Why didn’t they talk sooner? The case against Armitage, Fitzgerald, Isikoff and Corn

Jack Kelly today succinctly dresses down all those, including Richard Armitage, who turned Armitage’s accidental mention of Valerie Plame’s name into a witch hunt under special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

There is no reason that the nation had to wait since October 2003 for the new book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn to tell us Plame’s name wasn’t given to the press as part of a White House vendetta, but as an innocent and duty-bound telling of the truth, Kelly writes for Real Clear Politics.

Reflecting neither innocence nor a sense of duty is the way that even the original “leaker” Armitage, now a former deputy secretary of state, kept silent as others like Karl Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby were publicly accused and hunted down for his act.

Sham prosecution. Kelly writes:

For more than three years, Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been accused, falsely, of being the source of the leak. Mr. Armitage, Mr. [Colin] Powell, and Justice department officials knew the truth, but said nothing. Clarice Feldman, a Washington, D.C. lawyer, described Mr. Armitage's silence as “inexplicable and perfidious.”

“Had he spoken out publicly immediately, could there have been a reason for the press to have demanded the appointment of the feckless special prosecutor?” she asked.

Mr. Fitzgerald knew in his first few days on the job that Mr. Armitage was the leaker; that the leak was inadvertent, and that the Intelligence Identities Act hadn't been violated. Yet he has persisted in a sham prosecution.

Mr. Isikoff and Mr. Corn write that: “the Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about prewar intelligence.”

They add, lamely, that: “The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework.”

They don’t mention that Mr. Isikoff and (especially) Mr. Corn have been among the journalists flogging this meme, and the time that it takes to research and write a book indicates they've known for quite some time that it isn’t true. They're only willing to tell the truth, now, for money.

Political intrigue. We now know that Amitage in July 2003 inadvertently told columnist Bob Novak the truth: that Valerie Plame, a CIA worker, was the one who in 2002 recommended her husband, Joseph Wilson, for a CIA-paid trip to Niger.

Wilson, a Democratic Party hack, has misrepresented what he discovered on that trip. He found tentative evidence that President Bush was correct to say (later) that Saddam Hussein had “sought” uranium in Africa. Nevertheless, Wilson in 2003 called Bush a liar for saying it.

Wilson also implied strongly, repeatedly and publicly that Vice President Dick Cheney had asked him to take that 2002 Niger tour. Wilson nurtured that falsehood to suggest that even the Bush administration trusted his judgment. Well, the truth is, no. Only his wife trusted him enough to suggest him for the Niger mission.

Vanity Fair cover. When Novak’s story on Plame’s role in the Niger trip was published July 14, 2003, Wilson quickly changed the subject, accusing the Bush White House of “outing” his CIA wife to get back at him. He claimed his wife was a top secret undercover agent, and now, he said, her job and life might be in jeopardy.

Washington went into hysterics. Democrats (and David Corn) stirred the pot: Was it a crime to mention Plame’s name? Armitage in October 2003 explained to Department of Justice officials that it was he who first told Novak about Plame. Then came the witch hunt and, from Armitage, a mysterious silence.

But Plame had not done CIA undercover work in at least six years. And with Plame’s name and identity public, her life was now in so much peril that she and Wilson posed for the cover of the January 2004 Vanity Fair magazine.

Payback time. In fact, it was no crime to identify Plame. It was right to blow the whistle on her and her husband. How else could we understand the CIA’s sending Wilson on that junket?

It was a nice try, Plame and Wilson. You’ve made a lot of money with your dishonesty. Now pay us back for that wasted trip.

Frank Warner

SEE ALSO: Richard Armitage blew the whistle on Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson.

Comments

[Christopher Taylor]

Sheer politics, baby. It might help President Bush, and in Hitchens' latest column you can see quotes that all but say it. They are Drumming this, to coin a phrase. They are willing to sacrifice anything to regain power, especially truth, integrity, and honor.

[Neo]

I wonder what happens to Ms. Flame's book deal now. She managed to finally secure a deal (the first 7 figure deal fell thru) on the same day she and Joe filed their civil right case against Cheney, Rove, Libby and 10 John Doe-s.

[Frank Warner]

Books like this have a momentum of their own, unimpeded by the rational laws of friction and truth.

Valerie Plame certainly will publish her book. A ghost writer will make her appear to have been the most important spy America has ever had. The book will sell millions, and Charlize Theron will play Plame in the movie.

[Ghanshyam]

Libby "did not acknowledge disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters." In fact, Bond testified that Libby actually denied having leaked Plame's identity or having had any knowledge of her -- this despite the fact that two reporters had already testified that he leaked Plame's identity to them. Libby's leak was an effort to set the record straight. Critics of the CIA leak case have repeatedly claimed that the indictment stems from an effort by Libby and Vice President Dick Cheney to rebut a purportedly inaccurate attack on the administration by Wilson. According to these critics, Wilson falsely accused Cheney of having sent him to Niger to investigate reports that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium from the African country. In fact, Wilson, in his July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed, did not say he was sent by Cheney. Rather, Wilson wrote that it was "agency officials" from the CIA who "asked if I would travel to Niger" and "check out" a "particular intelligence report" that "Cheney's office had questions about," so that CIA officials "could provide a response to the vice president's office." There is no evidence that the Plame leak compromised national security. Some media figures critical of the CIA leak case have attempted to downplay its significance by claiming that no evidence exists that the public disclosure of Plame's identity compromised national security. In fact, news reports have indicated that the CIA believed the damage caused by the leak "was serious enough to warrant an investigation" and that the subsequent disclosure of Plame's CIA front company likely put other agents' work at risk. Further, Fitzgerald stated that Plame's identity had been protected by the CIA "not just for the officer, but for the nation's security." And in their recently published book, Hubris, Corn and Newsweek investigative correspondent Michael Isikoff reported that, at the time of the leak, Plame was the chief of operations for the CIA's Joint Task Force on Iraq, which "mount[ed] espionage operations to gather information on the WMD programs Iraq might have." Fitzgerald is a partisan prosecutor. Over the course of the CIA leak investigation and the Libby trial, conservative media figures have attempted to cast Fitzgerald as a "prosecutor run amok" who is engaging in "the criminalization of politics." But Fitzgerald's background and prosecutorial record undermine the suggestion that his pursuit of Libby was politically motivated. Indeed, Fitzgerald is a Bush administration political appointee who, as U.S. attorney, has investigated high-level public officials from both parties, including former Illinois Gov. George Ryan (R), Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley (D), and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D). Fitzgerald exceeded his mandate in investigating violations beyond the IIPA. The administration's defenders also have accused Fitzgerald of exceeding his original mandate. Media figures have repeatedly asserted or implied that Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate possible violations of the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which prohibits the knowing disclosure of the identity of a covert intelligence officer. In fact, his mandate was far broader. The Department of Justice granted Fitzgerald "plenary" authority to investigate the "alleged unauthorized disclosure" of Plame's identity. Plame's employment with the CIA was widely known. This falsehood has taken at least two forms -- that Plame's employment with the CIA was known in the Washington cocktail party circuit and that her neighbors knew that she worked for the CIA. In fact, Fitzgerald stated in the indictment of Libby that Plame's employment was classified and "was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community," a finding he reiterated at a post-verdict press conference. Moreover, as Media Matters noted, contrary to The Washington Times' assertion that "numerous neighbors were aware that she worked for the agency," none of the neighbors cited in The Times' own news reports or in other reports said that they knew before reading the Novak column that Plame worked at the CIA. Her acquaintances told reporters that they believed she worked as a private "consultant."