8 August 2003: Days after Joe Wilson "publicly voiced doubts about a reported Iraqi weapons program," Joe Wilson says he became "a target of a campaign to discourage others like him from going public.... [and] Joe Wilson's wife was identified by name as a covert C.I.A. operative in a column by the conservative columnist Robert Novak, a disclosure that Mr. Novak has attributed to senior administration officials." 

21 August 2003: Joe Wilson participated in a "public panel in Washington" and is quoted as having said "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words." 

September 2003

September 16, 2003: Scott McClellan says "it's totally ridiculous" to say Karl Rove was the Plame leak. 

September 28, 2003: A senior administration official tells The Washington Post "that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Joe Wilson's wife." 

29 September 2003: White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan on Karl Rove: "He wasn't involved,... The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true." 

29 September 2003: Novak insists that he stumbled on the story himself -- he wasn't just the only dupe out of six attempts who took the Plame bait. "'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this,' Novak said on CNN, saying the information was disclosed to him while he was interviewing a senior Bush administration official.... Novak said the administration official told him in July that Joe Wilson's trip was 'inspired by his wife,' and that the CIA confirmed her 'involvement in the mission for her husband.' ... 'They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else,' he said, adding that a source at the CIA told him Plame was 'an analyst -- not a covert operator and not in charge of undercover operators.'" 

September 29, 2003 ABC reporter asks "Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?" Rove answers "No." 

September 30, 2003: A journalist tells the Washington Post he or she had received a call from an administration official revealing Joe Wilson's wife's name and occupation, confirming the story that someone was actively spreading this story. 

30 September 2003: Ex-CIA analyst Larry Johnson says on PBS that Plame was under cover, contrary to what Robert Novak said. 

Late September 2003: The Justice Department launched a full criminal investigation into the leak, an aggravated felony punishable by up to three years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

October 2003

1 October 2003: Joe Wilson told Ted Koppel on Nightline that "Washington reporters told him that senior White House adviser Karl Rove said his wife was 'fair game'." Joe Wilson "plans to give the names of the reporters to the FBI, which is conducting a full-blown investigation of the possible leak." 

1 October 2003: "While Novak's decision to use Plame's name begs a journalism ethics debate, releasing her name to him or any reporter may well constitute a felony. 

October 5, 2003: Asked if he considered himself a Democrat, Joe Wilson said, "I certainly am now." 

6 October 2003: Scott McClellan refuses to answer questions about Karl Rove's comment on "Hardball" that Joe Wilson's wife was "fair game." 


10 October 2003. White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters. McClellan said he had spoken with all three, and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this." 

October 22, 2003. John Kerry for President, Inc. registers the domain for Joe Wilson's website www.RestoreHonesty.com 
2004

December 2003 or January 2004: Rove's lawyer Robert Luskin says Rove has signed a waiver authorizing prosecutors to speak to any reporters Rove had talked to. 

January 2004 Magazine Vanity Fair publishes "Double Exposure," an article about Joe Wilson and Plame. 

January 22, 2004: Justice Department subpoenas phone records from Air Force One. 

11 February 2004 George W. Bush insists, "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is...If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job. I want to know the truth...Leaks of classified information are bad things." 

March 6, 2004: The Washington Post reports that the White House agreed to turn over a log of a week's worth of telephone calls from Air Force One and other records subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the leak.