Ray O'Hara wrote:
> "Ray O'Hara" <roh@comcast.net> wrote in message
> news:GvidndUAzN1Z0CTYnZ2dnUVZ_t-mnZ2d@comcast.com...
>
> libby claimed he learned about wilson on july 10th.
> judy miller today testified that libby told her 2 weeks before that date.
> she had her notes. you might remember judy, she spent 87 days in jail
> protecting her source{libby}
> they also found a note from june 12th in libby's hand that cheney told him.
> it was entered into evidence.
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair
There's a lot of interesting information in this article, but one
fact is perfectly clear: Rove, Libby and Cheney are *not* the people
responsible for leaking Plame's secret identity to Robert Novak.
The man who *is* responsible, Richard Armitage, former Deputy
Secretary of State under Colin Powell, is not being prosecuted. It
appears that the only thing Rove ever did was to acknowledge to
Novak that Armitage was correct. Rove has not been indicted either.
Libby's indictment reads as follows:
“Beginning in or about January 2004, and continuing until the date
of this indictment, Grand Jury 03-3 sitting in the District of
Columbia conducted an investigation ("the Grand Jury Investigation")
into possible violations of federal criminal laws, including: Title
50, United States Code, Section 421 (disclosure of the identity of
covert intelligence personnel); and Title 18, United States Code,
Sections 793 (improper disclosure of national defense information),
1001 (false statements), 1503 (obstruction of justice), and 1623
(perjury).
A major focus of the Grand Jury Investigation was to determine which
government officials had disclosed to the media prior to Robert
Novak's July 14, 2003 information concerning the affiliation of
Valerie Wilson with the CIA, and the nature, timing, extent, and
purpose of such disclosures, as well as whether any official making
such a disclosure did so knowing that the employment of Valerie
Wilson by the CIA was classified information."
But since the prosecutor now knows who did what and has failed to
indict the perpetrator, the case would now appear to be closed -
except for the fact that none of the high-profile targets Fitzgerald
was really after appear to be guilty of anything. If Libby was not
completely forthcoming, or couldn't remember the exact date of a
conversation he once had, so what? He didn't do the crime, Armitage
did and Armitage admitted it!
here are a few more significant quotations...
In September 2003, on CNN's Crossfire, Novak asserted: "Nobody in
the Bush administration called me to leak this. There is no great
crime here," ...
After the indictment of Lewis Libby and the expiration of the term
of the initial Grand Jury, Michael Isikoff revealed portions of his
new book entitled Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the
Selling of the Iraq War, co-authored with David Corn, in the August
28, 2006 issue of Newsweek. Isikoff reports that then Deputy
Secretary of State Richard Armitage had a central role in the Plame
affair.
In Hubris, Isikoff and Corn reveal – as both Armitage and syndicated
columnist Robert Novak acknowledged publicly later – that Armitage
was Novak's "initial" and "primary source" for Novak's July 2003
column that revealed Plame's identity as a CIA operative and that
after Novak revealed his "primary source" (Novak's phrase) was a
"senior administration official" who was "not a partisan
gunslinger," Armitage phoned Colin Powell that morning and was "in
deep distress." Reportedly, Armitage told Powell: "I'm sure [Novak
is] talking about me." In his Newsweek article, Isikoff states:
"The next day, a team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors
investigating the leak questioned the deputy secretary. Armitage
acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained
in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wife worked on
weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA...[William Howard Taft
IV, the State Department's legal adviser] felt obligated to inform
White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides
feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been
Novak's source—possibly to embarrass State Department officials who
had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. So Taft told
Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some
information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage.
Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's
lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him
nothing more. Armitage's role thus remained that rarest of
Washington phenomena: a hot secret that never leaked."
According to Isikoff, as based on his sources, Armitage told Bob
Woodward Plame's identity three weeks before talking to Novak, and
Armitage himself was aggressively investigated by special counsel
Patrick Fitzgerald, but was never charged because Fitzgerald found
no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status when he
talked to Novak and Woodward.
New York Times reports that the lawyer and other associates of Mr.
Armitage confirmed he was Novak's "initial and primary source" for
Plame's identity. The New York Times also reports "Mr. Armitage
cooperated voluntarily in the case, never hired a lawyer and
testified several times to the grand jury, according to people who
are familiar with his role and actions in the case. He turned over
his calendars, datebooks and even his wife’s computer in the course
of the inquiry, those associates said. But Mr. Armitage kept his
actions secret, not even telling President Bush because the
prosecutor asked him not to divulge it, the people said . . . Mr.
Armitage had prepared a resignation letter, his associates said. But
he stayed on the job because State Department officials advised that
his sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the
leak, the people aware of his actions said. . . . He resigned in
November 2004, but remained a subject of the inquiry until [February
2006] when the prosecutor advised him in a letter that he would not
be charged."
In an interview with CBS news first broadcast on September 7, 2006,
Armitage admits that he was Novak's "initial" and "primary source"
(Novak's words). In the interview he describes his conversation with
Novak:
“At the end of a wide-ranging interview he asked me, "Why did the
CIA send Ambassador (Wilson) to Africa?" I said I didn't know, but
that she worked out at the agency, adding it was "just an offhand
question. . . . I didn't put any big import on it and I just
answered and it was the last question we had."
After acknowledging that he was indeed Robert Novak's initial and
primary source for the column outing Plame, Richard Armitage refers
to what has been termed "a classified State Department memorandum"
which purportedly refers to Valerie Wilson.
New York Times reports that the lawyer and other associates of Mr.
Armitage confirmed he was Novak's "initial and primary source" for
Plame's identity. The New York Times also reports "Mr. Armitage
cooperated voluntarily in the case, never hired a lawyer and
testified several times to the grand jury, according to people who
are familiar with his role and actions in the case. He turned over
his calendars, datebooks and even his wife’s computer in the course
of the inquiry, those associates said. But Mr. Armitage kept his
actions secret, not even telling President Bush because the
prosecutor asked him not to divulge it, the people said . . . Mr.
Armitage had prepared a resignation letter, his associates said. But
he stayed on the job because State Department officials advised that
his sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the
leak, the people aware of his actions said. . . . He resigned in
November 2004, but remained a subject of the inquiry until [February
2006] when the prosecutor advised him in a letter that he would not
be charged."
In an interview with CBS news first broadcast on September 7, 2006,
Armitage admits that he was Novak's "initial" and "primary source"
(Novak's words). In the interview he describes his conversation with
Novak:
“At the end of a wide-ranging interview he asked me, "Why did the
CIA send Ambassador (Wilson) to Africa?" I said I didn't know, but
that she worked out at the agency, adding it was "just an offhand
question. . . . I didn't put any big import on it and I just
answered and it was the last question we had."
After acknowledging that he was indeed Robert Novak's initial and
primary source for the column outing Plame, Richard Armitage refers
to what has been termed "a classified State Department memorandum"
which purportedly refers to Valerie Wilson.
--
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that
of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare others who
have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate
arbitrarily the first principle of association: the guarantee to
everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired
by it." - Thomas Jefferson.
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