Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, hawing a Bush-bashing novel he’s written with the derelict David Corn of The Nation, told the world earlier this week the that anti-war former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the person Joe Wilson was looking to frog-march, the man who had leaked the name of super-secret spy agent Plame, Valerie Plame, to columnist Bob Novak. Wilson had frothed that Karl Rove had leaked Plame’s name to defame him for attacking the President about Niger/Yellowcake/etc. Really, according to Isikoff, it was Armitage dropping the name because that’s the sort of thing he does. Nothing sinister.
But we all knew this. And Isikoff still has the Koran-flushing fiction for which he has never personally apologized, so we can take his word for what it’s worth.
CNN has independently verified Armitage’s culpability from “two sources familiar with Armitage’s role.”
Novak has said he would not reveal the identity of the original source unless the source came forward. However, he said the special counsel in the CIA leak investigation, Patrick Fitzgerald, learned who the source was independently.
Fitzgerald has said he does not plan to bring any charges against Novak’s original source.
Calls to Armitage for comment were not returned Tuesday.
Armitage himself has not come forward.
At a Chicago Sun-Times forum held last April, Novak made clear that Fitzgerald had know for a while who was his source:
“The question is, does Mr. Fitzgerald know who the source was?” Novak asked. “Of course. He’s known for years who the first source is. If he knows the source, why didn’t he indict him? Because no crime was committed.”
Fitzgerald, then, had known “for years” that Armitage was responsible for the leak but that Armitage had broken no law. Why then, did special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald say at an October 28, 2005 news conference heralding the indictment of Scooter Libby on five counts, none of which were leaking Plame’s name:
Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.
But Mr. Novak was not the first reporter to be told that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Wilson, Ambassador Wilson’s wife Valerie, worked at the CIA. Several other reporters were told.
In fact, Mr. [Scooter] Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.
The first reporter to whom her name was leaked was the WashPost’s Bob Woodward. According to the Post piece just linked, Woodward told Fitz that “his original government source did not mention Plame by name, referring to her only as ‘Wilson’s wife.’”
According to Isikoff, Armitage was the source for both Novak and Woodward. The AP reports that it discovered through the Freedom of Information Act, that Woodward and Armitage met in private on on June 13, 2003. That’s the right timeline for the leak.
Okay. Fitzgerald knows all this. So what in this particular universe is Fitzgerald investigating?
The San Francisco Chronicle reported in April of this year:
[T]he White House — and specifically President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney — have been pitched back into the center of the controversy, this time because of a prosecutor’s court filing in the case that asserts there was “a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House,” to undermine Wilson.
The new assertions by the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has put White House officials on the spot in a way they have not been for months, as attention in the case seems to be shifting away from the White House to the pretrial procedural skirmishing in the perjury and obstruction charge against Cheney’s former chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby.
Fitzgerald’s court filing talks not of an effort to level with Americans but of “a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson.” It concludes, “It is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to ‘punish Wilson.’”
It looks like he’s investigating an effort to smear Wilson which had nothing to do with an illegal leak of a CIA officer’s name. Why is Fitzgerald doing this?
Fitzgerald’s original mandate, from the deputy Attorney General’s letter of December of 2003, charged the prosecutor to “investigate into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a C.I.A employee’s identity.” He’s done that, it was Armitage, no laws were broken… case closed? Nope.
In February of 2004, at Fitzgerald’s request, the deputy Attorney General wrote a letter clarifying Fitzgerald’s mandate, writing that it:
includes the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses; to conduct appeals arising out of the matter being investigated and/or prosecuted; and to pursue administrative remedies and civil sanctions (such as civil contempt) that are within the Attorney General’s authority to impose or pursue.
He’s allowed to prosecute Scooter Libby for alleged perjury. Libby did not leak Plame’s name. Leaking Plame’s name did not violate the law. Whatever the White House wanted to do with Wilson, they neither leaked Plame’s name nor violated the law in not doing so. But there is Fitzgerald, as documented above, telling the press that he had indications of White House culpability.
It’s madness.
I am not going to assign a motive to Patrick Fitzgerald. I do not know him, and I am not an attorney familiar with the various machinations of a prosecution, much less a “special one.” (Technically, Fitz is a “Special Counsel,” though this title, according to the ‘04 authorization letter, “should not be misunderstood to suggest that your position and authorities are defined and limited by 28 CFR Part 600.”)
One wonders if someone thinks they are doing the nation a service by damaging this President. “The ends justifies the means” seemed to work for Bentham, Mill, and Mr. Spock, after all.
Why is Fitzgerald still blaming the White House when he has known all along that the leak came from Dick Armitage at Colin Powell’s State Department? Why is he still prosecuting Scooter Libby? Why haven’t Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame been frog-marched by a responsible media from our memories?
