 

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in my notes, which is dated in late July, that I spoke to 
Novak or something about Mr. Novak regarding uranium, and so I 
tend to believe that was when I had my conversation with Mr. 
Novak. But I don't recall --other than that, I can't fix the 
time of my conversation with Mr. Novak other than to think I 

1 

had only one, that's all I recall, and I have no recollection 
of talking to him about the wife --

I 

Q. Okay. Why don1 t I --
I 

A. --'Ambassador Wilson1 s wife, excuse me. 
Q. --why don't I show you the July 14th column by Mr. 
Novak which is marked as Exhibit --
MS. KEDIAN. One. 

I 

MR. FITZGERALD. - - 1. 

I 

WITNESS. Thank you. 

MS. KEDIAN. You're welcome. 

GRAND JUROR. Excuse me. Is it possible in a few 
more minutes we can do a bathroom break? 

MR. FITZGERALD. Sure. Is 2:15 okay? 

GRAND JUROR. 2:15 okay? That will work? 

GRAND JUROR. Yeah. 

GRAND JUROR. Okay, all right. 

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. Take a moment and read the column. (pause) While 
you're reading 1/11 tell you the questions I'm going to ask so 
I don't --
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A. Thank you. That would be helpful. 
Q. In reading this column, could you look to see if you 
believe you're the source for anything in the colurhn which 
would indicate that you spoke to Mr. Novak before July 14th. 
A. I was not the source for Mr. Novak, but I will read 
it as you instruct. 
Q. And I just meant the source either about Mr. 
Iwilson's wife or anything else in the column. I 
(Long pause while witness reading.) 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

I Q. Having read the column, anything in there remind you 
of anything you --any conversation you might have had with 
IM~.Novak prior to July 14th? I 

A. No. There's at least one thing in here that's wrong 
but it doesn't remind me of a conversation I had with him. 
l~ou know, in here he says there was a 1988 Iraqi delegation. I 
I understand that to be a 1999 Iraqi delegation, not '88. So 
much later. So I think that that fact in here is wrong. 
There's something else in here that strikes me as wrong but 
I don't --

I 
GRAND JUROR. Could you speak up? 
WITNESS. I'm sorry. 
GRAND JUROR. I'm having a hard time hearing you. 

WITNESS. I thought that there is something in the 

I I

1column which I believed to be wrong in that Mr. Novak reports I 

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105 
that there was an Iraq --that Ambassador Wilson reportedsthat 

I 

in 1988, Mr. Novak says, an Iraqi delegation had gone to Iraq 

(sic) to ask about uranium, and in fact my recollection of it 
was that it was 1999 that that delegation went, much closer to 
the period of the war. And then there was something else in 
here that struck me as wrong, but I don't believe I was the 
source for any of this so --

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. Do you have any recollection of speaking to Mr. 
Novak prior to July 14th about the substance of the State of 
the Union address, Mr. Wilson or his trip to Niger? 
A. I don't. If I could repeat what I said before. I 
recall that I talked to Mr. Novak --I recall it as one time. 
I recall it as having covered the basic points that were quiet 
useful, that you just took away, but the four points, I think, 
that were in that exhibit that you showed me before. 
Q. Okay. 
A. And I recall that he had all of those points. He 
basically talked to me is what I recall, more than my saying 
anything to him. He had all of this stuff. But I don't know 
when that was except there were some e-mails and things which 
lead me to believe, and my note leads me to believe that it 
was more like somewhere between, you know, July 25th and 28th. 
So 10 days to two weeks after the column, after this column 
appeared. 
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t 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. Why, why donr t we take the I 
break that we promised the Grand Jurors. So if you want to 
walk out first, Mr. Libby, and then we'll make sure that we 
can get you --
WITNESS. Sorry. 
MR. FITZGERALD. out the door. 
(Whereupon, the witness was excused at 2:16 p.m.) II 

(Whereupon, the witness was recalled at 2:31 p.m.) 
GRAND JUROR. I just want to remind you that you're 
still under oath. 
WITNESS. Thank you, sir. 
GRAND JUROR. You're welcome. 

I 

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

I 

Q. Now, sir, when we broke you had read the Novak piece 
and your recollection was that to the best of your memory you 
had spoken to Novak about the uranium, uranium/Niger 
I 

controversy July 25th to 28th, making reference to some notes 
you made about Novak. Is that correct? 

A. It --it's only the notes, sir, that give me a sense 
of when I spoke to him. I don't, I don't know otherwise. I 
know I talked to him once during this period. My note --I do 
have a note somewhere around the 25th or the 28th which 
indicates something about Novak and uranium, and there is 
subsequently some e-mails that I've seen so that indicates 
I 

that tome thatwas the time, because I only remember one conversation.1 

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Q. Okay. If you spoke to Mr. Novak during this period, 
I 

the time frame from July 4th --July 6th to July 14th, would 
that stick out in your mind? 

I 

A. Well, one conversation does stick in my mind. 
That's, that's all. So one, one does. 
Q. The conversation you described? 
A. Yes, I described a conversation and I don't know 
when it was in the period is what I'm trying to say. 
Q. Okay. Have you been a source for Novak in the past? 
A. I, I don't know --I don't think I was a source for 
Novak on this one, but I have not been --he's not somebody 1 
who calls me regularly. I see him sometimes at --you know, 
they have these humongous dinners in Washington where 
I 

everybody comes and I'd see him sometimes at those. I saw him 
once in '02, but he's not somebody who calls me regularly. He 
does occasionally call. 

Q. And have you at times given him information off-the- 
I 

record or on background to use in his column? 

I 

A. I've talkedtohimat times off-the-record, but not,I 
not --my recollection is not frequently, and I don't know --
I don't think I've ever intended to give him something for his 
column. You know, if you talk to him at a, at a social event, 
I'm not trying to give him something for his column. I don't I 
think I've ever called him, you know, as I will, as we'll be 
discussing later on, to --here's a message that we think I 
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America needs to know type of thing. 

'\ 

Q. Have you --so we're clear on that, have you ever 
had a conversation with Mr. Novak in which you wanted him to 
IIreport something in a column that you gave him? 

A. I don't, I don't recall that. I don't recall doing 
Q. Have you ever had a conversation which Mr. Novak 
asked you for information that he wanted to put in a column 
land you gave it to him? 

I A. Not --I don't think I've had one where he said thie 
is for a column. I think he has called me from time-to-time 
and presumably he was looking for something like that. And 
I'd seen him at these social events when he will sometimes 
talk about an issue of the day. I've always assumed those to 
be off-the --or said off-the-record to him on that stuff, so 
I've not intended to be a source for him on a column, that I 
recall. 

Q. Putting aside a social occasion where you see him at 
dinner and he says what do you think of X-topic, has he ever 
called you at your office asking for information where you 
understood that he wanted it for his column? 
A. Well, there were these calls that the e-mails 
reflect in July, and there probably were some calls earlier 
on. He's not someone I normally try and reach out to or I 
lnormally try and deal with. 

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\ 
Q. And my, my question was sort of the other way -
around. Not that --did you ever reach out to him but --
A. Hehas--
Q --did he reach out to you in a non-social context 
asking you questions about what's going on in the hopes that 
you will give him information or confirm something? 
A. Yes, sir, he has called sometimes. I don't recall 
exactly how frequently to talk to me and I have talked to him 
a few times. I don't think I talked to him a lot. 
Q. Have you ever provided information to him knowing 
that it would appear in a column? 
A. I don't think I've ever intentionally provided 
information for a column. 
Q. And I could show you --
'A. I think I've only talked to him off-the-record,for 
example, which is not supposed to appear in a column. 
MR. FITZGERALD. 1/11show you a phone bill which 
indicates on --I believe July 8th and July 11th Mr. Novak 
called you during that week. 
MS. KEDIAN. This is Exhibit 56. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 
Q. And since you know your number better than I, do you 
see your number? Do you see your number appearing on the 
phone bill? 
A. I see one here from the 8th for one minute at 4:46. 
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Am I reading this correct? Is that what you --

Q. Yes. 
A. I don't knowwhat 2369 is. That's not mynumber, is 
it? 456-2369, it's not my main number. And 833-899 is not my 
number. 
Q. We're looking at the four --
A. Yeah, I see two calls here. One --I should let you 
ask me. I'm sorry, sir. 
Q. Okay. Do you see any calls to your telephone number 
on the bill? 
A. The only number I recognize as mine is 456-9000 and 
I see them for July 11 and July 8, and they each look to be 
one minute long if I read this properly. 
Q. And do you know if you called him back in response 
to either of those calls? 
A. I don't think I did, but I don't know. As I say, I 
know there was one phone call with Mr. Novak. It was a call 
where I returned the call from him and I don't know when that 
call was, but I was assuming it was from the other period 
because that's when my note is. 
Q. Do you recall ever discussing with Mr. Novak 
providing him a time line of events regarding the State of the 
Union address which would discuss how the, how the process 
worked in preparing the State of the Union, State of the 
Union? 
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A. Time line? 
\ 

Q. Either in writing or orally describing to him the 
1time line in which events worked, describing how the State of 
the Union and other speeches were prepared? 

I 

A. I don't. 
Q. Is it possible you talked to Mr. Novak about 
providing a time line of what happened, in what order, in 
order to better explain how the State of the Union came to 
pass?
I A. In this time frame? 
Q. At any time frame. 
A. I don't recall any such discussion. I certainly 
don't recall it during this week when we were working 
lintensively on what Director Tenet would say in his statement 
or National Security Advisor Rice, although it ended up being 
a Director Tenet's statement. And I don't recall discussing 

lwith him a time line. It's a sort of --generally sort of 
harmless subject that I guess I could have and not remember 
but I can't recall it. 

I Q. Do you recall talking with anyone else in the 
administration about your seeking to provide information for 
a time line about the process by which the State of the Union 

Icame about? 

A. Oh, that could be. You mean someone in the 
1administration? 
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Q. Telling them that you --whether you should do this 
'\ 

for '~r 

. Novak. 

A. Oh. I don't, I don't recall discussing it with 
regard to Mr. Novak. Somebody else's phone call to Mr. Novak 
perhaps? 
Q. No, I'm saying whether you discussed, whether you, 
Mr. Libby, should give Mr. Novak an outline of a time line by 
which the State of the Union was created? 
I 

A. I don't recall that, but you know, it, it --
recall it. It could be but I don't recall it. 
I don't(I 
Q. Let me show you what has been marked as Grand Jury 
Exhibit 7. First, 1/11 ask you if you recognize the 
handwriting on those notes? 
A. It's not my handwriting. It, it might be Cathie 
Martin's handwriting. It's, it's in that ball --that type of 
writing. I don't know for sure. 
Q. You can assume for purposes of this that it is 
I 

Cathie Martin's handwriting. 

A. Yes, sir, I will. 
Q. And assuming that these are notes prior to July 
14th, do you see the reference to Bill Harlow? 
A. Yes, sir. 
I 

Q. And assuming there are notes from July 8th or prior, 
"CIA and DCI talked to VP about it today.n And then down I 
below, "Harlow, don1 t know anything on ambassador. We had I 
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stuff sensitive source," an arrow, and then what appears to be 

charge in Baghdad. You'll agree with me that charge is a 
French word for State Department-type person, ambassador 
official? 

A. Yes. That's a fair description, sir. 
I 

Q. And then beneath that, "married to a CIA agentM? 
And I asked you --looking at this, does this refresh your 
recollection as to whether or not Cathie Martin was discussing 
lwith you in periods prior to your conversation with Tim 
Russert the fact that the person who was involved in Iraq in 
Ithis trip to Niger is married to a CIA person and whether or 
not it refreshes your recollection on whether or not that was 
lbrought to the Vice President's attention during that week 
prior to your conversation with Mr. Russert? 

I A. It doesn't. May I finish reading the page? 
Q. Sure. 
(Long pause while witness reading.) 
A. Do you know what this word, "CIA 
--II 

Q. Folks? I would read it as folks. 
A. Folks? Orally --bottom lines goes something in a 
report? 
Q. Goes out --
A. "Goes out in a report." Quite right. It doesn't. 
I don't know about the "charge in BaghdadN line if that's what 
that is. 
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Q. Is it fair to say that Ambassador Wilson had been a 
I 
charge in Baghdad back in the first Gulf War and had attained 
some fame for the fact that --
A. Ye,s,sir, that's right, yeah, that's correct. I 

Q. And looking at a "sensitive source11who reported 
I 

that Niger official had nothing to do with the report, arrow, 
charge in Baghdad, married to a CIA agent? 

A. Niger official had nothing to do with report. There 
are a lot of Niger officials referred to in his piece. The 
one time he refers to a Niger official sort of uniquely is 
when the guy was saying that there was an attempt to purchase 
uranium. But this does not --I, I don't know when, if at 
all, she communicated this to me, but it doesn't change my --
what I said to you before that. I don't recall any discussibn 
I 

with Cathie prior to when I heard it from Russert, and my 
recollection that I was surprised when I heard it from 
Russert. That's --this doesn't change my recollection on 
that. 

Q. Do you remember speaking with a reporter named 
Judith Miller on July 8th? 
A. Yes, sir, I do. 
Q. And is she a reporter who had been imbedded with the 
forces over in Iraq? 
I A. She was in Iraq. I don't recall if she was imbedded 
lor not, but she was in Iraq doing reporting in Iraq. I 
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Q. And at the time in June of 2003 there was some . 
I 

controversy in the press about whether or not her journalistic 
credentials had been compromised by some people criticizing 

Ithat she was a mouthpiece of the administration, to put a 
blunt word on it? I'm not saying that's true or not, but was 
that criticism being made? 

A. I don't recall. I don't recall that but 1/11 take 
your word for it. 
I Q. Do you know if she did columns with her byline that 
Istopped appearing in June, July of 2003 for some time? 
A. I don't really. I did not notice that. 
Q. Do you know what occasioned your meeting with Juditk 
l~iller on July 8th? 
I A. Yes, I believe I had met with Judith Miller once 
I 
lbefore, or this was the first meeting, but I think she may 
have come to my office once before. She's a very --from my 
lpoint of view, responsible reporter who has had a long 
linterest in the biological warfare issue. She wrote a book 
about it called llGermsll 

with another fellow, Steve Engleberg, 

who I know. They had actually talked about me a little bit in 
Ithat book, but I had never met her. I talked to her, Steve 
Ilngleberg, and so I wanted to meet her because I think 

she's --she cares about the issue and really tries to 
lunderstand what's going on with the biological threat, you 
Iknow, that the threat that someone would use a biological 

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agent to attack America or other places. And so I had wanted 
to meet her. 
In --as we started to go through the week of July 
7, after the Wilson report, the Vice President thought it was 

lvery important that the NI --what was in the NIE become known 
publicly because the National Intelligence Estimate, the NIE, 
came out in October oE '02, as I mentioned earlier, six months 
after Ambassador Wilson's trip and had concluded that Iraq had 
tried to buy uranium from Niger, and this --the NIE is the 
consensus document of the committee, and this section of the 
NIE is quite straight-forward, Iraq vigorously began trying to 
procure uranium. So flat out statement which supports what 
the President said in the end in the State of the Union. And 
so we thought it was important that the NIE come out. There 
was also another document, and I guess1 need your guidance as 
to whether I can talk about that document. 

Q. Is it dated January 24th? 
A. That's correct, yes. 
Q. Just describe the January 24 document generically. 
A. Okay. The January 24 document had the exact same 

content as the NIE, word-for-word as the NIE, and also saying 
that Iraq had vigorously begun trying to procure uranium from 
Niger. And it listed a couple of examples, not just Niger but 
two other examples. And one of the examples, as I recall, is 
the 1999 delegation, or seems to be the 1999 delegation that 

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went to Iraq that Ambassador Wilson himself told the CIA 
about, according to this cable. 

So both in October of 2002, and in January 24, three 
days before the State of the Union, the CIA in writing sent tc 
the White House this consensus language which said Iraq had 
tried to buy uranium from Niger, the exact point that the 
President was making in the State of the Union. That's what 
the Vice President had seen. It's the only thing the Vice 
President had seen after the --Wilson went out on his trip 
six months after, and that at least was the primary thing he 
had seen. I don't know of anything else. And it was pretty 
definitive against what Ambassador Wilson was saying, and 
that's the way Director Tenet reports it on July 11 when he 
issues his public statement. So we thought it was important 
that Judy Miller, or somebody, report this. Now, I was 
unaware that she was actually not writing in this period and 
the Vice President instructed me to go talk to Judy Miller, to 
lay this out for her. And I said, that's a problem, Mr. Vice 
President, because the NIE is a classified document. And the 
Vice President said that he would talk to the President and 
get the President's approval for us to use the document. I 
had previously spoken to our General Counsel, David Addington, 
and our General --and ask our General Counsel, does the 
President have the ability if he wants to take any document 
and say it's declassified, go talk about it? And Mr. 

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Addington had told me, as our Counsel, that if the President 

\ 

says to talk about a document to the press, or publicly, it i 
declassified as of that moment, he has that power to do that, 
and he cited a case to that effect. The first time he told IT 
the case name, I forgot it. But I made a note and talked to 
the Vice President before July 8 and told him about this --
that I could talk to her about the NIE, but he would have to 
get the President to declassify it in effect before I could 
talk about it. Now, the NIE is --becomes officially 
declassified by the CIA and is actually disseminated publicly 
I think on July 18 or some time during that next week. But 
this was in advance while they were still working that 
process. The President came back to the Vice President and 
said, yes, it would be okay, or I should go talk to somebody, 
and I selected Judy Miller because I know her to be a 
responsible reporter. It was, I guess, a poor choice if she 
wasn't actually $writing in that period. But that was my --
that was who I went to talk to. 

The Vice President told me to talk to her. I 
forgotten exactly what day. I did not accomplish it right 
away. He came, he came back and said, you know, wait on that 
a --you know, a bit, and I waited. He then came back again 
from meeting with the President and said, go ahead and talk 
about it. And so I called Judy Miller up and went and had a 

ldiscussion with her. 

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Q. And just so we're clear and so the Grand Jury's 
clear, to the extent I referenced that there were, there were 
at least press reports indicating that she was not writing 
under her byline and some people had criticized her for her 
lack of objectivity, that's not all a statement that we're 
either one, interested in determining her objectivity or 
commenting on her cre,dentials. 
A. I understand. 
Q. ere's my question now. When --you indicated that 
there was efforts to declassify the NIE. correct? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. There was efforts at times to declassify the January 
24th report as well? 
A. The exact same content, so I don't, I don't know how 
that technically works when it's the exact same content. But 
the Vice President was of the view, and I was of the view, 
that both documents should --the public should have all of 
the documents basically because they were all useful for the 
public to have. 
Q. And was there also an effort to declassify the 
reports concerning the Wilson trip? 
A. There's only one report that I knew of which was 
the --report, I guess I should say that the CIA had issued, 
and yes, we also wanted that to be declassified. And I was 
told that that was declassified by the CIA although I don't 
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know that he's ever actually --they've ever actually issued 
it. 

Q. And when you had this conversation with Mr. 
l~ddington, do you recall where that conversation took place I 
about the law of declassification? 

A. I think actuallyit was in the corridor outside my 
office the first time, although I'm not sure. I went back, --
after he told me the fact and the case name, I later went back 
to him to get the case name again, just to make sure he was 
sure, and he gave me the case name and I wrote that down in my 
notes also. Navy versus Egan, I think it is. 
Q. Did you ever read the case? 
A. I did subsequently. 
Q. Did it appear to say what you thought Addington said 
'that it meant? 
A. Within reason, yes, sir. But Addington is very 
1solid on these things. ~ Q. And just so we're clear, David Addington is the 
~eneral Counsel to the Office of Vice President? Correct? 
A. Correct, sir. 
Q. And does he have experience particularly in 
intelligence matters? 
A. Yes, he does, sir. He worked on the --if I recall, 
on the Intelligence Committee, and I think he was Counsel --a 
Counsel at the CIA at one point, and he was, I believe, 
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IGeneral Counsel of the Defense Department at one point. 'so he1 
has --his specialty is national security law. 

Q. And can you recall what --in your conversation with 
IM~.Addington about declassification, do you recall if you 

I 

Idiscussed any other topics with Mr. Addington at the time? I 

A. Yes. I also discussed in that conversation or close 
I 

Ito that conversation,' the question of whether there was a' I 
contractual obligation for Mr. Wilson. You know, whether it 
1was normal for somebody as an agent of the --someone going I 
out on a mission for the Agency to be able to just talk about 
the mission, which he had done, or whether there was some --
you had to sign some agreement of some sort that you wouldn't 
be talking about it. And he told me that it takes all sorts 
of different forms. 

Q. And did you have a discussion with Mr. Addington in 
which the topic came up as to whether the President could 
ldeclassify a matter if the Director of Central Intelligence 

J 

decided not to do so? 

A. Mr. Addington said that the President has the 
1 I
absolute right to declassify whatever he wants to declassify. 

I Q. And did the issue of whether or not he could in 
leffect overrule the Director of Central Intelligence and 
I 

declassify something come up? 

A. No, he never told me that that was a qualification 
on the President's right to declassify. 
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Q. And maybe you misunderstood me. I'm not saying. 
\ 

there is. 

A. Oh. 
Q. Did you ask him whether or not the President could 
declassify, if the Director of Central Intelligence refused tc 
declassify? 
A. I said, does the President have the right to 
declassify no matter what? And he said, yes. That --those 
are not my words, but the point was, that the President had 
the absolute right to, to declassify something if he wanted tc 
declassify something. Yes, sir. 
Q. And did you have concerns during the week of July 
7th as to whether or not the statement that Director Tenet 
would ultimately issue, which came out on July llth, would be 
adequate to serve the interests of explaining the 
administration's position? 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. And did you --and in light of those concerns were 
you concerned about whether or not the July llth statement, or 
the Tenet statement, was inadequate, whether or not an effort 
would be made to declassify more materials by going to the 
President? 
A. Could you repeat the question? I didn't get it 
straight. 
Q. Did you discuss with Mr. Addington whether or not it 
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might be necessary to declassify additional materials beyond 
lwhatever George Tenet would put in his statement? 

A. No, we didn't discuss it in that context. At that 
point in the week it was my, my understanding that they 
were --the CIA was looking at declassifying all of this 
stuff. 
Q. And do you recall the circumstances of your 
Iconversation with Mr. Addington? Was it something that was --
you considered especially sensitive to discuss this with Mr. 

A. No, but it was --he understood it to be a serious 
question that required him to give a correct and serious 
lanswer. But it was, it was not somehow --it was nothing 
super-secret,as you said earlier, about it. 

Q. Do you know if you discussed it with him in a 
1 hallway or in an anti -room? Do you have a, do you have an 
office at the White House yourself? 

I A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. What do you use as an office at the White 
House? 
I A. I have anoffice, it's 236 or something. It's on 
the second floor. I have --I have one in the West Wing, a 
very tiny little office, and I have a bigger office in the 
Executive Office Building. 

Q. And where did this conversation with Mr. Addington 
I 

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Itake place? 

I 

A. I don't recall the --where the first conversation 
took place. The second one, when I went back to him to get 
the case name again, I guess there were three in that sense. 
The first time I raised it, and then he either answered me --
he answered me right there, I think. And then the 
conversation where he gave me the case name was in the 
corridor. But we had already discussed it. It was just that 
I wanted to get the case name. 
Q. Do you ever recall telling Mr. Addington to lower 
his voice, or to shush, or not to speak too loudly about this? 
A. Could be. No, I'm sorry, I don't, I don't recall 
specifically telling Mr. Addington to lower his voice. 
Q. You said it could be though. Do you have any 
recollection of telling him --
1 A. ~ctually, he's not that loud spoken a guy, so --but 
I don't recall it. 

Q. Now, getting back to your conversation with Judith 
Miller, did you talk about Mr. Wilson with Judith Miller, and 
his trip? 
A. I don't recall specifically discussing about 
Judith --with Judith Miller about Mr. Wilson, but I did --I 
do recall specifically discussing the NIE and as it relates to 
uranium, and therefore I'm pretty certain that I did discuss 
M Wilson's trip at the same time because of how it fits in. I 
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I just don't recall the details of it in that way. 

( 

Q. And do you know if you discussed Mr. Wilson's wife 
and her employment with Ms. Miller? 
I A. I do not believe I discussed Mrs. --Mr. Wilson --
Ambassador Wilson's wife in this conversation with Ms. Miller. 

Q. And is it also your testimony that your belief was 
lat the time of the Judith Miller conversation you did not 
Irecall what you had learned about Wilson's wife working at the 
I It is, sir. But I recall this was, this was a 

A. 
couple days before I talked to Tim ~ussert and I recall being 
surprised by what Tim Russert told me. 

Q. And do you recall on July 9th' which would be the 
Wednesday following the Novak, Novak --Wilson Op-ed 
appearing, do you recall a morning meeting that was chaired by 
Stephen Hadley at the White House? 
A. There are many --I don't recall July 9th in that 
sense. Could you give me more about the meeting? 
I Q. 
A. 
Do you recall that --
He chairs lots of meetings. I'm sorry. 
Q. Do you recall a circumstance in which Mr. Hadley was 

langry that some White House officials had evidently spoken to 
Andrea Mitchell and to David Martin and he indicated that 
George Tenet was very upset by what had appeared on the TV the 
night before in terms of David Martin's broadcast and Andrea 

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Mitchell's broadcast? 

A. Yes, sir, I do recall that. 
Q. And do you recall him looking at Claire Buchan and 
Cathie Martin during that conversation as if --his belief 
that they might be responsible? 
A. It's --I don't recall that, but it's possible. 
Q. And do you recall --was that the day following your 
conversation with Andrea Mitchell? Had you spoken to Andrea 
Mitchell and David Martin the day before Mr. Hadley expressed 
1 I

his concern about their press coverage? 

A. It could be. I don't know the dates. I did speak 
to them. I don't remember the dates on which I spoke to them, 
or, or what the details were. 
Q. Do you remember when Mr. Hadley was angry about 
people speaking to those reporters, if you recall sitting 
I 
there at the time thinking, I just spoke to those reporters? 
A. That could be. Yes, sir. I, I do recall a 
Iconversation like that. Yes, sir. 
Q. Do you know if you told Stephen Hadley, the Deputy 
I 

National Security Advisor --Deputy in charge of NSC, that you 
had spoken to Andrea Mitchell or David Martin? 

A. I don't recall if I told him. I don't, I don't know 
that I told him. 
Q. And do you recall whether or not Cathie Martin came 
to the Vice President's Office and told him in your presence 
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that Stephen Hadley was angry and thought that she had been 

'\ 

the one speaking to the reporters, Mitchell and Martin? 

A. I, I think I do recall that. Yes, sir. 
Q. Okay. What do you remember about that? 
A. About that, that she was --that there was this 
I 

conversation, that Hadley was upset, reporting that 
Secretary --that Director Tenet was upset. This rings a bell 
with me. 

Q. And do you recall having to take any action as a 
result of the fact that Hadley was upset with Claire Buchan or 
with Cathie Martin? 
A. No. 
I 

Q. Were either Claire Buchan or Cathie Martin excluded 
from any contacts with the Agency that week? 
I 

A. Cathie Martin --I don't know about Claire Buchan. 
Cathie Martin was restricted from it --I don't recall it 
being for that reason, but the state --the Tenet statement 
became very close hold as it was being worked, and the boss 
kept it very small. 
Q. And do you recall on July 9th Steve Hadley 
indicating at a meeting that we need to do something about I 
Wilson now, we need to discredit him? 
A. To discredit him? 
Q. Yes. 
A. I don1 t recall that particular phrase, but I'd have ( 
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Ito look in my notes. I was at meetings, there were a lot of I 
meetings in that period and I'd have to check my notes. 
Q. Forgetting whether the word "discreditHwas used --
A. Uh-hum. 
Q --do you recall the concept coming across from 
Stephen Hadley that we need to do something about Wilson now, 
or we need to discredit him, forgetting what words he used? 
A. Yes, we definitely were interested in getting the 
Tenet statement out to refute what Ambassador Wilson was 
saying. So if you had said "discreditwhat he is saying," 
there was lots of effort to get a statement out to discredit 
what he was saying. I just don't recall whether Steve Hadley 
used, used words about discrediting him personally as opposed 
to what he was saying. We were definitely trying to get out a 
statement. As I say, there was a debate whether it would be 
from Dr. Rice or from Director Tenet to discredit what he was 
saying because the record was actually quite good that what he 
was saying was not accurate, so we wanted to get that out. 
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MR. FITZGERALD. Let me show you what has been 

I~ates Stamped as 1747. 

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MS. KEDIAN. This will be Exhibit 58. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 
Q. And we'll deem that an exhibit again, just to make 
sure the classification level is correct. 
A. Thankyou, sir. 
Q. And if you look down --1'11 point to you on the 
page 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Do you, do you see what appears --is this your 
handwriting? 
A. Yes, sir, it is. 
Q. Do you see --
A. Or most of it is. Some of it is not. 
Q --senior staff? 
A. Yes. 
Q. That say, uranium story? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Can you --why don't you just read that line across? 
A. Uranium story is becoming a question of the 
President's truthworthiness (sic). Lead all new. Probably, 
"leads all the newsM is what I was saying. It's turning to a 
process story is what the thought was, I believe. And then it 
has Mr. Rove at the senior staff meeting saying, l1nowthey 
have accepted Joe Wilson as credible expert?" "We're one day 
late with getting CIA write response," I think that's what 
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1 it --
2 Q. Okay. Fair to say at the senior staff meeting, 

3 lthere was concern expressed that this is a question going to I 
the trustworthiness of the President at this point? 

A. Yes,sir. 
Q. And there's a question here that's leading all the 
news, and Rove is complaining that Mr. Wilson is being taken 
as a credible expert? 
A. Yes, sir. 
10 Q. Fair to say that there was an effort to undermine 
11 his credibility as an expert? 
12 A. I don't know about that. My view was that we could 
13 get the facts out about what he had done, that would be more 
14 than sufficient because the record was very clear about what 
15 he had done and hadn't done, and that the CIA had not accepted 
16 what he had done as, as refuting the point. So I don't know 
17 that there was an effort to undermine him as a credible expert 
18 for what he did. But that --
Q. Well, in the effort to undermine the story were 
l9 

1 I 

20 people going around saying, let's undermine his story but 
21 let's be very careful not to hurt him? 
22 A. I never heard that. 

1 Q. And is it fair to say that there was a considerable 
23 

24 degree of frustration at this point --we're now in day --
25 this is, I believe, July --

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MS. KEDIAN. I think it's the 8th --
MR. FITZGERALD. --the 8th --
MS. KEDIAN. --I believe. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 
Q --or the second day in on that week --
A. Yes, sir. 
Q . --two days of the Wilson story out there, Rove says 
we're a day late in getting responses to the story. This is 
going right to the President's trustworthiness and people want 
to set the President's record straight. 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Now, do you recall an effort being made to push back 
against Wilson's credibility that week? 
A. Yes, I recall the effort being made to get --we 
made a lot of effort that week to get the CIA Director or Dr. 
Rice --as I say, it was initially not clear how it would be 
done, to issue a statement which would set the record straight 
about what Ambassador Wilson had said, and what he had found 
and not found, and the Agency had not found it to disprove the 
President's statement, and in fact found it to support the 
President's statement. The irony to all this was that if you 
read Ambassador --when the CIA read Ambassador Wilson's 
cable, they thought the first part of it, as Director Tenet 
made clear at the end of the week, didn't disprove much at 
all. The first part of Ambassador Wilson's cable, he had --
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I the cable about what he had said --Ambassador Wilson had gone 
to the government of Niger and said, I'm going to tell the 
United States government what you tell me. Did you in effect 
sell uranium to the number one enemy of America in the world 
which might use it to make an atomic bomb that might be used 
to threaten America? And a Nigerian official said, why no, 

we

l 

didn't do that. And I think the CIA found, as Director Tenet 

I 

said on the llth, that there's only so much credibility you 
can add to that because it would be amazing if they said, yes, 
we did do that. 

The second part of what Ambassador Wilson's report 
said was that in fact a delegation had come from Iraq to talk 
to the Nigerians, Nigerians, I think it1 s pronounced, as --to1 
see if they would sell uranium to Iraq or that's how the Niger 
official interpreted it. So, in fact, his cable was not taken 
by the CIA to disprove that Iraq had gone, as Director Tenet 

I 

himself says on July llth when he finally issues his 
statement. And in fact, there was evidence in the cable, 

I 

which was directly contrary to what Ambassador Wilson was 

I 

saying he had --to telling America he had found which was 
there was no attempt to procure uranium. And so if you could 

I 

just get that story out, maybe said better than I just said 
it, it would be pretty clear that Ambassador --what 
Ambassador Wilson was saying didn't hold water in that he 

I 

hadn' t disproved it and his report wasnl t definitive, and the I 

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CIA had considered it and had still, six months later, issued 
an NIE, highest level of intelligence they have, which said 
Iraq did not try to procure uranium. So there was a strong 
attempt by us to get that --get those facts out. 

Q. Is it fair to say though that the sound bite you 
I took away from Karl Rove is they1 re now accepting Joe Wilson 
as a credible expert? Correct? 

A. Yestsir. 
Q. And is it fair to say that many would think that if 
Joe Wilson were hired because of nepotism, because of a 
contact he had at the Agency, that might 'undermine his 
credibility as an expert? 
A. Some people may have taken it that way. That was 
never --what I took out of it, the wife working there, 
Ambassador Wilson's wife working there, because what he did he 
was perfectly competent to do. What he did was he went and he 
sat down with the people from Niger and said, hi, I'm here, 
I'm going to talk to the United States government, as he says 
in an article, he sat down and had tea with them and asked 
them what they had done or hadn't done, and ambassadors do 
that all the time. So I thought he was very competent to do 
that mission. 
Q. Sir, are you telling us under oath that you never 
thought that Mr. Wilson was hired because of nepotism? 
A. I didn't know why he was hired and I did not know at 
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136 
this point, I think I had forgotten exactly how he came --or 

\ 

I don't think I knew how he came to be hired at this point. I 
think that came out with the Rove report. What I, what I had 
known but forgotten at that point was that his wife worked at 
the division, but I didn't know at that point that his wife 
had anything to do with hiring him as far as I can recall. 
And on this day, July 8, as I've, as I've tried to make clear, 
the best of my recollection is that I was surprised when I 
learned from Russert that his wife worked there. So I think I 
had forgotten it. That's what I, what I think. But the, 
the --I'm sorry. 

Q. I just want to talk --I'm, I'm focused on what you 
I I 

thought of Mr. Wilson and not something else. 

I Q. And you're clear in your mind that you weren't 
telling Ari Fleischer over lunch the day or two before that 
Ilook, here's some information that's hush-hush or on the q.t..l 
Wilson's wife works at the CIA? 

A. I'm, I'm --I don't recall discussing that with, 
with Ari Fleischer at lunch. I'm sorry, I just don't recall 
it. Sorry to keep saying this. But all I recall is that I, I 
recall being surprised on the 10th when I spoke to Tim 
Russert. 
Q. And we'll, we'll get to that conversation in a 
I I

moment. 

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I A. Yes, sir. Can I just say one more thing about this 
Inote? These are short --my shorthand notes. It, it doesn't 

mean it's exactly what he said. He probably spoke in some 
lgreater length. This is just what I took down as a flavor of 
lit to relay back to my boss, to the Vice President. 

MR. FITZGERALD. Let me show you a document Bates 
Stamped 2906 from, I believe, July loth, and I believe they're 
lyour notes, but 1/11 show them to you to check. The originals 

I 
if you have them. 
MS. KEDIAN. The originals, sure. 
MR. FITZGERALD. I can find it. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

I Q. Looking at what we'll deem marked as Grand Jury 
I 
Exhibit No. --
MS. KEDIAN. Fifty-eight (sic) . 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

--58, those are your notes from July loth? 

I Q. 

Q. Does that indicate --
MS. KEDIAN. Excuse me, 59. 
I I 

BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

I I 

Q. --59. Does that indicate a meeting between you, 
the Vice President and Stephen Hadley? 
I 
I I

Q. And then down below, is that an attribution, the 
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firs: one, to Stephen Hadley? I A. Yes, sir. I 
Q. And then l1SHU,and then it has a colon, and it has 
"MCL". Is that referring to McLaughlin? 
A. Yes, sir. I 
Q. And is that Hadley quoting Deputy Director of 
Central Intelligence John McLaughlin? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Colon, quoted GT. Is that McLaughlin quoting George 
Tenet? 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. Okay. So is it fair to say that you're with the 
Vice President --
A. Yes. 
Q --and Stephen Hadley? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Hadley is reporting back to you guys what McLaughlin 
is saying that George Tenet is saying? 
A. Full credit, sir. 
Q. Okay. And then during this time you guys are trying 
to get Tenet to make a good statement that will sort of take 
this issue out and restore the President's credibility? I 
A. Absolutely, sir. 
Q. Fairly tense time? I 
A. Yes, sir. I 
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Q. Okay. Now, it says, "Wilson is declassified"? 
\ 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Is that to you an indication that the report on 
Wilson was declassified? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And then what does the next sentence say? 
I A. "We haven't started to declassify NIE." And then 
ISteve Hadley started to say something which I didn't have time 
Ito write down. 
I Q. AndthenextattributionisthatHadleyquoting 
ICondi Rice? 
Q. Okay. And what does that say? 
I A. "Spoke to President, he's comfortable." 
I Q. And does that indicate despite the stress of the 
ltime that the President is okay with --so far with how things 
are going? 

A. It's not clear to me what. There's a space missing 
there --
Q. Okay. 
A. --and I probably didn't write something down. I 
left a space to go back and I probably never got --I never 
got back to it. So --these things look sort of like a 
transcript but they're not really because there could be long 
lmoments when I don't write anything down. So she was saying I 

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the President was comfortable about something, but I don't 

know what the antecedent was to --

Q. And the next line? 
A. Says --this is Steve Hadley saying, no question, 
it's better if we leak the NIE. 
Q. What does that mean? 
A. Steve Hadley is saying that it would be better if we 
got the NIE out, and "leak" means telling it to --giving it 
to a reporter to say, you know, here's something you can write 
about. It's like an exclusive or something like that. 
Q. And had the NIE been declassified at that point? 
A. It had in the sense that the President had told me 
to go out and use it with Judith Miller. I don't, I don't 
know that Mr. Hadley knew that at that point. 
Q. Okay. And did anyone decide to leak the NIE that 
week? 
A. Well, the President had told me to use it and 
declassified it for me to use with Judith Miller. I don't 
think Mr. Hadley was told to go out and talk about it. I 
think Ms. Rice had talked about the NIE in general earlier in 
the week on television. 
Q. And so --
A. Well, some time. I'm not sure when it was. 
--so prior to July 10th you had talked to Judith 
Q-

1~iller about the NIE? I 

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I A. Correct, sir. I 

Q. And your understanding is that even though it was a 
classified document the President had authorized you to talk 
to her about it? 
A. Definitely, sir. 
Q. And then --and do you know if anyone decided to 
I I 

lshare the NIE --did you tell Mr. Hadley at the time that you 
had already in effect leaked the NIE by --with the 
President's approval by telling --Judith Miller? 

A. I --yeah, I don't know if it's leaking once it's 
declassified and you're told to do it. I had talked to Judith 
Miller about the NIE at the President's, you know, at, at the 
IPresident's approval relayed to me through the Vice President, l 
and I did not tell Mr. Hadley at that time. 
Q. And was there any reason why you didn't tell Mr. 
l~adle~
that you had told Ms. Miller about the NIE? 

A, I was sitting with the Vice President. The Vice 
President knew it and chose not to tell Mr. Hadley and so I 
didn't change what he had done. 

Q. NOW--
A. And then there's a comment below it from the, from 
the Vice President. 
Q. Yes? 
A. Should I read that for you? 
Q. Sure.
I I 

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A. He says, "anything less than full and complete 
disclosure is a serious mistake." And Steve Hadley says, "I 
will --I told that to George Tenet." So the Vice President 
is pushing it. He does on a number of these things, get all 
of this stuff out. Letts have every --it's a good story, 
tell it all, get all these documents out to the public. 
Q. Okay. And 1/11 deem this marked, and we'll take 
back custody of it. Fair to say that you went through the 
notes and there's a number of times where the Vice President 
during that week has said you need to get everything out? 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. Tell the whole story. The whole truth has to get 
out. Anything less than that is a big mistake? 
A. Yes, sir. That's exactly what we wanted to do. 
Q. And that was a constant thing that week? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And the Vice President, to be, to be blunt, was 
frustrated that it wasn't all getting out there and it wasn't 
sort of putting the story to rest, and he was sort of getting 
ticked off that we needed to resolve this issue? 
A. I'm not sure I would use the word "ticked off", but 
he was frustrated. Yes, sir, that's a fair, fair statement. 
And thi,s --the statement from Director Tenet was supposed to 
come out --first it was going to be, I think, Tuesday night, 
and then it was going to be Wednesday night. It took a long 
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time to get this statement out. It was useful when it did 
come out, but it took too long to get it out. People were 
saying, you know, "get it outM. 

Q. Now, tell me about the circumstances of your 
conversation with Mr. Russert. 
A. Chris Matthews, who is an NBC correspondent, had 
been --has a TV show at night, and he is a rather outspoken 
fellow. And he was saying on this television show that the 
Vice President sent Joe Wilson out on this mission, that the 
Vice President got a report back from Joe Wilson on this 
mission, that the Vice President therefore knew that the 
uranium report was false and should have stopped the President 
from putting it in the State of the Union. And I believe he 
said it both on the night of the 8th, the night of the 9th, 
and he was saying this even though the White House Spokesman 
had come out, the Office of the Vice President had come out 
and the CIA spokesman had come out, all of them had come out 
on the public record and said, the Vice President did not ask 
for this mission, he did not get a report back, the report 
wasn't definitive and the intelligence was actually the other 
effect. So Mr. Matthews was saying these things on national 
television, ignoring the public record, and not even referring 
to the public record. It would be one thing if he says, now, 
the White House has denied this, and the CIA has denied it, 
and the Office of the Vice President has denied it, but I'm 
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telling you nonetheless that the Vice President asked for this 
report, but he wasnl t doing it. He was just saying flat out 

that, that the Vice President had known this, and should have 
told the President. Otherwise --and me also, me by name. 
And so this was frustrating to us and we wanted to get him to 
acknowledge that the public record was other than he was --as 
he was saying. This wasn't the first time Chris Matthews had 
said something negative about, about the White House, and I 

I 

had prior discussions about this with Mary Matalin who was for 
the first two years, as I mentioned, lo these many hours ago, 
had worked for the Vice President as our communications 

I 

person. And so I called Mary to find out what she thought we 
could effectively do to try and get Mr. Matthews to 
acknowledge the public record and to stop saying these things 
in such an unqualified and incorrect fashion. I reached Mary 
by phone and she had her own view of where we were and relayed 

to me in depth her view of where we were. And --but also in 
the course of it said, look, the thing for you to do is to 
call Tim Russert and she gave me his phone number which I 
I 
wrote on my notes which I turned over to you guys. And so I 
called Tim Russert. Want me to continue? 
Q. 
A. 
Yes. Actually, before we --yes, continue. 
Okay. So I called Tim Russert. I can't recall I 

whether I got him on the phone right away or whether he had to 
call me back. When I eventually spoke to him --this note 

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with Mary Matalin is dated on the loth, and I think I called 

Mr. Russert sort of lateish on the loth, either late afternoor 

or early evening and went through --I, I got him on the 

phone, we had some --we have mutual friends in common, I'd 

known him a little bit over the years, and then I, I didn't 

want to take up much of his time, and I turned to our issues. 

And I said, I had two things that were bothering me. One is 

that some things that Andrea Mitchell was saying, and I think 

that may have been the comment on the 8th that we referred to 

before, but it might have been something earlier, but I said 

that, I'm not really calling you tonight about what Andrea 

Mitchell is saying. I'm calling you about what Chris Matthews 

is saying. And then I ran through for him what it was that 

Chris Matthews was saying and why it was wrong and on the 

public record wrong. That it seemed to me good reporting, he 

at least had to say that the White House has denied this, the 

CIA has denied this, the Vice President's office has denied 

this. And Mr. Russert said --after he got the facts about 

it, I am unclear, I apologize but I'm unclear as to whether he 

then said, 1/11 have to call you back, but I think he said, 

11/11 have to call you back. And I think then there was a 
delay and then a second phone call with Mr. Russert . 

What 

labout to tell you is either in the second phone call, or if I 
Ilthere was one phone call it was in the first phone call, I 
I( 
just don1 t recall. I --my sense of it is that there was a 

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delay, a sort of longish delay which I was uncomfortable with. 
I think the second phone call was on the --that there was a 
second phone call and it was on the 11th because it was a long 
delay. In any case, it was longer than I anticipated it would 
be for him to get back to me is my recollection. In any case, 
one of these two times we had a fuller conversation in which 
he told me, you know, he understood what I was saying, that 
there wasn't much he could do about what Chris Matthews was 
saying. He understood that it was not complete given that the 

I 

public record was the other way. And then he said, you know, 
did you know that this --excuse me, did you know that 
Ambassador Wilson's wife works at the CIA? And I was a little 
taken aback by that. I remember being taken aback by it. 

And

l 

I said --he may have said a little more but that was --he 

I 

said that. And I said, no, I don't know that. And I said, 
no, I don't know that intentionally because I didn't want him 
to take anything I was saying as in any way confirming what he 
had said, because at that point in time I did not recall that 
I had ever known this, and I thought this is something that he 
was telling me that I was first learning. And so I said, no, 

I 

I don't know that because I want to be very careful not to 
confirm it for him, so that he didn't take my statement as 
I 
confirmation for him. 
Now, I had said earlier in the conversation, 
which II 

omitted to tell you, that this --you know, as always, Tim, 

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1 our discussion is off-the-record if that's okay with you, and 
2 he said, that's fine. 
3 So then he said --I said --he said, sbrry --he, 
4 Mr. Russert said to me, did you know that Ambassador Wilson's 
5 wife, or his wife, works at the CIA? And I said, no, I don't 
6 know that. And then he said, yeah --yes, all the reporters 
7 know it. And I said, again, I don't know that. I just wanted 
8 1to be clear that I wasnl t confirming anything for him on this. I 
9 And you know, I was struck by what he was saying in that he 

10 thought it was an important fact, but I didnrt ask him anymore 
about it because I didn't want to be digging in on him, 
and he

I 

12 1then moved on and we finished the conversation, something like 1 

I Q. How did the --just focusing on your complaint about 
l4 
Chris Matthewsf coverage, how was that resolved in --
l5 

1 

A. Oh, it was --sorry. 
I 

Q. --the second conversation, if there was a second 
171 
18 conversation, or the latter part of a long conversation? 
19 A. He said, you know, there's nothing I can really do, 
20 you're going to have to talk to his producer. And so in 

I 

short, I struck out trying to get Mr. Russert to intercede. 

21 

1 

22 As the Bureau Chief for NBC News I was hoping he would 
intercede with Chris Matthews and say, you know, this isn't 

23 

I I 

24 right, and this is NBC, you know, we have our standards and 
25 you shouldn't say these things if there's public denials on 

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the record. You should at least report them and I was hoping 
he would intercede with Mr. Matthews and get him to hopefully 
stop saying it at all, but at least put out our denials, the 
White House, and the CIA'S, and the Vice President's denials, 
but he was unwilling or unable. In any case, he didn't do 
that. He said we should call his producer. 

Q. And I assume when you said his producer, you mean 
Chris Matthewst producer? 
A. Yes, thank you, sir, yes. 
Q. And did he give you the name of the producer? 
A. He did, yes. 
Q. Do you remember what the --the producer's name? 
A. I have a note somewhere. I think it's Shapiro, I 
think. 
Q. Did you actually call the producer? 
A. Not that night, no, sir. 
Q. Okay. What happened? Did you eventually call the 
producer? 
A. I think --I did not. I think we asked someone from 
the White House Press shop who knew the producer to call the 
producer. 
Q. And do you know who that person was from the Press 
shop that called --
A. I think it was Adam Levine we asked to call. 
Q. And did he achieve success, Mr. Levine? 
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A. No, I don't think he did. This conversation, as8 I 
recall it, was as I say, was late the 10th or I think more 
likely the 11th. The 11th was the day that George Tenet's 
statement came out and I had some, turns out vain hope, that 
when Director Tenet came out and said Vice President Cheney 
didn't know about this report, we didn't circulate a report tc 
him, the CIA on its own initiative was the one who asked for 
the mission, and that the report that we got back from 
Ambassador Wilson was not definitive, and in fact that there 
was evidence in the report that Iraq had sought uranium from 
Niger. I thought all those facts, I was hoping, would temper 
what Mr. Matthews was saying. I think the very --that was or 
Friday night. The following Monday night he was still saying 
the same thing, and so I think --against what we hoped. So 
on Tuesday, I think, we spoke to Mr. Levine and asked him to 
call, but I don't think we had any luck. 
GRAND JUROR. Mr. Fitzgerald, just five minutes, if 
we could stand up and stretch a little bit? 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay, sure. 
GRAND JUROR. Okay? 
MR. FITZGERALD. Can it be two minutes? Just a --
GRAND JUROR. Two? Okay. Two and a half, five? 
MR. FITZGERALD. I mean, do you need five minutes 

to stretch or do you mean, in five minutes to stretch --
GRAND JUROR. Well, can we stretch now for five 

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150 ' 

minutes? 

MR. FITZGERALD. Sure. 

GRAND JUROR. Okay. A little water, whatever. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. If you could just step out 

and we'll step out for five minutes. 

I 

(Whereupon, the witness was excused at 3:29 p.m.) 

I 

(whereupon, the witness was recalled ,at 3 :40 p.m. ) I 
GRAND JUROR. I just want to remind you, Mr. Libby, 
that you're still under oath. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

A. Thank you. 
Q. No problem. 
I 

MS. KEDIAN. Exhibit 60. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. And again, we'll deem that as an exhibit, and if we 
need to --deem it marked as an exhibit. If we need to place 
it before the Grand Jury, we'll verify that all the sections 
are appropriate. 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. Is that --are those are your notes from July loth 
and a telephone conversation you had with Mary Matalin? 
A. They are indeed, sir. 
Q. Okay. And you mentioned earlier that she had given 
you Russert' s telephone number. Would that be listed at the I 
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top of the page? 
\ I 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And what's under MM, is that the time of the call? 
A. No, I think that says not, 6:15 to 7:15. And I I 
think what she's telling me --she's telling me not to call 
somebody between 6:15 and 7:15. I think it's actually 
probably Russert that she's telling me not to call in that 
period. And if that's the case, I wrote it in the wrong 
place, but that's what I think it is. It might be her but --
Q. Okay. And below that does it say, re Niger, Niger -
-
A. Yes. 
Q --and go broad? 
A. Yes. 
Q. There was other evidence --
A. No, I'm sorry, other countries. 
Q. Countries? 
A. Yes. 
Q. And is that H is a bad guy? Is it Hussein? 
A. Yes. 
Q. Does it say something --well, why don't you just I 
read that sentence? 
A. Yes. It says, "go broad, there were other 
countries, Saddam Hussein is a bad guy, this is feeding into 
the Democrats' case that Bush's credible --credibility I 
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something, keep saying our story." And she says, Ifwe need. 

\ 

someone who can sum it up, Tenet-like1! If I can editorialize 
for a second? 

Q. Sure. 
A. She, she did not know at this point that we were 
working on the Tenet statement very hard trying to get a Tenet 
statement out, and I don't tell her in this conversation, I 
I 

don't believe. So she's saying, we've got to get somebody out 
there and while she's saying that we're struggling mightily to 
get this statement out, but I didn't tell her that because I I 
didn't know if I was supposed to, as I recall. 

Q. If you could skip to the first box --
A. Yes, sir. 
I 

Q. --and just transliterate what's there? I 
A. She says --this is Mary Matalin again saying, "get 
the New York Times, Sanger or someone, to expose Wilson's 
story, give it to them. l1 
Q. And the next box? 
A. "Story has legs. Fits the Democrats theory for the 
campaign,ll similar to what she said above, "will not go away,ll 
the Democrats and then something that doesn't I didn't 
finish. I 
Q. And then the next sentence? 
A. 
Q. 
"Need to address Wilson motivation." 
And the next sentence? 
II 

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I A. "We need to get cable out declassified, President I 
lshould wave his wand." This is referring to the notion that 
'he could declassify anything he wants, if he says so, that's 

what she means by wave --he should wave his wand, meaning he 
1should use his power to declassify anything. I 

Q. Akd the next sentence? I 
A. l1Call Tim. He hates Chris.I1 That refers to Chris 
1 I 

Matthews. "He needs to know it all. He needs to know the 
whole story and that Chris Matthews is not getting it right." 
This is in relation to my request to her which is what spurred 

I 

lthe phone call. How do we get Chris Matthews to stop saying 

I 

these things without at least reporting our denials and 

I 

lpreferably just stop saying these things because they're I 
wrong? 

Q. And then there's two parentheticals down below, one 
and two. Could you read what one says? 
A. One says, -
Q. And the second one? 
A. The second one says, "consider judgment of the I 
/intelligence community was that they, meaning the Iraqis were 
I 

looking --I didn't finish it, but for uranium is what it's 
Isaying. I 

Q. Okay. 
A. And then it says, "eventually it will come out." 
That all this stuff will come out, we need to get it out. 
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. . 154 
. . 

, Q. So Matalin's advice.is, let's get the Wilson story 

2 lout there, we need to address his motivation, Tim needs to 1 
3 know it all, and part of that she says that -

A. Yes, she's, shetg colorful. 
I I 

Q. And 1'11 take that --we'll take that back as marked 
but not before the Grand Jury until a later time. 
1 Now, in your conversation. --and as yau.sat there do 

7 

you recall whether or not when you spoke to Mary Matalin you 
knew that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 

A. As I --this was before my call with Tim Russert and I 
at the time of that conversation I don't believe that I knew 
that his wife worked at the CIA. Of course, I had written 
those notes a month earlier or so, but I had forgotten them, 
as best I recall. 
Q. And if Mr. Grossman had told you about that as well, 
you did not remember that conversation when you spoke on this 
date with Ms. Matalin? 
A. Correct. 
Q. And if you had discussed this with the Vice 
President earlier in the week, you did not remember discussing 
.21 that at the time of.this conversation? 

I. 
A. Correct, sir. 
Q. And Mr. --if you had discussed this with Mr. 
Fleischer over lunch you did not remember that fact at the 
25 ltime of this conversation? I 

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A. As best I recall, when I had this conversation, -1 
\ 

didn't recall that fact. The reason I believe that is becaus 
of my conversation later that night with Tim Russert. 

Q. And when you --
A. Or the next day with Tim Russert. Whenever he 
said --
Q. And the, the relevant conversation with Tim Russert 
where you tell us that he told you about Wilson's wife, you'r 
clear that that happened either the 10th or the llth? 
A. Yes, I believe it was in, in the Chris Matthewst 
phone call. The notes with Mary show that I was talking to 
her on the 10th and looking to call Russert later that day. 
And as I say, I think it was in a second phone call that it 
happened, so it would have been the 10th or the 11th. Yes, 
sir. 
Q. You had testified before the break that there was 
one call and maybe a second call to follow up, although 
perhaps it could have been a single call with, with Russert oi 
the loth or llth? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And then a later call after the 14th to complain 
again? 
A. To --not to Russert but --
Q. Okay. 
A. - - yes. 
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~ Q. Spoke to his producer, not to Russert? 
1 A. That's when, I think, Adam Levine, at our request, 
may have called Chris Matthews' producer. Yes, sir. 
1 Q. Okay. You did not talk to Russert again about --
I A. NO, sir. 
Q --the Wilson matter after these one or two calls or 
the 10th and 11th of July? 
A. To the best of my recollection, no, sir. 
Q. Now, when you called Mr. Russert, were you calling 
him as a source? 
A. No, I was off-the-record. I was trying to get his 
help to intercede with Chris Matthews. 
Q. And you were calling him in his capacity as a Bureau 
Chief, as a supervisor, not as much as a reporter? 
A. I was calling him as a person who might have 
influence on Chris Matthews. In my sense he had some 
responsibilities as a Bureau Chief. Yes, sir. 
Q. When you met with Pincus before the June 12th 
article, you were going to him as a reporter to give him the 
administration's point of view. Correct? 
A. Yes,sir. 
Q. When you met with Judith Miller on July 8th you went 
to her as an administration official talking to a reporter to 
give her the background of the full story? 
A. Correct, sir. 
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Q. When you called Russert, were you calling him as 
I 

manager or as a reporter? 

I 

A. I was not trying to get him to write a story. I was 
trying to get him to exercise influence on Chris Matthews. I 
don't know technically whether he is the manager of Chris 
I 

Matthews, but he's got a lot of --he's a respected figure in 

I 

the news industry and I thought moral persuasion from Tim, 
Matthews --from Tim Russert would have some influence but he 
II chose not to exercise it as far as I can tell. 
Q. And when he told you the name of the producer you I 
recall that might have been the name Shapiro that you had to 
call, do you know if you wrote it down? 
A. I don't know if I wrote it down. There is a sheet 
where I have that name written down. I'm not sure whether 
IIl 
it's the sheet --a sheet I had when I was talking to Tim 
Russert. I might have just remembered it at that point. I I 
did at some point write down that name and --but whether it 
was with Russert or not, I don't know, sir. I 

Q. Okay. Now, when he told you --and, and what's your 
best recollection of the words Russert used concerning 
I 

Wilson's wife, what he said? I 

A. Did you know that his wife, or Ambassador Wilson's 
wife, Wilson's wife, whatever he said, did you know that his 
wife works at the CIA? 
Q. And you said? 
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A. No, I don't know that. 
I' 

Q. And his response? 
A. Yeah, all the --something like yes, yeah, all the 
Ireporters know it. 
Q. And your response? 
I A. No, I don't know that. I wanted to be clear that I 
wasn't confirming anything. 
Q. And why were you so concerned that you didn't 
confirm anything to Mr. Russert about something you weren't 
providing him? 
I A. I just --because sometimes reporters will call you 
with something that you don't know and try and get you to 
confirm it. Sometimes reporters will call you and try to get 

1 you to confirm something. You may or may not know what 
they're calling you with is true or not. For example, before 
lthe President took a trip to the Azores before the Iraq war 
there were rumors among the press that he was going to go to 

1 the Azores and some reporters called me and said. "hey, we 
lhear the President's going to the Azores, doesn't that mean 
everything's falling apart?" And I had to be very careful in 
ltalking to them to say, I can't --I don't know anything about 

whether he's going to the Azores, I'm not confirming anything 
labout whether he's going to the Azores, that sort of thing. I 
lwanted to make sure that they didn't play off what I said to 
Ibe, you know, confirmation they could then go out and print 

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something, and I didn't want him thinking any --that I was in 
any way confirming something about the wife because at the 
time I didn't know it. 

Q. And at the time did you think there was anything I 
sensitive about whether his wife worked at the CIA that you 
wanted to make sure that you weren't a confirming source for 
that fact? 
A. Not sensitive in the sense of a classified factor or 
anything. I didn't know it. I didn't --I had forgotten what 
I knew, and I didn't know if it was true or false or anything. 
I didn't want to be a confirmation of that. 
I 

Q. And as you sit here today, do you have a specific 
recollection of remembering that you had forgotten that you 
I 

knew that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? I 

A. As I sit here today I have a specific recollection 
that I was surprised when Tim Russert said it, and I thought 
I 

during that conversation --when I said, "1 don't know," I 

I 

thought I was actually being truthful. I was being truthful, 
I didn't know as I sat there. 

Q. And again, if Marc Grossman had told you in the past 
that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, your testimony is you 
had forgotten that as of the time you spoke to Tim Russert on 
July 10th or llth? Is that correct? 
A. Correct, sir. 
I 

Q. And it's your testimony that to the extent that the I 
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notes show that you had a conversation where Vice President 
Cheney, had told you some time prior to the Pincus article 
that Wilson's wife worked in the functional office of 
Counterproliferation, that you had forgotten that as of the 
time of the July 10th or llth conversation? Correct? 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And as you sit here today if Cathie Martin had 
discussed with you prior to July 10th that Wilson's wife had 
worked at the CIA, your testimony is that you had forgotten 
that fact by the time you spoke to Tim Russert on July 10th. 
Correct? 
A. 1' m sorry, repeat that one again. 
Q. If, if Cathie Martin had told you about Wilson's 
wife working at the CIA prior to July loth, it's your 
testimony that you had forgotten that fact when you spoke to 
Tim Russert on July loth? 
A. My testimony is I don't remember Cathie doing that, 
and I was surprised on July 10. I don't mean to say that if 
she told me, that I forgot it in those two days, I just don't 
recall her telling me that at all. And --yes. 
Q. And it's your testimony that if you had discussed 
Wilson's wife with Ari Fleischer over lunch that Monday, July 
7th' that you did not recall it at the time that you spoke to 
Tim Russert on July 10th or llth? 
A. My recollection is that I was surprised when Tim 
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Russert told me this fact, and told me that all the reporters 

knew that. And from that I think I wasn't knowledgeable about 

it earlier in the week, just because I didn't remember it when 

he told me on July 10th and those were only a few days 

earlier. And that's just --that is what I --what left, what 
lleft the impression with me was when Russert said it, and I 

don't recall those earlier, those earlier conversations. 

Q. And what did you do after --and did Russert tell 
lyou who the reporters were, any of the reporters were, who 
I 

lwere saying that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 

I 

A. No. No, sir. 
Q. And did you check with the Press Office to tell 
people, hey, have you guys heard what all the press are 
saying, that Wilson's wife works at the CIA? 
A. No, sir. 
Q. Had anyone told you from the Press Office that we've 
been getting calls from the press calling up to find out if 
1Wilson1s wife works at the CIA? 

I 
A. I don't recall any discussion with the Press Office 
about that. 
Q. And what did you do as a result of the fact that 
Russert told you something that you believed, you believed at 
lthe time was new to you, the fact that Wilsonls wife worked at 

I A. I don't believe I really did much of anything, but I 

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there were subsequent events that I can describe for you if 

you wish. 

Q. Did you tell the Vice President about Russert 
informing you this curious fact that Wilson's wife worked at 
the CIA? 
A. I don't recall if I told the Vice President at that 
time what had been told to me. I'm not sure if I saw him at 
that time and had a chance to tell him. I don't, I don't 
recall telling him at that time. 
Q. What's the next conversation you recall'where you 
discussed Wilson's wife's employment with anyone? 
A. On what I believe to be the 11th' so I think later 
the same day I heard from Tim Russert. We were still waiting 
for Director Tenet's statement to come out and that was 
I 

lholding us up from getting our story out because once, once 

I 

Director Tenet's statement came out we would have on the 

record that the Vice President hadn't asked for the mission, 

and didn't get the reports, etcetera, etcetera, so we were 

waiting for Director Tenet's statement to get out and it was 

still taking shape even as we went through the day of the 

I 

11th. 

Towards the end of the day I went to see Karl Rove 

to tell him where I thought we were on getting Director 

Tenet's statement out which would be a very useful thing that 

we were all waiting to get out. And I went up to Karl Rove's 

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office and told him about where we were on Director Tenet's 
statement, that I thought we were going to get some useful 
stuff out of Director Tenet's statement, I wasn't Sure that we 
were going to get everything that we would have wanted out of 
Director Tenet's statement. And during this conversation Karl 
Rove said to me that he had had a conversation with Bob, Bob 
Novak. And I thought that --my sense was that it was recent, 
although I didn't --I don't know what gave me quite that 
sense. And he told me that Bob Novak had told him that --Bob 
Novak had told --Karl Rove told me that Bob Novak had told 
Karl Rove that he was going to be writing about Ambassador 
Wilson, my sense was that weekend, and that he had run into 
Ambassador Wilson in the Green Room. A Green Room is, in 
case, like me --you know, if people don't know what that is, 
is the room that people sit in when they're waiting to go out 
on a television show, like the Chris Matthews show. They give 
you fruit and coffee and you sit there waiting for your turn 
to go on the air. And Karl Rove told me that Bob Novak had 
run into Ambassador Wilson in a Green Room at some point and, 
you know, had a bad taste in his mouth after running into 
Ambassador Wilson. I've forgotten exactly what it was, but 
somehow Ambassador Wilson sort of turned him off. And that he 
also --that, that Bob Novak had concerns as to how Ambassador 
Wilson came to be chosen for this mission because Ambassador 
Wilson, in Novak's view, as related to me from what Karl had 

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taken away from his phone call, Ambassador Wilson had --might 

not be a fair and impartial reporter of all this, might have 
an axe to grind. And then the third thing that Karl told me 
was that Novak had told Karl that Ambassador Wilson's wife 
worked at the CIA. So this was confirmation of a sort, from 
what I had heard from Tim Russert that all the reporters know 
that Ambassador Wilson's wife works at the CIA. This was on 
the llth, as I understand it. 

I told Karl that I had heard from Tim Russert that 
Ambassador --the same thing, that the ambassador's wife works 
at the CIA and that, that he --that Karl --that Tim Russert 
had told me that all the reporters know this. I don't 
remember the exact order of this conversation, but that's the 
sum and substance of what, of what we talked about with regard 
to that. 

Q. First of all, do you know where the conversation 
took place? 
A. Karl Rove's office. 
Q. And if July 6th was a Sunday, so the 9th would be a 
Wednesday, the 10th is a Thursday and the llth a Friday --
A. Correct. 
Q. --do you know which day of the week it was, which 
day or date? 
A. It was after my conversation with Tim Russert, so I 
believe it was on the llth, but I'm not --it was certainly 1 
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after my conversation with Russert on the 10th. I believe it 
was on the 11th. 

Q. And whatever day it was, you recall it being in the 
evening? 
A. I tend to believe it was late in the day but, you 
know, in the West Wing everything feels like evening. There 
are not a lot of windows and I just don't --I don't recall 
for sure. What I recall is being towards the end of the day 
because I had a pretty good sense of where Director Tenet's 
1statement was coming out, but it wasnl t yet out, but I had a I 
feeling that, you know, we1 re not going to get everything that 
we'd hoped to get. 
Q. Whatever --it was either after the --it could be 
afternoon or evening but it wasn't the morning as far as you 
recall? 
A. I don't. This is pushing my memory, sir, but I 
don't, I don't think --my sense was it was later in the day, 
but I don't have anything --
Q. And did you tell Karl Rove how you had responded to 
l~im Russert when he told you the fact that Wilson's --
that hel 

I 
believed that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 
A. I don't --you mean, when I said that I don't know? 
don't think so, I don't know, I don't think so. 

Q. Did Karl Rove tell you what, if anything, he had 
said to Mr. Novak when Mr. Novak told him that he believed 
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Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 

A. No, Karl, you know, was animated that --Rove was 
animated that Novak was animated about this. Novakls got a 
thing about this, he's writing about it sort of thing. He 
didn't tell me what he said back to Mr. Novak. 
Q. Did he tell you one way or the other whether he told 
Novak, I know that too, or I didn't know that? 
A. No, he didn't say anything like that. 
Q. And what was Karl's reaction to the information and 
the fact that Mr. Novak was writing a column? 
A. That Mr. Novak was --I'm sorry, sir? 
Q. Was writing a column about this? 
I 

A. He didn't give me a --it was a fact. Novakls goingl 
to write about it. 
Q. You had been sort of beaten up all week, the 
administration, both the President and the Vice President, 
about all the allegations stemming from the Wilson story. Was 
there a sense of relief that finally somebody is going to 
write something that will sort of respond to this? 
I 

A. He didn't use any words about that. He didn't seem 
distressed that he was writing about it. I think he thought 
it was a good thing that somebody was writing about it. But 
it was more body language and the tone in which he said things 
rather than any words he used, as I recall. And the more 
I 

important thing to me was that the Tenet statement was about I 

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to come out, and the Tenet statement was going to have, you 

know, directly on the facts rebut the things that ~rnbassedor 

Wilson had been saying. 

Q. And were you pleased that a story was coming out 
1that weekend or thereafter about Wilson's background? 

I A. It didn't seem to me to be a key element, as key as 
(the Tenet statement. I was really focused on the fact that 
the Tenet statement --I hoped it would be a little better 
than it looked like it was going to be, but I was --it was 
lgood enough, I thought, and I was eager to see it come out. 
I~nfortunately,it still wasn't out when I talked to him, which 
1 as I say, I think was afternoon, and I was afraid that by the 
time it came out it would miss the evening news. Now, there's 
la timing to these things. If things don't come out at a 

certain time of day you end up just getting in the overnight 
(newspapers. The overnight newspapers would be the Saturday 
lpapers which are probably the least attended to papers of the 

week. And so the timing was --it was great to get the Tenet 

statement out but it looked like it might actually miss the 

evening news that night and we were eager to get it out, get 

the truth out. 

Q. Putting the Tenet statement aside, were you happy 
that Mr. Novak was going to write a column responding to Mr. 
Wilson's allegations? 
I A. Well, I didn't know what Mr. --I didn't know what 
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Mr. N,ovak was going to say in his column, so if he said the 

right things, I'd be happy about it. I was glad somebody 
would be out there saying --if he was going to address the 

I 

merits. There were plenty of merits at this point including 

that we had all denied that the Vice President had sent him 
out. If that was in the column, that would be good. The 

stuff about the Green Room, I didn't see how that would, you 
know, I --if, if, if Mr. Novak wrote a column which basically 
went at it the way Karl was saying, which is to go after the 

I 

arguments about, you know, why did they pick this guy, I I 
actually thought that would be something of a distraction 
because the real argument was here, was not so much why they 

I 

picked him, it was the facts were clear that we didn't ask for 

it, no report came back to us. The report that came back, the 
NIE, and the January 24 document, were clear that Iraq was not 
seeking uranium from Niger. So there was no need to get dancy 
on this point and come around the sides. The straight ahead, 
here's what the facts are would be the better story. That's 

I 

what I most wanted to come out. 

Q. But sir, if people are saying the Vice President 
sent Wilson to Niger, and he didn't, isn't it fair to say the 
logical common man on the street question is, well, if the 
Vice President didn't send him, who did? 
A. Yes. 
I 

Q. And if the story comes out, it's his wife who sent I 
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him, doesn't that make it more powerful an argument to say 
see, we told you Mr. Cheney had nothing to do with it? 

A. If it came out that way, but I don't think I knew at 
that point that it was his wife who sent him. All I knew is 
his wife worked at the CIA. Thousands of people work at the 
CIA. The, the point about it was his wife who suggested it, I 
don't think I knew until the 14th when the column appeared. 
Q. And what was it --
A. If you had told me that, if somebody said, yes, it 
was going to be clear in the column that it wasn't us, that it 
was the CIA who sent him, that would have been a good fact. 
Yes, sir. 
Q. What occasioned you and Mr. Rove to talk about the 
fact that the two reporters knew that Wilson's wife worked at 
the CIA? 
A. Well, as I say, I came up to his office to tell him 
about the Tenet statement. That the Tenet statement was about 
to come out, you know, it was something we were waiting for. 
You know, it was in our interest to get that statement out to 
the press, the statement might come out too late for the 
evening news and it might be some need to try and get the 
statement out over the weekend to make sure people paid 
attention to it, so I went up to talk to him about that. And 
it was in that context that, that we talked about this 
other --
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Q. And did you know if you told Rove about whether or 
not Mr. Novak had called you that week? 
A. I don't, I don't --no, I did not tell Mr. Rove that 
I had --Mr. Novak had called me that week. I don't know that 
I had spoken to Mr. Novak that week and, you know, my 
recollection is hazy on when I spoke to him, but I'm still 
sort of persuaded by my note that I didn't talk to him until 
later, but I don't know. 
Q. And did you talk to Andrea Mitchell during this time 
frame about Wilson and his wife? 
A. I talked to Andrea Mitchell some time after I spoke 
to Tim Russert. I don't know exactly when it was other than 
it was after I spoke to Mr. Russert. I noticed later that NBC 
put out a statement about Andrea Mitchell and said that, that 
whoever she spoke to about this, she spoke to after the 14th. 
But I don't know --I don't recall when I spoke to her. 
Q. When you did speak to Andrea Mitchell, do you recall 
discussing Wilson's wife with her? 
A. What I recall for sure is an awkward moment in that 
I was talking to her about all this, and I remember sort of 
being concerned about talking to her about the wife because 
Tim Russert had told me about it, and he had said all the 
reporters know. And as I was talking to her, I realized that 
I didn't know if Andrea Mitchell knew, and if Andrea Mitchell 
didn't know and I told her that, that I had heard this, and 
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she asked me where it was, I didn't want to lie to her and I 

I 

didn't want to tell her --it's a little bit convoluted --I 
didn't want to tell her that Tim Russert had told me it if in 
fact Tim Russert had not told her because I didn't want to get 

lher mad at Tim Russert for not having shared something with 
her that he had shared it with me, and that's what I most 
recall about it. I may have gone on to talk to her about --
that part I don't really recall --but I recall this sort of 
dilemma about, about --

Q. So do you know whether or not you discussed Wilson's 
wife with her? 
A. I don't recall whether I discussed Wilson's wife 
with her. I --but I --what I recall is this dilemma about 
not wanting to, to get her mad at Tim Russert and therefore 
get Tim Russert mad at me. 
Q. So --and let me make sure I understand this. So 
leither you talked about it with her and you were worried as I lyou talked about with her that you may reveal to her that Tim 
I~ussert had told you, or you didn't discuss it but you had the 
concern as the conversation was going that if it came up you 
might reveal that Tim Russert had told you? 
A. Correct. I had the concern, yes, that's correct. I 
I Q. Now, would that in your mind fix the conversation 
with Andrea Mitchell before July 14th when Novak's column 
I 
would have printed that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? 
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A. No, I don't, I don't know when it was. It was some 
time after Russert, I'm sure of that. It may have been, it 
may have been before the 14th. The only thing that fixes is 
the NBC statement that Andrea Mitchell didn't talk about this 
until after the 14th. But I don't, I don't know. 
Q. Well, if Novak had already published in the 
newspaper that Wi1son;s wife worked at the CIA, why would ,you 
be concerned that you might tip her hand that you knew 
something? 
A. I was afraid that she might ask me, you know, is 
this true, or when did you learn this, or something like that, 
that's all. 
Q. And why couldn't you just tell her, I can't comment? 
A. I could, but I don't usually like to obfuscate in 
that way, but I, I could. I just was concerned about --
Q. Let me see if I have this correct. You don't know 
whether the Mitchell conversation was before or after the 
Novak column, but you know it was after the Russert 
conversation? 
A. Correct, sir. 
Q. And you don't know whether you discussed --
A. I know it was after --I'm sorry. I know it was 
after the Russert conversation because I remember having this 
dilemma about what I talked about with Tim Russert. 
Q. And do you remember thinking about the dilemma, that 
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you're concerned that you may reveal to Ms. Mitchell that 
Russert told you what reporters know about Wilson's wife? 

A. That's, that's what stuck in my mind. Yes, sir. 
Q. And, and as you sit here today you don't know 
whether you discussed Wilson's wife with Ms. Mitchell? 
A. I, I don't recall whether I discussed it with her 
not. What I recall for sure was this dilemma about it. 
That' s what I recall. 
Q. And as you sit here today you're obviously saying 
that as of that time you didn't recall learning this fact fr 
the Vice President even though that it had happened earlier. 
Correct? 
A. Correct. Yes, sir. 
Q. And you don't recall any conversation with either 
Grossman, or Fleischer, or Cathie Martin concerning Wilson's 
wife. Correct? 
A. Correct. 
Q. But you do recall having a thought during a 
conversation with Andrea Mitchell that if this comes up, it 
could put me in an awkward position because I learned this 
from Russert and not from any of those people that I may or 
may not have talked to. Correct? 
A. Correct. 
Q. Now, did there come a time when you took a trip on 
Air Force Two on July 12th? 
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I A. Yes, sir. I 

Q. And was that for the purpose of going down to the 
christening of the USS Ronald Reagan? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And were you accompanied on that trip by your 
family? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And was it your son's birthday? 
I A. Right, sir. 
Q. And at that time were there --reporters had been 
I 
I 

calling about various stories during those few days? 

A. Yes. 
I Q. And was there an outstanding request by a reporter 
named Matthew Cooper? 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And is he with Time magazine? 
I 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. And were there other reporters who had made 
outstanding requests at that time? 
A. Yes, sir. Most of these go to Cathie Martin, but 
there were a number of calls in during this period that she 
would know about. Often when reporters call for me, they 
lget --my assistant will just refer them directly --either 
take a message and refer them to Cathie Martin, or refer them 
ldirectly to Cathie Martin so that they can --she can deal 

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175 ' 

with it. And I think I was not talking to any press, or 

generally not talking to press in that period until we could 
get the Tenet statement out. So there, there were --my 
impression was that Cathie had a number of calls. The Time 
magazine one that she wanted to address. 

Q. And you recall that the 12th was a Saturday. 
Correct? 
A. Correct. 
Q. And is it fair to say that on Air Force Two flying 
down that you sat up front with the Vice President and your 
family on the trip down to the USS Reagan? 
A. No, sir. I sat with my family on the flight. 
Q. Okay. And did you do any work on the way down? 
A. My recollection is no, we did not do work on the way 
down. 
Q. And you didn't do any work other than being there at 
lthe christening of the Reagan? 
I 

A. Correct, sir. 
I 

Q. On the way back did you address --on the return 
I I 

flight on Air Force Two, begin to address how to respond to 
Mr. Cooper and others? 

A. Yes, sir. Either on the return flight or actually 
when we had landed at the return, but it was in that period. 
Q. And did you have a conversation with Cathie Martin 
about what it was that Cooper wanted to know? 
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A. Yes, sir. I 
Q. Okay. Do you recall reviewing an e-mail that came 
from Mr. Cooper raising certain questions? 
A. I recall that there was an e-mail. Yes, sir. 
Q. And did you --and when you, when you discussed this 
with Cathie Martin is it fair to say that you were in a part 
of the plane away from the Vice President? 
A. Yes, I, I think so, sir. 
I 

Q. And --copy of the e-mail --did there come a time I 
when you went forward to see the --let me just show you the 
e-mail first. Well, we'll come back to the e-mail. 
Did there come a time you went forward to talk to 

I 

the Vice President about how to respond to Mr. Cooper from the 
Post? 

I 

A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Okay. And did you go forward with Cathie Martin or 
alone? 
A. I don't recall. I think I was alone but I don't 
recall. She may have been with me. 
I 

Q. And did you discuss with the Vice President what it ( 
was that you were to say to the press? 
A. Yes, sir. It was actually just a --to give a 
I 

fuller answer to your question one or two ago, I went forward 
to talk to the Vice President about what we were going to do 
about getting the Tenet statement out, answering the Time --I 

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the questions from Time. But it was more --it was broader I

1 

than just the Time magazine questions. It was the whole issue 

of now the Tenet statement was out, what would we do? I 
Q. And did you have a discussion with the Vice 
President about what would be said to the press, in what I 
language, and who would be the person to say it? 
A. Yestsir. 
Q. And what do you recall the Vice President telling 
you? 
A. Vice President was --dictated to me what he wanted 
me to say to the press. He specifically said he wanted me to 
make the statement on-the-record to Time magazine because he 
wanted it, he wanted it, he.wanted it to draw --he wanted it 
to get some attention. And he felt if I put my name on it, itl would get more attention than just a senior administration 
official, or however else they.wrote it up. So he dictated 
things for me to say and he instructed me to say it --with 
Time magazine, to give it basically word-for-word quote that 
III 
he dictated, some background material that he wanted me to 
use, and for me --with regard to the quote to use my name, 
which I don't usually do. 
Q. And did you actually write down word-for-word what 

it is that he wanted you to say? 

A. I did, sir, on a card that I turned over to you all. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. Why don't we jump to that. 

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MS. KEDIAN. Okay. 

I 

MR. FITZGERALD. That's Bates 2892 and 2893, the 

I 

originals. Sorry about that. We can come back to e-mail if 
we need to but --
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. And before we get to the text of it, did the Vice 
President indicate who should actually speak to the reporters, 
as between you and the press people? 
A. Yes, he wanted me to do it, is that what you mean? 
Yes, he wanted, he wanted the press people, meaning Cathie 
Mart in? 
Q. Yes. 
A. He wanted me to do it. 
Q. And why did he want you to speak to the reporters as 
opposed to Cathie Martin using your name? 
A. Well, usually when you give a --you could give a 
statement from Cathie Martin to me, but he wanted me to give 
the statement. He wanted to make sure it was done exactly 
correctly and he wanted me to give it in name, and so I 
called --so I was the one who called. 
Q. And is it fair to say that sometimes you would have 
a press person give an exact statement, a quote, in your name 
if you write it out and say, call a reporter, here's what I 
have to say, and attribute it to my name? 
A. Yes, they could, but in this case he wanted to not 
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I just a direct on-the-record statement but also some points on I1ldeep background and background, as we discussed earlier today, 1 I

and those there was no direct text for. That was something 
you would have to talk your way through and he wanted me to do 
that. 

Q. Okay. And do you recall what he told you to say on 
background and deep background? 
I 

It's in the notes. But my recollection was that he 

I 

A. 
wanted me to say --first, he had a long direct quote. On 
background, deep background, he wanted me to talk about the --

lwhat was in the NIE, I think, that Director Tenet had now 
talked about on the record. It would be faster if I looked at 
the --

Q. Yes, why don't you take a look at the notes. 
1 A. Thank you. Thank you. I 
Q. If we could focus on the back of 2893. 
MS. KEDIAN. It's a different number for him. 
MR. FITZGERALD. Oh, I'm sorry. The back of the 
card. 
WITNESS. Yes, sir. Where it says deep background? 
MR. FITZGERALD. Yes, well --
MS. KEDIAN. It's 1734. 
BY MR. FITZGERALD: 

Q. I'm sorry, the first page. Was there a reference 
lhere crossed out --I 
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A. Magazine --
Q---deny, deny Wilson, VP --
A. --VP link. 
Q. --link --
A. Yes. 
Q. --and then on record? 
A. Yes. In otherwords, if I could explain? The top 
part of this page are notes that I had made to talk about wit1 
him when I got some time with him, which would --on the way 
back or on the ground, and I had written down the magazines a: 
a reference to Time and Newsweek. Time --both Time and 
Newsweek had calls into us. And the question that I was 
writing down, does he want us to deny the VP/Wilson link on 
the record. Does he want me to, you know, do you want to do 

it on the record either in his name, my name or Cathie's name 
or somebody's name? And we covered that point and I crossed 
out the line. And then he dictated what he wanted us to say. 

Q. Okay. And then the dictation on the first page of 
this card has on the record on the left column? 
column --card, if you could transliterate what this card 

says? 

A. Under deep background, sir, or the whole thing? 
Q. The whole thing. 
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A. VP was maybe unaware of Joe Wilson trip and didn't 
\ 

know about it until this year when it became public after the 
State of the Union. 
I Q. And what was the part that was crossed out? You 
said, did not know anything? 
A. Did not know anything, right. He, he got more 
specific. 

I Q. And then if you could read what it says under deep 
background? 

A. Only written record of Wilson trip included a 
Istatement that the former Prime Minister'of Niger was saying 
that he had been approached by the Iraqi officials in what he 
believed to be an official --to be an effort to acquire 

luranium in 1999. That's the point from the second part of the 
Wilson cable, and he thought on deep background I should make 
lsure that people understood that. 

I

I Q. Okay. And the next bullet point? 
A. He didnl t see this until recently. That he saw the 
~NIElast fall, which I, meaning the Vice President, took to be 
Iauthoritative. This is all stuff to say on deep background. 
Q. And then the next reference? 
A. Deep background, as an administration official as 
opposed to, I guess, deep background, a senior administration 
official. That I should give a straight report on the NIE 
lwhich was covered in --also covered in Tenet's statement and 

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not Report said --oh, that the NIE said that the --it was 
the NIE, not the, not the Wilson report, I guess, that said II 
that Iraq had begun to vigorously pursue trying to procure 
uranium. So that I think there was some ambiguity in the 
Tenet statement. He wanted it very clear that it was the NIE 
six months after Wilson's trip where the CIA and the 
intelligence community was saying affirmatively that they had 
tried to procure uranium, and that's what he had taken to be I 
authoritative. 

Q. Okay. And at this point do you know if you talked 
to Vice President Cheney about the 12th about the conversation 
I 

you believe you had on the llth, perhaps the loth, with Mr. 

I 

Russert, and then later with Mr. Rove where reporters were I 
indicating that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA? 

A. I don't recall. It's not on my list here of things 
to raise with him that day. I don't recall if I talked about 
it to him the previous night. 
I 

Q. And you recall discussing with Rove, but you don't 
I 

recall whether you discussed it with the Vice President? 

A. Correct. I recall with Rove in part because of the 
Novak bit that he had done. I don't recall whether I 
I 

discussed it with the Vice President. I'm not sure if I --I 
don't know that I saw him in, in that sort of a setting after 
my discussion with Rove because my discussion with Rove may 

I 

have been later in the day, and I had no private time with him1 

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I in the morning, and then I went into this. So I don't, Is 

( 

Idonit recall. 

Q. And to the extent that it was written out pretty 
much verbatim what your statement would be on the record. 
Q. Yes, sir. 
Q. And it's written out verbatim what your statement 
would be on deep background. Correct? 
A. Just about. Yes, sir. 
I Q. And why couldn't you allow Cathie Martin, the press 
Iperson, to make the calls and attribute the statement to you? 
A. I did what he told me to, sir. He said he wanted me 
to make the call. He was concerned that he wanted it done 
right. He said, I want you to make the calls. Cathie Martin 
went with me and sat with me and listened to me as I made the 
lcall to Cooper, but he wanted me to make the call, I didn't 
lfight it. He said me make the call, I made the call. 

Q. Did you get the sense that he had any concerns about 
whether she could handle this correctly? 
1 A. I think he felt he had more confidence in me making 

I 

INIE,this call, especially when it got into this stuff about the 
which I was more familiar with than Cathie. He had 
confidence that I would be able to get it out --

Q. And--
A. --in a better fashion. 
I I 

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Q --tell us about the calls you made to the, to the 
\ 
press. I A. We went into a lounge at --we were on the airplane 
and we needed a land line phone or, you know, a phone where we 
could have a good connection. So we went into the lounge at 
Andrews Air Force Base, and we found aphone that we could 
use. And we sat down to make the phone calls, we being Jenny 
Mayfield, my assistant; Cathie Martin; and I. And we tried to 
call three or four reporters at that point. Matthew Cooper 
from Time Magazine; Evan Thomas, who had calls into us from 
Newsweek magazine; Glen Kessler from the'washingtonPost; and 
later I talked to Judith Miller. I think we tried her then 
but I'm not sure if we didn't try her later. And I wanted 
to --you know, it was a Saturday, everybody had spent the I 
whole day doing this commissioning ceremony and I wanted to 
get everybody out of there, so we tried to place all the calls 
right there from Andrews while we were all together. We were 
unable to reach Glen Kessler at first. Well, we did reach him 
shortly thereafter. We were unable to reach Evan Thomas at 
all for a while but we did reach him later. And --but we did 
reach Matthew Cooper while we were sitting in the lounge and 
so I had a conversation with Matthew Cooper in the lounge. I 
Q. And what did you tell Matthew Cooper? 
A. I had not met Matthew Cooper before, so Cathie 
introduced us. She said that, you know, we wanted to have I 
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this phone call in response in part to his questions, that 
some of the conversation would be on-the-record, some of it 
would be on deep background, some of it might be off-the- 
record, but we would have different layers of, of press 
conversations. 

So I --after she finished that preliminary, I 
talked to him about the Tenet statement and I gave him this 
quotation on-the-record that we had here, and I think I also 
covered some of these background points with him in the phone 
call. And so I went through that, that the Vice President ha( 
asked a question that --this is same thing, isn't it? 

Q. Without --
A. Yes. 
Q. --repeating --without repeating what is in the 
statement that had been agreed that you would tell him, did 
you have a discussion with Mr. Cooper about Wilson's wife? 
A. Yes, sir. 
Q. Okay. Tell us about that conversation. 
A. I went through --just a little bit of preliminary. 
I went through these points and I went through what Tenet had 
said that, you know, the day before in his statement, you 
know, I hope you noticed Director Tenet's statement the day 
before, which is why we were making these calls, which said 
that I --that he hadn't made the, he hadn't made the request 
and he hadn't gotten the reports on it. And after all of 
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that, Matthew Cooper said, "well then why does Wilson say it?' 
And you know, I was a little taken aback because here we have 
the Director of Central Intelligence saying the Vice President 
didn't request it, the Vice President saying he hadn't 
requested it in his statement, White House spokesman etcetera, 
etcetera. And instead of sort of saying, oh, well, I see that 
he didn' t request it, , he said, well, why does Wilson say ilt? 
Wilson, of course, had said earlier in the week that someone 
had told him that the Vice President had asked for his 
mission. So I said, well, I don't know why he sdid it. You 
know, I said, we're off-the-record, and he agreed. And I 
said, someone --I don't know why he said it, but I would have 
thought --off-the-record,I would have thought that, that the 
CIA wouldn't tell somebody who is going on a mission who asked 
about it. And you know, conversation the Vice President has 
about these things are supposed to be confidential. But if he 
did --if they did officially --they wouldn't officially tell 
such a thing. If they did officially tell someone, they would 
tell them the right thing, which was that the CIA decided to 
do it, which is what Director Tenet had said in his statement 
the day before. So I wouldn't have thought that officially he 
heard this, which --but it --you know, it's possible he 
heard something unofficially. And if he heard something 
possibly unofficially, you know, maybe he knows somebody there 
and somebody said something to him that was wrong because it 

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was unofficial. And in that context, I said, you know, off-
the-record,reporters are telling us that Ambassador Wilson's 
wife works at the CIA and I don't know if it's true. As I 
told you, we don't know Mr. Wilson, we didn't know anything 
about his mission, so I don't know that it's true. But if 
it's true, it may explain how he knows some people at the 
Agency and maybe he got some bad skinny, you know, some bad 
information. So that was the discussion about Ambassador 
Wilson's wife. 
Q. And his response?~ A. I don't recall specifically what he said about that. 
I recall the response, "why does he say it,"because that's 
what led into this conversation. 
Q. And it's your specific recollection that when you 
told Cooper about Wilson's wife working at the CIA, you 
attributed that fact to what reporters --
A. Yes. 
Q --plural, were saying. Correct? 
A. I was very clear to say reporters are telling us 
that because in my mind I still didn't know it as a fact. I 
thought I was --all I had was this information that was 
coming in from the reporters. 
Q. And at the same time you have a specific 
recollection of telling him, you don't know whether it's true 
or not, you're just telling him what reporters are saying? 
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A. Yes, that's correct, sir. And I said, reporters are 
telling us that, I don't know if it's true. I was careful 
about that because among other things, I wanted to be clear I 
didn't know Mr. Wilson. I don't know --I think I said, I 
don't know if he has a wife, but this is what we're hearing. 
Q. Did you have any further conversation about Wilson 
and his wife with Cooper during this phone call? 
A. I don't think so and I don't think I had a 
subsequent phone call with him. That was it for Mr. Cooper. I 
Q. And consistent with your practice would' Cooper have 
to call you back to verify the quote in his article to say 
here's what, what I attribute to Lewis Libby? 
A. No, that --this would be an exception because I 
gave it to him on-the-record the first time, and I read it, 
IIII 
and I read it slowly so that he could get it down correctly. 
Q. And any other reporters that you discussed Wilson's 
wife with on that day, July 12th? 
A. Yes, sir. I talked to three other reporters that I 
day. Towards the end of the day I believe I talked to Judith 

Miller, and I know that I discussed it with Judith Miller, New 
York Times, and the discussion was pretty much as I just 
described with Ambassador --excuse me, with Matthew Cooper. 

Q. Why don't you describe the conversation for us? 
A. I said, that --I went through all about the Tenet 
I 

statement, that the Tenet statement had just come out, you I 

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know, please pay attention to the Tenet statement which said 
that we didn't know about the trip, that we didn't get the 
report, that the report was not definitive, that the NIE 
actually comes out and says that Iraq had begun to vigorously 
pursue acquiring uranium, and that --and I did not use this 
text, as an exact quote, I did not use it exactly again, but I 
went through some of the same points with her. And I don't 
remember exactly how it came up, but I said to her --sorry, 
but I --

Q. No, no, I'm just checking for my own self. Please 
continue. 
A. I'm sorry, I don't mean to hold you up here. I said 
to her that, that I didn't know if it was true, but that 
reporters had told us that the ambassador's wife works at the 
CIA, that I didn't know anything about it. But if that were 
true, that may explain how he got this unofficial --I went 
I

1through the same off icially/unof f icially sort of breakdown, I 
trying to shorten it for you. 

Q. No, please, don't shorten it. We're --
I 
A. Okay. 
--we're not going to finish today, break everyone's 
heart, so we'll just cover it --you know, once so we don't 

have to cover the Miller conversation again. 

A. I also spoke to Evan Thomas. And with Evan 
Thomas --
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Q. I just wanted to finish the Judith Miller 
conversation. Was there something that triggered it, your 
conversation with Judith Miller, to discuss Wilson's wife's 
employment in the way that Cooper had asked you, "why is Mr. 
Wilson saying this?" 
A. I think there was. I don't recall exactly what it 
was. Something that she said --I thought something that she 
said, I think, triggered it. That's my, my vague recollection 
about it. You know, it had been something that was important 
to Tim Russert. It was something that, you know, Cooper still 
wanted to know at this point and I think partly by the time I 
talked to Judith Miller I was thinking, you know, the 
reporters seem to have this unopen --unanswered question, and 
the question is, was, Wilson had said that someone had told 
him that the Vice President requested the mission. He said 
that on national television earlier in the week. And even 
with the explanation from George Tenet, it leaves unanswered 
this question well, how did he happen to hear it? And so, you 
know, I was pretty ready to explain that I didn't think he 
would have heard it officially, but he might have heard it 
unofficially, but I think there was something that she said 
that led me into it. 
Q. Okay. 
A. Evan Thomas? 
Q. Yes. 
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A. I, I recall, recall that I did reach Evan Thomas 
\ 

eventually. I was home at this point. And I told Evan 
Thomas --I, I drew his attention to the, to the Wilson 

statement --excuse me. I drew his attention to the Tenet 

statement that had come out the day before. Evan was calling 
me in part because we were going to meet about something else 
And he said, "1 got it," my recollection. In other words, 
when I, when I laid out what, what Tenet had said, that we 
hadn't asked for it, that we didn't get the report, that the 
report was not definitive, that the NIE in fact said --that 
the NIE in fact said that Iraq had been iooking for six month 
after Wilson's report --the CIA had not taken Wilson's repor 
to be definitive, he said he got it, and he wanted to move on 
and I just moved on. So I did not discuss it with Evan 
Thomas. 

Q. And are you sure you did not discuss it with Evan 
Thomas? 
A. Pretty sure. 
Q. Do you recall being interviewed by the FBI and 
telling them you couldn't recall whether or not you discussed 
it with Evan Thomas? 
A. As I say, I'm pretty sure I did not discuss it with 
Evan Thomas because I remember him saying it. I don't recall 
discussing it with Thomas. I do think I recall him saying I 
didn't --that I got it, and so I don't think I talked to him 
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about it. 

Q. And did you talk to Glen Kessler that day? 
A. Idid. 
Q. Okay. 
A. We didn't get Glen Kessler --excuse me. We didn't 
get Glen Kessler while we were in the --at Andrews, but we 
got him on a cell phone while we were in the car driving back 
from Andrews to my house, which is like a 40 minute drive or 
something. And so while Cathie Martin and, and Jenny Mayfield 
were still with me, along with my family in the van, I spoke 
to him about this stuff. Kessler was, Kessler was, was 
contacting me primarily about Colin Powell's February 5th 
presentation. He was interested in the origins of the 
presentation that Colin Powell had made back on February 5th. 
And --but I think he also wanted to know about this, or in 
any case, it was an occasion for me to make sure that he, from1 
the Washington Post, paid attention to George Tenet's 
statement. So we talked a lot about Powell's February 5th 
presentation, and we also talked about the, the Tenet 
I 

statement. Sorry. Lost thought --I lost focus there for a 

I 

second. We also talked about the Tenet statement at that 

I 

point. And what I recall about this conversation was that 
Glen Kessler was at the zoo with his kids, and yet he was able 
to have this lucid conversation, something that I could never 
do with my kids at the zoo on a sunny day with, you know, I 

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hundreds of people milling around. And at one point he said, 
give me a moment here to get located, and then --because he 
wanted to get someplace where he could see his kids. But then 
he was able to have this conversation, which I thought was 
pretty impressive actually, and we talked about this stuff. 

Q. Did you talk about Wilson's wife working at the CIA 
with Glen Kessler? 
A. I don't know for sure. What I --I believe I did 
have a conversation with Glen Kessler about, about Ambassador 
Wilson's wife. I tend to think it was later, not in this 
conversation, but it was possibly in this conversation. And 
so possibly I did. I'm not sure. I'm pretty sure I did have 
a conversation with Glen Kessler about Ambassador Wilson's 
wife eventually, but I just don1 t know if it was this 
conversation. 
Q. And do you know if you spoke to, or made attempts to 
speak, to Andrea Mitchell that day? 
A. No. Well, I did speak to Andrea Mitchell at some 
point in that period but I don't know if it was before or 
after the --
Q. And how about Mark Matthews of the Baltimore Sun? 
Do you know if there was any effort to speak to him? 
A. I don't think I did talk to him. I don't know if he 
was one of the ones Cathie wanted me to talk to or not. I 
don't know Mr. Matthews, Mark Matthews, and I don't, I don't 
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recall if we tried him or not. 

Q. Do you know if you ever spoke to Mark Matthews about 
this topic at all? 
A. In this weekend, I don't think so in this weekend. 
I think it was just those four. But I don't know him. It's 

I 

possible. You know, after you've had a few of these 

I 

conversations, they run together. 

I 

Q. One last name, Mike Isikoff. Do you know if you 
spoke to him that weekend? 
I 

A. I don't think so. I do know --I now know Mike 
Isikoff. I don't think I really knew him then. I met him 
I 

at --I had met him but I really had a long conversation with 
him subsequent to that, and I don't think I talked to him that 
weekend. He would also be Newsweek, so he would be 
duplicative of Evan Thomas, I think. 

Q. We'll wrap --we're going a little bit late. 1/11 
just take a minute to wrap something up. 
When the Novak column came out on July 14th, did 

I 

you --you knew it was coming from your conversation with 

I 

Rove. Had you ever heard or seen an advance copy of the Novak 
column? 

A. No, sir. 
I 

Q. Did anybody indicate to you whether or not anyone 
had received a draft column either by fax or by e-mail? 
I 

A. I've never heard that, sir. I 
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Q. And do you have any recollection of when it is that 
you discussed with Vice President Cheney, his comments about 
whether or not Ambassador Wilson had been sent on this trip by 
his wife as d junket? 

A. I know that there --that Vice President Cheney 
I 

asked --made some comments like that. I think of them in my 
mind as later, you know, later in July or August or later, , 
asking not so much in me, but just sort of how did he come to 
be sent on this? I don't know if he also made them earlier. 
That sort of runs together for me. 

MR. FITZGERALD. Why don't we adjourn --

WITNESS. Can I just make one other comment about 
this stuff? I get a lot of information during the course of a 
day. I probably get --you know, after this all came up I I 
sort of for a few days tried to take a census of how many 
pages of stuff I get in a day, and I tend to get between 100 
and 200 pages of material a day that I'm supposed to read and 
understand and I --you know, I start at 6:00 in the morning 
and I go until 8:00 or 8:30 at night, and most of that is 

I 

meetings. So a lot of information comes through to me, and I 
can't possibly recall all the stuff that I think is important, 
let alone other stuff that I don't think is as important. And 
so when a lot of this --a lot of stuff that comes to me, what 
I will normally do is 1/11 gather my staff together and say, 

I 

hey, what happened here? You know, there was some meeting we I 

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had on, let's say, Iraq. What did, what did people say, or 
what happened last week when we had that meeting? Did State 
agree to do something, or was the Defense Department supposed 
to do something? And we'll sort of pool our recollections of 
it and that almost always bring me a fuller recollection of 
what's happened. I haven't done that here because as I 
understand it, you don't want me to do that here. I'm happy 
to do it at some point, but I haven't. So I apologize if my 
recollection'of this stuff is not perfect, but it's not in a 
way that I would normally do these things. I would normally --
in the normal course of what we do in a day, I would bring the 
staff together or ask the Vice President and go through all 
this, and I haven't done that here, and I apologize if there's 
some stuff that I remember and some I don't, but it's --1'm 
just trying to tell you what I do.in fact remember. 

MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. We'll pick it up from 
there. I'm going to ask the foreperson to advise the witness 
he remains under subpoena. We'll talk with your counsel and 
with the Grand Jury about scheduling so we minimize the 
disruption, and I apologize. Another matter ran long today 
and we'll sort that out at the convenience of yourself, 
counsel, and the Grand Jury and us. So thank you. And I 
apologize for running a bit over, but we'll see --

GRAND JUROR. Thank you, Mr. Libby. 

WITNESS. Thank you. 

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CERTIFICATE 

\ 

I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true and accurate 
transcript, to the best of my skill and ability, from my 
stenographic notes/electronic recording. 

November 21, 2006 IC/ 
Date Deborah H. Powers, Court Reporter 

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