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P R O C E E D I N G S
Whereupon,
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?
A. I do.
Q. Okay. And that is —
A. "Scooter".
Q. Okay. And can you give us a brief description of
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.
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 United
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. I do, sir.
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?
A. I do, sir.
Q. And you should understand that if you choose to
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
answer questions, you could stop at any time and decide not to
answer any further questions based upon your Fifth Amendment
privilege. Do you understand that?
A. I do, sir.
Q. In simple terms, just because you answer a hundred
questions doesn't mean you have to answer the next question.
Do you understand that?
A. I do.
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?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And in fact, you are represented by an attorney. Is
that correct?
A. That is correct.
Q. And could you just state your attorney's name and
spell his last name?
A. Joseph
A. Tate, T-a-t-e.
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.
Q. And I'll 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
having an argument just prior to the, the traffic fatality,
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
that?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And you also understand that we may ask questions
about 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. Yes, sir.
Q. And if, if someone does commit a false statement or
commit 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
witnesses understand the seriousness of the proceeding. We
are not at all prejudging any witness by telling them what
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.
BY MR. FITZGERALD:
Q. And I will also tell you, as you were advised prior
to coming in, in the presence of your attorney, that based
upon your conduct in this investigation and in particular
contact with reporters, you, among others, are a subject of
the investigation. And that does not mean that anyone has
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.
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?
A. I have three job titles at the moment. One is
Assistant to the President; one is Chief of Staff to the Vice-
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, and
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 to
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
numbers of boxes along the way, numbers of compartmented
intelligence.
Q. Okay. And can you tell us in the course of your
daily work how much contact you have with the intelligence
community and how much access you have to classified
documents?
A. Oh, I have a lot of access to classified documents.
I meet every morning — my day usually starts at 7 o'clock in
the morning, or sometimes a little earlier, and I'll get an
intelligence briefing. I'll 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
back 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
get 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,
Liberia, Haiti, Iraq, those sorts of things.
I also will occasionally be part of a principals
meeting where the Director of Central Intelligence is present.
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 what's behind some of the
summaries that you're given?
A. Yes.
Q. And does the Vice President do that as well?
A. Yes. Sometimes they're presented to us by the
briefer and sometimes I will show him one that the briefer has
shown me.
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?
A. Occasionally. It's not all that common, but
occasionally.
Q. With what frequency do you have contact with the
press in your, in your job?
A. It, it goes in spurts. Usually there may be periods
when I don't see them. You know, when a reporter is doing a
profile of the Vice President, for example, they will call our
office. They, they call around to talk to kids he went to
high school with, now they're no longer kids. They'll talk to
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 with
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, I'll 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 I'll 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
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?
A. Well, there are different ground rules. There's on-
the-record, which means they can quote me by name in the
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
usually, I think, means they just get to say it as if somebody
said it but they don't really tag it. Some people use that to
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
repeated by the reporter to anybody, including their editors.
They're supposed to — it's something you tell them so they
can 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
go and repeat it to anybody, and they're not — certainly not
supposed to write about it.
Q. Okay.
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. They'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 an
example. You mentioned that people may call you to ask if 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
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
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:
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
reporters about how they would verify any quotes they might
attribute to you either as by name or by senior administration
official?
A. Yes. A, the ground rules may be set in the
beginning of the conversation or as the conversation goes
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
back directly to verify a quote for something you gave them
on-the-record or on background?
A. It probably has happened over the course of three
years. It's not the normal, but it probably has happened.
Q. And in this case, one of the matters being focused
on in this investigation is a column written by Robert Novak
in July 14, 2003. I take it you're familiar with that column
as we sit here today?
A. Yes, sir, I am.
Q. And there's some information contained in that
article concerning the employment — the alleged employment of
former Ambassador Wilson's wife at the CI A. Do you know that
fact that it's contained in the article?
A. Yes, sir, I know it's contained in the article.
Q. And were you a source for Mr. Novak about — in that
article about the employment of Mr. Wilson's wife at the CIA?
A. No, sir.
Q. Were you a source for any information for Mr. Novak
in that article?
A. No, sir.
Q. Do you know if you spoke to Mr. Novak at or about
the time the article was prepared?
A. I have, I have a recollection that I did speak to
Mr. Novak once in that general time frame, but my notes
indicate, notes that you have, indicate to me that in fact
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
National Intelligence Estimate, that concerned in part efforts
by Iraq to obtain uranium. Did you review the NIE at some
point in 2002 or 2003 concerning Iraq and efforts to get
uranium?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And do you recall whether or not there were any
doubts expressed in the, in the NIE about the allegation that
Iraq had tried to get uranium from Niger?
A. The NIE has a fairly clear declarative sentence in
the section on uranium and Iraq, and it says something like,
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
or not someone could actually procure, actually get the
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.
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.
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. I do, sir.
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 in front of you in case you need to refer to it?
And for the record, that is Grand Jury Exhibit 3.
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?
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.
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?
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?
A. The article — the bulk of what they were saying in
the article is critical. Yes, sir.
Q. And do you recall they're criticizing, according to
the article, and I'm not saying this is true or false, but the
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
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.
Q. And then the sixth paragraph, is that a reference to
what you were recalling, "I'm 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
or not you talked to the Vice President within a couple of
days after the article came out?
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?
A. Yes.
Q. Okay. And can you tell us what happened as it
gained momentum over time in terms of who you spoke to?
A. Well, the, the content of it sort of kept coming up.
It didn't go away readily. At some point in June Walter
Pincus was thinking — was doing — was calling our office,
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 I 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?
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-l-l.
Q. And do you know if during this time between the
Kristof article in early May, and the Pincus article, which
will eventually come out on June 12th, if you spoke to Marc
Grossman from the State Department about the events described
in the Kristof article?
A. I don't, I don't recall it. Secretary Grossman
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.
Q. Do you recall if you ever asked Secretary Grossman
whether or not the State Department had sent the former
ambassador in response to a request from the Vice President?
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
Vice President had sent him on this trip?
A. That was the claim in the Kristof article, if I
recall, but I don't recall Mr. Grossman repeating it, or
saying that he knew it of his own — I just don't recall a
conversation with Secretary Grossman about this.
Q. And do you know — do you recall any conversation
with Secretary Grossman about who was responsible for sending
Wilson on this trip to Niger?
A. I, I don't recall a conversation with him about it.
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
had that conversation?
A. I, I don't recall the conversation. I, I just don't
recall the conversation.
Q. You mentioned that there came a time when you talked
to the Vice President about Walter Pincus' 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
that point. But my best recollection sitting here is that he
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 was
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
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 to
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
that's about what I recall from the conversation, according to
the notes.
Q. And we'll go through the notes in a moment. You
just referred to Bill Harlow as the State Department
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?
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 Asi
A.
Q. And did you understand, when he told you that this
former ambassador's wife worked at the CIA, do you have an
understanding or whether or not she worked in that functional
office?
A. Well, that's interesting. I'd have to look at the
note. I think — my recollection is that I knew she worked in
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 recollection
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.
Q. And what was it about the way he discussed that fact
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
voice?
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
fact that, you know, it wasn't — not everybody's wife works
there, so it was a new fact, that's 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
President —
A. You talking about in that conversation?
Q. In that conversation.
A. Yeah, I don't recall that.
Q. And any indication in that conversation that the
Vice President thought this might be sort of nepotism that she
worked at the Counterproliferation Division and the envoy went
on this trip?
A. I, I don't recall that.
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
recall.
Q. Okay. And was that an in-person meeting with the
briefer, your daily meeting?
A. I meet daily with him. Whether I passed this
question to him in the briefing or over the phone, I'm not
sure.
Q. Okay. And do you know if the Vice President
participated in this conversation or not?
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 —
MS. KEDIAN. 2307.
MR. FITZGERALD. 2307 —
MS. KEDIAN. We're going to mark this as Exhibit
51.
BY MR. FITZGERALD:
Q. I'll ask you to look at that Exhibit, 51, and ask
you if that's a note reflecting your conversation with the
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
have your own little shorthand?
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.
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 I'll 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
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
then have meetings with the Deputies or principals meetings,
will you take notes at those separate meetings?
A. Yes.
Q. And will you keep those notes?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And this is a note that you kept from June 9th,
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
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
you'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 Afric
A.
Q. Africa yellowcake?
A. I think so.
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
made a request in March of '03.
Q. And so does this indicate to you that it was on June
9th that you made the request for the briefer, Craig Schmall,
to find out whether or not the Vice President's Office was
responsible for this request for a mission?
A. Maybe. Let me — if I can explain?
Q. Sure.
A. If I took this note directly, that would indicate it
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.
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
there's no — nothing sensitive in here that the Grand Jury
can't see. So —
A. Thank you, 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. Thank you, 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. 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.
Q. And under that does it say, "Scooter" Libby or Vice
President?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And under that, was DR request in 3-03?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And above uranium procurement, what does it say
above uranium procurement?
A. I, I think it says — this one is less clear than
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
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
of indents and punctuation?
A. Yeah, the indents mean something to me. I mean, it
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
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
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.
Q. And as you'll see,
it's really trivial, and I apologize, but it's directly over
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
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 —
A. Yes.
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
as 52?
A. Yes. The ones that are sort of action item lists I
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 think so.
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
is 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
been 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. Yes, sir.
Q. Prior to that time had you ever heard of the
existence of an INR report concerning the trip to Niger and
the role played by former ambassador Wilson?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Okay. And tell us how you learned of it.
A. At the end of September there was a meeting in the
Situation Room underneath the White House, Classified Meeting
Room, and it was a very long meeting that covered several
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 10th, 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
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
something 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 Office 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
my mind at the time.
Q. As you sit here today do you know whether or not you
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 don'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
where Marc Grossman told you that he had learned the former
ambassador's 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 don'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.
What do you read the date to be?
A. Well, it's a little — it gets a little confused. I
read it to be 6-12-03, but over the 12 is a symbol that I use
which means that I don'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?
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
Kristof 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
heading —
MR. FITZGERALD. Well, why don't we turn that off
for the moment —
MS. KEDIAN. Okay.
WITNESS. Sorry.
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
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.
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
not there. I wrote down OVP and Defense and State expressed
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, which I think the CP is, and then his
wife works in that division.
Q. Okay.
A. And then he switched from debriefing me 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 CIE
A. 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.
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?
A. I don't.
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.
Q. Okay. Looking back up at the top, do you know what
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
when I realized it wasn't the 18th. That's a guess. 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
was written during the conversation that you had with the Vice
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
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
President re uranium and Iraq, Kristof, New York Times
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,
at least the first of the dates —
Q. Okay. And do you know whether that was during the
conversation or at a later time?
A. No, I think that was a later time.
Q. And do you know how much later?
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 didn't want to have to puzzle out twice what it was, so I
wrote a header on it.
Q. Okay. And so do you know if that was added in June,
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
anything?
A. No, I don't think so.
Q. So to the best of your recollection, this would have
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
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
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
that he said it in a — how would you describe —
A. Offhand, sort of curious, curiosity-type manner.
Q. And did you respond in any way to that, to that
fact?
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
mean something, I don't know.
Q. And do you know if on or about June 12th Marc
Grossman from the State Department had had a conversation with
you about Wilson's wife working at the CIA?
A. I don't recall anything about a Grossman
conversation, sir.
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
with, with Mr. Grenier. I think if I discussed something it
was what they knew about the request about Mr., about Mr.
Wilson. I don't recall the content of the discussion.
Q. And do you recall if there was an urgency to the
conversation when you spoke to Mr. Grenier?
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
for Mr. McLaughlin, it was probably something that was urgent
in the sense that my boss, the Vice President, wanted, wanted
to find something out. Not, not necessarily in the real
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
that — he didn't know about the mission, there wasn't a
report given back, you need to look at the —
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
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,
was rebuffed by the Vice President who thought the better
course was to have the Agency, CIA, come out and say that
themselves?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Now, did you talk to Mr. Pincus at the Washington
Post?
A. Yes, sir, I did.
Q. And did you talk to him prior to the article on June
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 IAE
A. 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,
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
National Intelligence Estimate came out which had a very
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
like phrasing that — it doesn't look like the way I would
have said it anyway.
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 —"
A. Yes.
Q. "— 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's initiative it turns
out, and that could have been — I could have said that to
him.
MR. FITZGERALD. Okay. Why don't we break for
lunch.
GRAND JUROR. We&#
Writings 
