[april15Bendovr]

Why arnt the Republicans already calling for an investigation into Plame's recommendation that her husbands work for the CIA in Niger?

Isn't this proof that members of the CIA were trying to sabotage President Bush.

[Cincinna]

Don't mess with the Prince of Darkness.

[eureka!]

marking

[Gothmog]

Seems to me Armitage was trying to help boost Wilson's credibility after questions were raised about his NYT op-ed attacking Bush. I'll bet Wilson/Plame/Armitage were hoping to get Novak to write that Wilson had credibility because he was "in the loop" with knowledgable officials w/out mentioning true relationship. Otherwise, what the heck would Wilson know about WMD?

But it backfired. How could Armitage be linked to Wilson/Plame? Six degrees:

Wilson/Plame -> WPost reporter/leftist Walter Pincus -> Wife Ann Pincus State Intel Div -> Armitage

W Pincus interviewed Wilson/Plame just before Wilson's op-ed was pblished. A glowingly positive Pincus WP article on Wilson was published on same day as NYT op-ed or within a day or so.

[ravingnutter]

Well, wish I had gotten in on this story earlier, as I am sure this info will not be seen by those who have already posted, but...from my files:

Been doing a lot of research on this. It was Marc Grossman who initiated this whole thing per the article Libby says Powell, Armitage and Grossman were source for Plame Leak - Insight Mag April 3-9, 2006 Issue

Grossman requested that Carl Ford, Jr. draft the memo, which Ford sent to Grossman on June 10, 2003. Grossman wanted the memo as background to use at a White House meeting on criticism of President Bush for using the Niger claim in his State of the Union speech. On July 6, 2003, Armitage asked Ford to send a copy of the memo to Powell on AF-1. And per the above linked article, it was Grossman that told Libby about Plame and he was also the first one to point a finger at Libby when this broke.

We know Armitage had no loyalty to Bush, but it went even further than that…from a story I found last week:

Kerry Exploring Cabinet Options

An excerpt:

A dark-horse candidate for defense, some said, is Richard L. Armitage, Bush's second in command at the State Department.

Remember...many of the players involved worked for the Kerry campaign. Could Armitage have sold his soul for a potential Cabinet position?

Clarice Feldman gives us another interesting tidbit of info about Grossman:

If Fitzgerald has known since January 12, 2004 of the name of the leaker, why is he still protecting him, and why is he treating the leaker’s (that is, Armitage’s) source, who is almost certainly Marc Grossman, former Under Secretary of State for political affairs, the man reportedly the source for the first accusations against Libby and Rove, as an impartial witness to the events? In the discovery process it turned out that Grossman was a longtime friend of Wilson’s, dating to their college days at the University of California—Santa Barbara. Is it likely that the famous prosecutor missed this fact?

Source

More on Grossman at Strata-sphere. Seems he traveled with some cohorts of John Kerry's...Rand Beers in particular. Grossman went to the same college and graduated the same year as {drum roll please} Joe Wilson and also had the same job in a neighboring country. Strato-sphere also has some interesting comments about a Turkey connection. You remember Turkey…the country that balked at allowing our forces passage into northern Iraq?

And another player in this, Carl Ford, Jr. is no "loyal Republican" either...

As is often the case in these partisan bloodlettings, Bolton's attacker is being presented by the media not only as being a devout public servant - with no axe to grind - but a conservative Republican to boot, a claim that seems to fly in the face of his past political contributions as recorded by the FEC.

$500 to Sen. John Kerry (D-MA), $1,000 to Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), $1,000 to Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) and $500 to Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii).

The Washington Times offered the following: "Gary Jarmin, a Republican consultant and president of Global Dominion Communications, questioned Mr. Ford's claim of loyalty."Bottom line, is that to the best of my recollection, Carl always considered himself a Democrat," said Mr. Jarmin, a longtime Washington lobbyist. "If he is now a self-described 'loyal Republican,' then he must have had a fairly recent conversion." - Washington Times April 20, 2005

Democrat Ford is a longtime DC lobbyist, something absent from most press accounts of his sink-Bolton campaign. Before he went to the State Department he ran his own lobbying operation - Ford Associates. Currently he is employed as the Executive Vice President of Cassidy & Associates, Washington's most powerful - and liberal - public policy consulting group.

Cassidy & Associates was founded by Gerald Cassidy, former counsel to George McGovern's ultra-lefty Committee on Hunger, he is also a former General Counsel to the DNC - 'nuff said.

Pipeline News

Links to sources at the above link.

Looks to me like a few people need to be prosecuted for an attempted coup against a sitting President.

[maica]

Wow!! No wonder Bob Novak has looked so angry for so long!

[Senator_Blutarski]

What in the heck was Fitzpatrick investing?

Why was he harassing Cheney and Libby?

How could Scooter Libby possibly obstruct the investigation of a crime that never happened?

In the words of Desi Arnez, someone has some "splaining" to do here.

[A Citizen Reporter]

"When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s request, that does not explain his silence three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald’s appointment on Dec. 30."

Precisely as you've been saying, Jane!

[A Citizen Reporter]

Big Scooter ping

[Condor51]

...Neither of us took notes, and nobody else was present. But I recalled our conversation that week in writing a column, ...

HUH?? That seems odd.

I thought all reporters/journalists used digital 'tape' recorders now. Even I have one, a SONY. Bought it in 2001. It's tiny and easily fits in a pocket (smaller than a pack of cigarettes). I bought it for use at coordination - scheduling meetings just so I wouldn't forget something or miss something when taking written notes.

Sheesh 'notes'? I'd think Novak would have a recorder.

[Lancey Howard]

When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s request, that does not explain his silence three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald’s appointment on Dec. 30. Armitage’s tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive.

Armitage is the worst kind of coward.

[Big Guy and Rusty 99]

Armitage’s silence the next 2œ years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source. When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s request, that does not explain his silence three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald’s appointment on Dec. 30. Armitage’s tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive.

This is CRIMINAL. what can we do fitzgerald? Is there any legal recourse to his actions?

[Dajjal]

BTTT

[hershey]

Val is sueing Armitage, along with everyone else in the DC phone book.