Dick Cheney told FBI investigators that his response to hearing that Joe Wilson had been sent to Niger to assess whether Saddam had tried to buy yellow-cake was that it was “amateur hour” at the CIA.
That’s according to a summary of the FBI’s interview with Cheney, which was conducted as part of Pat Fitzgerald’s investigation of the leak of Valerie Plame’s name. The document was just released by the Justice Department, thanks to a lawsuit by CREW.
In his interview with the FBI, conducted in May 2004, Cheney frequently claimed to be unable to remember key details from the Plame episode.
You can look through the documents here, and tell us what else you find.
Update: For instance, the FBI agent writes, in reference to Wilson’s famed New York Times op-ed:
The vice president is relatively certain that he spoke to someone about the article but he cannot remember exactly who it was.
Also: Cheney “advised that he has no idea” who leaked Plame’s name to Bob Novak.
And: When Cheney then spoke to then-CIA director George Tenet about Wilson’s CIA-approved trip to Niger, “he had a sense that the DCI [Tenet] was defensive and embarrassed about the issue and had not known what was going on with regards to this mission.”
And: Cheney said he probably discussed Wilson — but not Plame —with Condi Rice, Karl Rove, and Andy Card.
And: “He does not recall any discussion with Libby of perceived nepotism associated with Wilson’s selection for the CIA assignment.”