Woodward Apologizes to Post For Silence on Role in Leak Case

Exactly what triggered Woodward's disclosure to Downie remains unclear. Woodward said yesterday that he was "quite aggressively reporting" a story related to the Plame case when he told Downie about his involvement as the term of Fitzgerald's grand jury was set to expire on Oct. 28.

The administration source who originally told Woodward about Plame approached the prosecutor recently to alert him to his 2003 conversation with Woodward. The source had not yet contacted Fitzgerald when Woodward notified Downie about their conversation, Woodward said.

"After Libby was indicted, [Woodward] noticed how his conversation with the source preceded the timing in the indictment," Downie said yesterday. "He's been working on reporting around that subject ever since the indictment."

Once Fitzgerald contacted Woodward on Nov. 3 with a request to testify, the newspaper's lawyers asked that nothing be published until after the deposition, Woodward said.

The disclosure has prompted critics to compare Woodward to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter who left the newspaper last week amid questions about her lone-ranger style and why she had not told her editors sooner about her involvement in the Plame matter. An online posting at Reason magazine called Woodward "Mr. Run Amok," a play on Miller's nickname at the Times. Neither reporter wrote a story on the subject.

Rem Rieder, editor of American Journalism Review, called Woodward's disclosure "stunning" and said it "seems awfully reminiscent of what we criticized Judith Miller for."

Times Executive Editor Bill Keller accused Miller of misleading the paper by not disclosing earlier that she had discussed Plame with Libby. Managing Editor Jill Abramson has said she has no recollection of Miller suggesting that she pursue a story on the Plame matter, as Miller has maintained.

In Woodward's case, he says he passed along a tip about Plame to Post reporter Walter Pincus in June 2003, but Pincus says he has no recollection of such a conversation. Pincus has also testified in the probe but, like Woodward, has not obtained permission from one source to disclose that person's identity.

Woodward has criticized the Fitzgerald probe in media appearances. He said on MSNBC's "Hardball" in June that in the end "there is going to be nothing to it. And it is a shame. And the special prosecutor in that case, his behavior, in my view, has been disgraceful." In a National Public Radio interview in July, Woodward said that Fitzgerald made "a big mistake" in going after Miller and that "there is not the kind of compelling evidence that there was some crime involved here."

Rieder said it was "kind of disingenuous" for Woodward to have made such comments without disclosing his involvement.

Liberal blogger Josh Marshall wrote: "By becoming a partisan in the context of the leak case without revealing that he was at the center of it, really a party to it, he wasn't being honest with his audience."

Downie said Woodward had violated the newspaper's guidelines in some instances by expressing his "personal views."