MR. GINGRICH: Let, let me speak for my good friend here, because I don’t think he quite meant to say that. They want an agreement that we will not militarily take them down.

SEN. BIDEN: Yeah.

MR. GINGRICH: They’re not asking—I mean we would never give them...

SEN. BIDEN: Yeah.

MR. GINGRICH: ...an agreement that we wouldn’t try through—exactly as we did in Poland, in Czechoslovakia, in Hungary, in Ukraine, to encourage people to live, live in a free country. We’re not going to give up the right to say that—to North Korea, “You are a terrible dictatorship destroying your own people, and they deserve the right to self government.”

MR. RUSSERT: But you would pledge, you would pledge no military intervention?

MR. GINGRICH: We’re not going to intervene. There’s no prospect of the United States cheerfully, out of the blue, starting a war with North Korea. But let me point out what Senator Biden implied here. If they believed us, and if we looked them in the eye and said, “You put up a missile we’ll take it down, and by the way, you fire one round into South Korea, this regime’s over,” if they believed that, they wouldn’t fire into South Korea. And by the way, if they believed it, they wouldn’t put a missile on the launching pad.

Story continues below ↓

MR. RUSSERT: To be continued. Newt Gingrich, Joe Biden.

SEN. BIDEN: We should tell them that.

MR. RUSSERT: Thank you for an interesting discussion.

Coming next, columnist Robert Novak answers questions about his role in the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation. He’s coming up next, right here, only on MEET THE PRESS.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: Robert Novak, his now-famous July 2003 column and his role in the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation after this station break.

(Announcements)

MR. RUSSERT: And we’re back. Bob Novak, welcome to MEET THE PRESS.

MR. ROBERT NOVAK: Thank you.

MR. RUSSERT: Here’s your column, July 14, 2003. “[Joe] Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger.” That identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA agency operative triggered an investigation. Until this week, we did not know whether you had testified before the special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. You now say that in October of ‘03, you talked to the FBI; January of ‘04, to Patrick Fitzgerald; February of ‘04, Patrick Fitzgerald; and February of ‘04, the grand jury. Did you tell those law enforcement officials who your sources were?

MR. NOVAK: Yes, because they already knew. On my first interview, my first interview with the FBI, I had refused to give up the names of my sources. The second interview with Mr. Fitzgerald, I was in a dilemma because he had, as you know, waivers that I could give up the identity from just about everybody in the government. That didn’t cut any ice with me, I didn’t think I could give it up. And then I was told that he had only the waivers from the sources that I had talked to. Only two waivers. When he actually arrived, he had the third waiver from the CIA spokesman. In other words, Tim, he knew who my sources were, and so it wasn’t a matter of me giving them up.

MR. RUSSERT: We were subpoenaed at NBC. We fought the subpoenas. Time magazine subpoenaed, fought the subpoenas. New York Times fought the subpoenas. Why didn’t you fight the subpoena?

MR. NOVAK: Because my lawyer said I did not have a clear constitutional chance of surviving. I had to make this decision myself. I was operating as an independent operator, paying the burden—the great burden of my legal fees. Chicago Sun-Times helped me, but it was, essentially, my decision. And my attorney, Jim Hamilton, a very prominent attorney, believed that there was a high probability that I would lose the case in court, and it would not be good for press freedoms. As a matter of fact, you lost the case. In fact, everybody who went to court lost the case. And the law protecting the rights of journalists, which I feel very strongly about, has suffered by people going—by fighting it, and that’s one thing I wanted to avoid.

MR. RUSSERT: How do you believe Patrick Fitzgerald knew the identity of your sources?

MR. NOVAK: I don’t know. I thought he did it—he knew the identity almost from the very beginning of the, of the case. In other words, he has known for two and a half, for three—for two and a half years who my sources were and decided that no law was broken. And he did not bring any kind of indictment against my primary source, whose identity has still not been publicly made known.

MR. RUSSERT: But he knows it?

MR. NOVAK: Of course he knows it. He gave it—he—that’s—he made it clear to me he knew it my first interview with him.

MR. RUSSERT: When I was subpoenaed, we announced it. When I testified before Patrick Fitzgerald, we announced that and what I had said. And so, too, with Time magazine and The New York Times. Why did you wait almost three years to tell the public that you had been subpoenaed and what you said?

MR. NOVAK: Mr. Fitzgerald asked my lawyer not, not to divulge our, our contacts. He advised that that was good, good advice until his investigation was completed. When he announced that Karl Rove would not be indicted, my attorney went to Mr. Fitzgerald and asked him if it was—if that request now no longer held true, and he said that his investigation had been concluded as far as I was concerned.

MR. RUSSERT: Many lawyers involved in the case have said that your primary source is the same as that for Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. Ben Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, said this about Bob Woodward’s source: “That [former Deputy Secretary of State Richard] Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption.” Is it?

MR. NOVAK: I’m not going to speculate on who the source was. I would’ve said a long time ago if I was going to. I believe that, as far as making his name public on NBC, in my column, on any—for any—on any other means is a violation of the tacit arrangement in which I interviewed him when he gave me the name, when he gave me the fact of Mrs. Wilson’s involvement in this case. So, until he reveals himself—as Karl Rove, through his attorney, has revealed himself, or as Bill Harlow of the CIA has revealed himself—I’m going to be quiet. Now, I am—a lot of people feel this is going to come out sooner or later, probably sooner, but I can’t speculate on that.

MR. RUSSERT: Would it be wrong to suggest Richard Armitage?

MR. NOVAK: I don’t, I don’t make any speculation on who it is.

MR. RUSSERT: What were the ground rules of your interview?

MR. NOVAK: I, I have interviews all—I’m a—I’m a reporting columnist, as opposed to a thumbsucking columnist, and I have all kinds of interviews with people where there is a tacit agreement that, that no—that I will not reveal the name. I sat down with this source, who was not a, as I have said 10 million times, was not a political gunslinger. We had a long talk, an hour-long talk. We were the only people in the room. I didn’t have a tape recorder; I didn’t take notes. It’s the kind of tacitly not-for-attribution interview that I do constantly as part of my work for the last half-century in Washington.

MR. RUSSERT: And what did the source tell you about Valerie Plame?

CONTINUED

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