The End Game Of The Plame Affair

In the few hours since my last post on the Plame affair there has been LOTS of opinions being floated around. Here is a sampling. First there is this Opinion Journal piece:

Even now Mr. Armitage hasn’t admitted to being the leaker, though doing so would help to clarify several things about the case.

For starters, fessing up would put to rest the conspiracy theories once and for all. Bush opponents have continued to promote this myth, with Mr. Wilson writing in June 2004 that “the conspiracy to destroy us was most likely conceived–and carried out–within the office of the vice president of the United States.” Not a word of that was true.

Mr. Novak hasn’t himself confirmed that Mr. Armitage was his primary source, since Mr. Armitage hasn’t yet given him leave to do so. But Mr. Novak has written that his source was not a “partisan gunslinger,” and the columnist has also said that he himself put in the call to Mr. Rove to confirm what he’d first heard from his main source (presumably Mr. Armitage). The White House, in short, was not engaged in any campaign to “out” Ms. Plame.

All of this matters because it also casts doubt on the thoroughness and fairness of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s probe that began in December 2003. The prosecutor never did indict anyone for leaking Ms. Plame’s name, though this was supposedly the act of “treason” that triggered the political clamor for a probe. Instead, he has indicted Mr. Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice.

Mr. Fitzgerald has nonetheless also tried to spin an aura that Mr. Libby was responsible for outing Ms. Plame. In his press conference on October 28, 2005, the prosecutor asserted that “In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to [former New York Times reporter] Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.” But we have since learned that Mr. Armitage also told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about Ms. Plame–a fact that Mr. Fitzgerald never uncovered until Mr. Woodward came forward after he heard Mr. Fitzgerald make that false public assertion.

Strangely, Mr. Armitage never seems to have told Mr. Fitzgerald that he’d talked to Mr. Woodward. And Mr. Fitzgerald never seems to have asked to see Mr. Armitage’s appointment calendar, which would have showed his meeting with Mr. Novak. It’s all enough to make us wonder if Mr. Fitzgerald didn’t buy into the liberal “conspiracy” theory of this case from the start and target the White House while giving Mr. Armitage a pass.

Investors Business Daily has an excellent piece with a timeline:

[…]But it’s hard to see anything but politics as the motivation for Fitzgerald’s handling of the Plame affair. The facts indicate that Fitzgerald knew early on that the original leaker was State Department official Richard Armitage. So why did Fitzgerald let a cloud hang over White House adviser Karl Rove’s head for so long? And why is Fitzgerald continuing to hound Libby, the former vice presidential chief of staff?

The answer seems to be that Armitage, who is charged with nothing and brags that he hasn’t even consulted a lawyer, was former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s right-hand man and a critic of pre-emptive war in Iraq. Libby, on the other hand, was an architect of that war strategy. Do doves get a pass in Fitzgerald’s book, while hawks get an indictment?

The latest revelations raise a question of far more gravity: Did Fitzgerald publicly lie? Let’s look at the facts:

• The indictment of Libby that Fitzgerald extracted from the grand jury states that “on or about June 23, 2003, Libby met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. . . . In discussing the CIA’s handling of Wilson’s trip to Niger, Libby informed her that Wilson’s wife might work at a bureau of the CIA.”

• In the Oct. 28 press conference announcing Libby’s indictment, Fitzgerald claimed that “in fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.”

• That assertion is apparently false. A soon-to-be-released book, “Hubris,” by Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff and The Nation magazine’s David Corn, finds that Armitage revealed Plame’s identity in a meeting with The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward a week before the Libby-Miller meeting in June 2003. In a Newsweek preview of the book, Isikoff cites “three government officials, a lawyer familiar with the case and an Armitage confidant” as sources for when the Armitage-Woodward conversation took place.

• Armitage is also clearly columnist Robert Novak’s primary source for his July 2003 column, which was the first piece to identify Plame. On Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” Novak complained that “the time has way passed for my source to identify himself.”

• Isikoff notes that “Armitage himself was aggressively investigated” by Fitzgerald. So Armitage fessed up at the outset. Fitzgerald long ago knew whom Armitage talked to and when. And he knew it was Armitage, not Libby, who was responsible for outing Plame (whose status as a secret CIA operative was dubious at best).

• Fitzgerald’s contention in October that Libby was “the first official known to have told a reporter . . . about Valerie Wilson” may therefore have been a lie.

Fitzgerald knew in the early days of his politicized witch hunt that no crime was committed. No one intentionally revealed the identity of a truly covert agent. Yet he made a reporter, Miller, spend nearly 90 days in jail for refusing to reveal her source.

Meanwhile, Fitzgerald refused to reveal to the public the true source. From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country’s history. That it’s taking place at a time of war only magnifies its sordidness.

And then you just have to look at this piece of back-peddling by the NYT’s where they now blame…wait for it….Scooter! Why you ask? Well because he sent an inquiry through Marc Grossman to find out who Ms. Wilson was:

[…]Mr. Armitage knew that, the accounts continue, because he had seen a written memorandum by Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman.

Mr. Grossman had taken up the task of finding out about Ms. Wilson after an inquiry from I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby’s inquiry was prompted by an Op-Ed article on May 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof and an article on June 12, 2003, in The Washington Post by Walter Pincus.[…]

Boy, does the Times want to vindicate Fitz badly or what? Is this the Times version of the magic bullet theory? They have concluded that Scooter is at fault by coming to this convoluted chain of events:

Armitage would not have spilled the beans on Plame if he had not found out who she was by the memo written in response to a question from Libby…..get it?

The real funny part is while trying to vindicate Fitz for going after Libby they get the whole chain of events wrong. Tom Maguire takes the Times to task:

Close – Carl Ford, head of the State Department’s INR, wrote a memo on June 10 to Marc Grossman; on July 7 a cover sheet was attached and it became a memo from Ford to “The Secretary” – c’mon, the NY Sun printed this, why can’t the Times find it? (The WaPo at least found an accurate description and the Times had this right a year ago.)

Mr. Grossman had taken up the task of finding out about Ms. Wilson after an inquiry from I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby’s inquiry was prompted by an Op-Ed article on May 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof and an article on June 12, 2003, in The Washington Post by Walter Pincus.

Emphasis added – who said Grossman was trying to learn about Ms. Wilson? If so, he did a miserable job – he got a three page memo with six attachments, and Ms. Wilson is only mentioned as an aside in one sentence:

In a February 19, 2002 meeting convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and rationale for going to Niger…

Let me offer some assistance – the purpose of the memo was to establish the circumstances under which Mr. Wilson, the former Ambassador, was sent to Niger. Based on the leaks in the Kristof column, it was not even clear whether he had been sent by the CIA or the INR – however, the CYA tone of the opening paragraphs makes it clear that the State Department wanted to push the whole Wilson story back onto the CIA.

As a bonus detail, the Pincus story was not published until June 12 (although folks surely knew he was asking questions before then). Thus, it is a bit misleading for the Times to report that the June 10 memo was prepared in response to the June 12 story.

Just a bit misleading.

Like I said, this article by the NYT’s is an attempt to save their own skin in this scandal.

More from Tom:

More from the Times:

Neither article identified the ambassador, but it was known inside the government that he was Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ms. Wilson’s husband. White House officials wanted to know how much of a role she had in selecting him for the assignment.

Emphasis added, and says who? White House officials certainly wanted to know who got Mr. Wilson involved with this Niger trip, what he reported, and how that report was circulated; his wife did have the incidental, one-sentence involvement noted above. But to suggest that White House inquiries were centered on Ms. Wilson is not supported by the evidence. In fact, although his recollection is certainly in dispute, Libby claims that Marc Grossman never mentioned Ms. Wilson in the meeting where the June 10 memo was discussed (see p. 5 of 29).

And then this line:

Ms. Wilson was a covert employee, and after Mr. Novak printed her identity, the agency requested an investigation to see whether her name had been leaked illegally.

Uh, hello? She was NOT a covert employee. This has been proven time and time again. Even Fitz, who has now been outed as a partisan hack, couldn’t indict anyone because she wasn’t covert.

But in the fantasy world of NYT’s land she will always be a covert double super secret agent.

And after AJStrata fisked Fitzgeralds filing to SCOTUS yesterday today he fisks Fitz’s filing to the US Court of Appeals:

The very first paragraph is basically a lie to the court:

The Special Counsel’s investigation concerns alleged leaks of purportedly classified information by one or more government officials to reporters in apparent retaliation for a former government official’s exercise of his First Amendment right to publicly criticize the government. During its investigation, the government has made narrow requests to a limited number of reporters for information crucial to the resolution of the investigation.

We now know this entire claim is false. The apparent retaliation did not exist because Fitzgerald knew Armitage was the leaker of the Novak story – the incident which was claimed to be the retaliation itself. Also, the resolution of the inquiry as stated was complete at this time. Again, if Fitzgerald was being held to the same standard as Libby he would be charged with perjury here.

Much more where that came from.

So where do we go from here? I am betting the left will stomp their feet and scream “it’s all a lie, a big conspiracy by Bushitler and the Jews in the MSM!”

But all to no avail. Years ago a story like this one would have begun and ended with the conspiracy story about a President revealing classified information to shut up a critic for the simple reason that there was no alternative to our MSM. Now we have the blogosphere and the lies spread by our MSM are answered quickly.

The Plame lie has been stomped out.

UPDATE

You know me, I just had to go into the sewer of DummiesU and find out what the loons think:

First we have the “its a conspiracy wrapped in a conspiracy” post:

acmavm Wed Aug-30-06 01:17 PM
Response to Original message
1. Could this be bullshit so that Rove, Cheney, etc. can’t be hauled into court?

edit: not necessarily to face charges but so that they can claim ignorance and not have to testify?

This one is quite funny:

Warpy Wed Aug-30-06 01:21 PM
Response to Original message
5. Oh yeah? Well who the hell told ARMITAGE?

People aren’t being fooled by this one. Armitage was a notorious gossip and certainly in no position to know who was a covert agent, the name of her front business, or anything else about the CIA.

He’d be the LAST person anyone in a lawful administration would tell.

You see he was a “notorious” gossip so no one would tell him, so its all a big conspiracy….

I’ll have more as the dummies have time to post their conspiracy theories.

UPDATE II

Here is one of them trying to be a writer for the Times by coming to his own convoluted chain of events that lead to…..

leveymg Wed Aug-30-06 01:47 PM
Response to Reply #12
30. It’s looking more and more like Marc Grossman is the original source of Plame’s identity, at least within the circle that was trying to get dirt on Ambassador Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame.

Grossman, who is a lesser known (but important) neo-con, changed the name Valerie Plame to Valerie Wilson on a State Department document that he incorporated into the 7/10/03 “INR” document that Grossman prepared and Armitage faxed to Powell about AF-1. The INR identifying Valerie Plame was then passed around by Bush’s aides. Libby received the original document naming Plame in a fax from Grossman before Libby had his famous breakfast meeting with Judy Miller on 7/8.

But, Grossman was responding to an inquiry from Libby who was originally told about Plame by Cheney. So, the chain of custody goes back to you know who, Dick Cheney.

Yup, its still Cheney’s fault.

This one believes it to be a White House conspiracy to find a fall guy:

Stargazer99 Wed Aug-30-06 10:47 AM
Response to Reply #10
11. Ignorance is no excuse except when you are politically connected….equal justice? Laugh here! It looks like the WH has found their fall-guy.

And this one still believes in Santa Claus:

AngryAmish Wed Aug-30-06 12:56 PM
Response to Original message
28. This is a distraction

Wait until Rove is indicted.

These guys slay me.

UPDATE III

This one gave me a headache:

Kagemusha Donating Member Wed Aug-30-06 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. Well, I had a thought a minute ago…

Novak called the CIA and asked about Plame apparently, and he was told they weren’t talking about her, and they didn’t want him talking about her, either, or suggesting things about her.

Could Novak have simply decided, “Ok, I know she works at the CIA, they won’t admit it, ergo, she’s covert – great, I’ll put that in my column!”

Maybe he called a couple of other sources like Rove or Libby (or both) to get a wink, wink, nod, nod, confirmation that she worked at the CIA without their saying she was a NOC. So he decides she’s a NOC (non-official cover = covert) based on the CIA refusal to discuss her, which they wouldn’t do if she was NOT a NOC, and prints she’s a NOC with the CIA spokesman as his unwitting “source” by process of elimination.

And Fitz can’t know for sure if the confirmation to Novak, taking advantage of Armitage’s f-up, was a conspiracy or not with Libby throwing sand in his eyes.

Please someone get him his schizo meds….stat!

UPDATE IV

Can someone please get this guy a tissue?

RockHardCore Wed Aug-30-06 03:36 PM
Response to Original message
9. This TOO MUCH! It’s all Joe Wilson’s fault! Rite!!!
I know I keep pounding this, but this is an issue that was super important to me and it looks like the BushCo’s are just going to get away with EVERYTHING!! So naturally I am very into how they are spinning everything to get away with it.

On another note check out The Anchoress’ excellent post about the decline of our MSM when it comes to this Plame story and just about any other:

Truth be told, the press is staggeringly incurious about most things, and what it is interested in – which in the past few years means “screwing Bush,” sorry, but it’s true – it obsesses on.

I’ve watched politics all my life and have never seen these two things: 1) the press pounding one president mercilessly and relentlessly – on any issue, any at all – (I recall reading one idiot who suggested that the post World Cup violence in Europe was Bush’s fault) and 2) reporting almost daily on the comings and goings of the past president, and constantly putting the out-of-power cabinet members and advisors before the public for their “analysis” and “opinions.”

I’m quite sure when the Bush years are over, we will not see Rummy, Rove or anyone in Bush’s cabinet invited on Russert’s show, or Stephanopolous’. No matter who the next president is, they’ll still be going to Clinton’s people for commentary. It helps, probably, that so many Clintonites have either become “journalists” themselves, or married journalists, or invested heavily in media interests. Lots of things in place to help hoist the next Clinton presidency into place.

The way the MSM has treated this story from the beginning has been a very telling narrative on how liberal, how backwards and left leaning every single outlet is. And when the truth comes out, that it was not a partisan gunslinger who outed a non-covert CIA desk jockey, they can’t be bothered with the story….on to the next!

Other’s Blogging:

• The Real Ugly American
• Say Anything
• Cheat Seeking Missiles
• Dadmanly
• The American Thinker
• My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
• In The Bullpen
• USS Neverdock
• Wizbang

Years ago a story like this one would have begun and ended with the conspiracy story about a President revealing classified information to shut up a critic for the simple reason that there was no alternative to our MSM. Now we have the blogosphere and the lies spread by our MSM are answered quickly.

The Plame lie has been stomped out.

Curt

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