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Author Topic: Powell's deputy Richard Armitage was Novak's Plame source?!?
Morbo
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Wow. According to "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," Richard Armitage, former Secratay of State Powell's deputy was the leaker? One guy I never would have guessed. Supposedly, it was done somewhat inadvertedly, and not part of the White House campaign to discredit Ambassador Wilson. Armitage didn't know Plame was or had been a covert op, and he immediately came clean to the FBI after realising he could be Novak's source, so special counsel Fitzgerald never charged him. Just goes to prove the old adage, it' the cover-up that gets you in trouble. If Scooter Libbey had been more forthcoming he probably wouldn't have been charged.

quote:
Months earlier, Novak had caused a huge stir when he revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer. Ever since, Washington had been trying to find out who leaked the information to Novak. The columnist himself had kept quiet. But now, in a second column, Novak provided a tantalizing clue: his primary source, he wrote, was a "senior administration official" who was "not a partisan gunslinger." Armitage was shaken. After reading the column, he knew immediately who the leaker was. On the phone with Powell that morning, Armitage was "in deep distress," says a source directly familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. "I'm sure he's talking about me."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek/
The article is written by Michael Isikoff, a co-author of "Hubris".
After he told Powell, they consulted with a State Department lawyer, who told the FBI. The next day FBI agents and Justice Department prosecutors questioned Armitage. Taft, the lawyer, also told Gonzalez, then White House counsel, but gave no names or details, just said State had given Justice information about the case. Which is funny, because perhaps no one in the White House itself knew who the original leaker was, and their smear campaign against Wilson just overlapped what to Armitage was gossip. [Big Grin]

quote:
The disclosures about Armitage, gleaned from interviews with colleagues, friends and lawyers directly involved in the case, underscore one of the ironies of the Plame investigation: that the initial leak, seized on by administration critics as evidence of how far the White House was willing to go to smear an opponent, came from a man who had no apparent intention of harming anyone.

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kmbboots
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On Meet the Press yesterday, Novak declined to reveal his source but did say that he thought it was past time for the source to identify himself.
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