It was before Novak's column.
From Larry Johnson's blog :
Biography of Ray McGovern [See VIPS]Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a C.I.A. analyst for 27 years, and is now on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
The coming months are likely to see senior Bush administration officials frog marched out of the White House to be booked, unless the president moves swiftly to fire Fitzgerald—a distinct possibility. With so many forces at play, it is easy to lose perspective and context while plowing through the tons of information on this case. What follows is a retrospective and prospective, laced with some new facts and analysis aimed at helping us to focus on the forest once we have given due attention to the trees.
In late May 2003, the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) informed me [Ray McGovern] that a former U.S. ambassador named Joseph Wilson would be sharing keynote duties with me at a large EPIC conference on June 14.
I was delighted—for two reasons. This was a chance to meet the “American hero” (per George H. W. Bush) who faced down Saddam Hussein, freeing hundreds of American and other hostages taken when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. More important, since Wilson had served as an ambassador in Africa, I thought he might be able to throw light on a question bedeviling me since May 6, when New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an intriguing story about a mission to Niger by “a former U.S. ambassador to Africa.” --- "Chickens Come Home to Roost on Cheney ," by Larry Johnson , Thu Oct 20th, 2005 at 12:34:45 PM EDT [Johnson's blog]
In 2003 Wilson began to support and formally endorsed John Kerry for president, donated $2,000 to his campaign, and served as an advisor to and speechwriter for the campaign in 2003 and 2004.[17] He has made contributions to the campaigns of Democratic candidates, such as Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts and Congressman Charles B. Rangel of New York, and to Republican Congressman Ed Royce of California.[18]
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Wilson supported activist groups like Win Without War, a nonpartisan coalition of groups united in opposition to the Iraq War, has been quoted in the organization's press releases, and has been attacked by conservatives for such anti-war activism.[19] Nevertheless, according to an article to which Scott Shane and Lynette Clemetson contributed, published in the New York Times: "Despite conservatives' efforts to portray him as a left-wing extremist, [Wilson] insisted he remained a centrist at heart. But after his tangle with the current administration, he admits 'it will be a cold day in hell before I vote for a Republican, even for dog catcher.'"[20]
Wilson endorses Veterans for a Secure America (VSA).
In the book, Wilson claims that "after the South Carolina primary," he made a donation to the Gore campaign and joined his foreign policy group. In fact, Wilson had donated his $1,000 to the Bush campaign nearly a year before the South Carolina primary and in the weeks prior to that donation gave $2,000 to Al Gore and $1,000 to Ted Kennedy. Plame had also donated $1,000 to Gore's campaign in 1999, using her married name "Valerie Wilson" and listing her employment as an "analyst" with Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a CIA front. As to his working for both Gore and Foley, both prominent Democrats, Wilson writes that off to "happenstance."
As a private citizen, Wilson reports that he made three trips to Niger, a landlocked hellhole in the Sahara, culminating the fateful trip of February 2002. The only reason he cites for his first trip in 1998 was to "participate in a cultural festival," at best a half-truth.
It was in 1999, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, that Plame first recommended her husband be sent on a fact-finding trip to Niger. Wilson "was selected for the 1999 trip," reads the report, "after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region."
In his book, however, Wilson claims that he went at the request of a former prime minister to give a "crash course" to a new president who had just taken power after the murder of his predecessor. He makes no mention of Plame or the CIA. The story changes in the preface to the paperback version with Wilson now claiming he went to Niger in 1999 "at the request of the CIA to look into other uranium-related matters." He does not offer specifics on the mission or on Plame's involvement.
Although little is clear about this 1999 trip to Niger, the rationale for sending Wilson seems no more sinister than a fortuitous bit of nepotism. Wilson's clients had interests in that part of the world, and Wilson's traveling on behalf of the CIA had to enhance his business credentials and, ideally, the Wilsons' income.
"As an employee of the CIA, Valerie could have NO CONTACT with the media WITHOUT PRIOR APPROVAL"...
Wilson makes a stunning admission to Vanity Fair that has been heretofore overlooked. He tells the reporter that in May 2003 he and Plame had attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee at which he spoke about Iraq. On his panel was Kristof of the Times. Over breakfast "with Kristof and his wife," Wilson told Kristof about the Niger trip and said he "could write about it, but not name him." If "his wife" refers not to Kristof's wife but to Plame, which it almost assuredly does, Wilson has implicated Plame in a serious transgression. "As an employee of the CIA," he writes in the preface to the paperback, "she could have no contact with the press without prior approval."
http://tinyurl.com/yt9ygx
Joe Wilson calls himself a business agent for unnamed "African mining companies." We can reasonably guess that he made those contacts during his several postings in Francophone West Africa, possibly when he was Ambassador to Gabon, another former French colony, at the culmination of his State Department career.
Wilson claims credit for persuading Bill Clinton to make a heavily hyped trip to French Africa, tossing millions of US aid dollars to the local dictatorships, including, possibly, some of Wilson's friends. So Wilson apparently works as a consultant for French—owned mining companies in Africa, which would allow him to be openly paid by those companies.
http://tinyurl.com/32lvhe