Powell had file on Plame during Africa trip

CNN Transcript

CROWLEY: Right. So what we are seeing here it looks like is some pushback from the White House, going, well, wait a minute, first of all, it's not right that the CIA send him. His wife sent him over there. So it could be something...

ISIKOFF: But the problem that people in the White House, Rove among them, may have is how did they know that Valerie Plame, or Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? What we do know is there was a classified State Department report that said this, that was taken by Secretary of State Powell with him on the trip to Africa that President Bush was then on, and many senior White House aides were on.

That classified State Department report appears to have been -- or may well have been the source for the information that Rove and others were then dishing out to reporters. And if that's the case, there still may be -- we don't know yet, but there still may be an instance where classified information was provided to reporters.

Some dates might help - July 6th was a Sunday, bush left for Africa the night of the 7th and the returned on the 12th. Powell, Rice, Laura, and the twins were on the trip -- lots of entourage for that many people. Just went crusing through TPM's archive of that week and both Powell and Rice made statements on the Niger 'flap'. It's during this trip that Rice flatly blames the CIA.