# How did robert novak give away a CIA agent's identity

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-novak-give-away-a-cia-agents-identity/311898
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 10, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-novak-give-away-a-cia-agents-identity/311898 "2005-07-10T23:01:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-novak-give-away-a-cia-agents-identity/311898/1 "2005-07-10T23:01:20Z")

</div>

How and when did he give away the identity of a CIA operative for political motives?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-novak-give-away-a-cia-agents-identity/311898/2 "2005-07-10T23:02:39Z")

</div>

Meaning, what is the story behind it. When did he do it & where did he get the info.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Scruloose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e68b1a/32.png) [@Scruloose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scruloose)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-novak-give-away-a-cia-agents-identity/311898/3 "2005-07-10T23:07:31Z")

</div>

[This article should sum it up.](http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/29/novak.cia/)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)
#### Post date: [July 10, 2005, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-robert-novak-give-away-a-cia-agents-identity/311898/4 "2005-07-10T23:32:18Z")

</div>

> [@Scruloose](#):
>
> [This article should sum it up.](http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/29/novak.cia/)

It should have, but it doesn’t. It’s taken a special prosecutor with a grand jury two years to start to get to the bottom of it.  
[Matt Cooper’s Source, from BEFORE the Novak article came out](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek/) (Newsweek, Today):

> [@](#):
>
> Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a “big warning” not to “get too far out on Wilson.” Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s trip had not been authorized by “DCIA”—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, “it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.” Wilson’s wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division.