Posted on 08/29/2006 7:27:38 PM PDT by kellynla
The leak of information about an undercover CIA employee that provoked a special prosecutor's investigation of senior White House officials came from then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, according to a former Armitage colleague at the department.
Armitage told newspaper columnist Robert D. Novak in the summer of 2003 that Valerie Plame, the wife of a prominent critic of the Iraq war, worked for the CIA, the colleague said. In October of that year, Armitage admitted to senior State Department officials that he had made the remark, which was based on a classified report he had read.
Novak collected what he considered to be a confirming comment from White House political strategist Karl Rove, then wrote a column in July 2003 that cited Plame's CIA employment as a reason to question the credentials of the critic, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
In 2002, the CIA sent Wilson to Niger to determine whether Iraq was seeking nuclear material there. He subsequently accused the White House of distorting intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Novak's column set off a chain of events that culminated in the appointment of special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald and a grand jury's indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for lying to investigators about his own conversations with reporters regarding Plame.
(Excerpt) Read more at freerepublic.com ...
Richard Armitage
all I am saying is, where is the conspiracy here on their part?
Man....you've been in a cave....go do some reading.
the initial statement from Armitage to Novak, you are saying Powell/Armitage planned the whole Fitzgerald thing starting with that?
you are going to need to associate more players into the mix, specifically from the media and the Dems, to make the conspiracy angle plausible (the part of it that involves Powell/Armitage). I have an open mind, its something I could believe, but it still seems like a stretch.
the basic conspiracy here, is still the Plame/Wilson setup, along with members of the media - calling to ask Rove and Libby about Plame, when they already knew who she was before they asked. Link Powell and Armitage directly to that crowd.
You are so far behind the curve of what has happened, it's sad. Do some READING here!! There is Marc Grossman...know him?? Doubt it. Go read and don't come back to me til you get some more info.
actually novak wrote that Fitz knew Armitage was his source BEFORE his testimony.
how?
Novak did not say how. But Fitz had all the phone records of Novak. I think that's how. Fitz knew everything from the beginning.
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