The White House press aide interviewed this week by FBI officials in relation to the Plame leak investigation, Adam Levine, apparently left the White House in December. Which is when John Aschroft recused himself from the investigation. Now several news organizations report that Levine's job was to serve as a link between the White House press office and television networks. An old Knight Ridder story refers to "Adam Levine, the assistant press secretary at the White House who coordinates the Sunday appearances." A more recent Washington Post story writes that "Adam Levine, a former White House aide who portrayed Russert in mock sessions with administration officials," referring to White House prep of the President in advance of his appearance on Meet the Press this past weekend, so seems he is playing some sort of White House consulting role even though he left the job in December.

One thing that comes up in a google search for Adam Levine is a series of stories written by one Adam Levine in the late 1990s on Missouri state politics. We will remember that Ashcroft is a former governor of Missouri (1984-1993) and one of Missouri's Senators from 1994 until 2000. Who knows if there's any connection. It seems that there are multiple reasons Ashcroft may have had in December to recuse himself from the investigation, as the investigation gathered pace, and now seems to be zeroing in on fairly senior White House staff. But interesting if someone can figure out if between his stint at the Missouri state house news org in the mid-late 1990s and the White House press job in 2001-2004 if Adam Levine did any work for Sen. Ashcroft. It could be of course a completely different Adam Levine, and not working with a broadcaster, I honestly have never encountered him in his WH job before.

In reviewing some of the facts, it seems like we are really close to knowing what happened.

Wilson's NYT oped exposing the bogus nature of the Niger uranium documents appears July 6, 2003.

Novak's column exposing Plame's identity appears July 14, 2003.

On September 28, The Washington Post reported that according to 'a senior administration official,' that 'two top White House officials'...had called at least 'six journalists' to reveal the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife.

In the October 13, 2003 edition of Newsweek, NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell is quoted as saying, "I heard in the White House that people were touting the Novak column and that was the real story." Newsweek also reported that Wilson had received a call from Chris Matthews, of MSNBC's 'Hardball,' who told him, 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game.'

--It's kind of interesting -- that Adam Levine's job was to book White House officials on TV news and talk shows. He doesn't sound like he's the kind of senior official or has the job description to have likely known in intimate detail who's who at the CIA. He would have no reason to know about Plame's role, except had he been told by his superiors to try to get his contacts say at NBC to follow this other side of the Wilson story.

As the Times notes "Armed with handwritten White House notes, detailed cellphone logs and copies of e-mail messages between White House aides and reporters, prosecutors have demanded explanations of conversations between aides and reporters for some of the country's largest news organizations that under ordinary circumstances would never be publicly discussed.

As the Times also reports, "Prosecutors, referring to the story as 'one by two by six,' have sought to learn the identity of the senior administration official or the two top White House officials, believing that whoever provided the information to the Post knew who spoke with Mr. Novak."

You almost don't have to talk to the reporters. You can see who called who from the phone records, and know when certain stories did or did not appear.

But who passed on the 'dirt' about Plame was probably not likely the person who came up with the idea -- who had access to the information about Plame's job at the CIA. That is the kind of information much more likely to be known by the few people who were frequenting the CIA at that time haranguing CIA analysts to come up wtih the Iraq intel findings they believed to be true. We now know one of the people they were haranguing is Alan Foley, the head of the non proliferation office at the CIA, who was Valerie Plame's boss, and who reportedly quit under the pressure. As the New Republic reported, those doing that haranguing were John Hannah and Libby Lewis, from the Office of the Vice President. After all, Wilson got sent on his fact finding trip to Niger in the first place because the Vice Presidnet's office had been fed (by whom?) this report of the documents which surfaced in Italy that purported to show sales of uranium from Niger to Iraq. Documents which Wilson's research suggested were fraudulent.

It seems more and more plausible that the Plame leak originated in the senior staff in Cheney's office, and was conveyed to the White House press staff, including perhaps to the press secretary who books guests for TV networks.

Posted by Laura at February 10, 2004 12:42 PM