Plame: Not Just Armitage
by KevinAugust 30th, 2006
Since the righties somehow seem to feel that the revelation that Armitage was one of the leakers in the Plame mess absolves evryone else of everything, a little reminder:
We know that Cheney raised the notion that Wilson’s fact-finding mission to Niger was a “junket” arranged by Plame.
We know that Libby — Cheney’s #2 — sought a memo from State to learn more about the origins of Wilson’s trip. (That memo fell into Armitage’s hands and was the source of his leak to Novak. It also, according to Corn, was “based on notes that were not accurate.”)
We know that Libby leaked about Plame to NY Times’ Judy Miller and Time’s Matt Cooper.
We know that Rove leaked to Cooper and Novak.
We know that these leaks occurred (as Corn reminds us) “prior to the appearance of the Bob Novak column that contained the Armitage leak.”
We know that Libby has been indicted for lying about his role in the leak.
We know that even though Rove was not indicted, by discussing the identity of an undercover agent with reporters, he violated his security clearance agreement.
And it has been 1147 days since that agreement was violated without the White House taking the necessary “corrective action.”
… A anonymous campaign was waged by taxpayer-paid government officials to tar the reputation of a Administration critic exercising his First Amendment rights, destroying his wife’s career as a public servant in the process.
Whatever Armitage’s part in all this, the facts remain that people high in the Administration set out to tar the reputation of a critic and in doing so exposed the identy of an undercover CIA operative who was working on preventing WMD proliferation. They did untold harm to the country in the service of their own petty little personal vendettas. And no amount of blind loyalty or wishful thinking will ever change those facts.
Categories: Iraq, Legal Issues, Politics |
B-but, she wasn’t really undercover! She was fake undercover. Just ask any right-winger, and they’ll tell you!
Why not ask Fitzgerald? The lack of indictments for anything that happened before the investigation clearly indicates his opinion on the matter. Note especially that the one person (Armitage) who clearly leaked was let go even after admitting it to Fitzgerald. If the leak was such a damaging blow, why is Armitage walking around a free man?
I have a feeling the end of this isn’t here yet. I also have a feeling that the corpulent corpuscle of shit, Rove, has turned people out and continues to do so.
“The lack of indictments for anything that happened before the investigation clearly indicates his opinion on the matter.”
Not when you consider that his only indictment is for obstructing justice. Claiming that the coverup has been successful, which, if you go off of what Fitzgerald has done, you must be doing, is hardly evidence that there was no wrong doing.
And while Fitzgerald may not be able to prove illegal action (the laws in question are pretty narrow, for good reason) it still doesn;t change the fact that the Bush Amdinistration put the country’s security behind their own petty persoanl desire for vengance.
Annoying Old Guy Says:
August 30th, 2006
Why not ask Fitzgerald? The lack of indictments for anything that happened before the investigation clearly indicates his opinion on the matter. Note especially that the one person (Armitage) who clearly leaked was let go even after admitting it to Fitzgerald. If the leak was such a damaging blow, why is Armitage walking around a free man?
Fred: Considering the invective hurled by the left against the secondary players in this drama, I wonder why Armitage has escaped the judgment of the loony left. Maybe it’s because Armitage has never been a loyal member of the administration. I wonder what Colin Powell knew and when he knew it. Also, if Fitzgerald knew that Armitage was the leaker before the investigation, why have an investigation? This whole sorry episode reeks of “gotcha politics.”
I am claiming that the coverup by Colin Powell and Richard Armitage was successful. They both escaped any legal and political repercussions for leaking what you say was classified information that greatly damaged this country. They then concealed this information from President Bush and the rest of his cabinet.
And Fred hits the point again — if this is all so terrible, why is Armitage getting away with it? Do you have any evidence at all that Rove would have even known that the information he confirmed for Novak was classified? After all, Novak knew it, how secret could it be?
tgirsch Says:
August 30th, 2006
B-but, she wasn’t really undercover! She was fake undercover. Just ask any right-winger, and they’ll tell you!
Fred: You don’t have to ask a right-winger. Look at the law defining who is considered an undercover agent protected from identification.
Under which of these conditions does Plame fall?
From: 4.law.Cornell.edu
TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 15 > SUBCHAPTER IV > § 426
§ 426. Definitions
For the purposes of this subchapter:
(4) The term “covert agent” means—
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.
Once again, the Moonbats-who-wear-tinfoil-hats are exposed in all their corruption. All their deceit. All their lies and smears. All their insane paranoid conspiracy theories. And THEY want to lead this nation? Harrumph!
Oops!
“End of an Affair
It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.
Friday, September 1, 2006; A20
WE’RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame’s cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.
Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame’s identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak “in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip,” according to a story this week by the Post’s R. Jeffrey
Smith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage.
It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House — that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame’s identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson — is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage’s identity been known three years ago.”
There is more of the article at WashingtonPost.com
The silence by the liberal loons is deafening.
Another day of silence.
Fred:
You still here? Figures you’d focus on just one of the several potential laws broken in this case. Not to mention holding the legalities as more important than the larger question of right or wrong.
Guess what? Abortion is perfectly legal. I’m glad that based on this, you’ll agree that there’s nothing wrong with abortion.
I also see that you’re arguing that anyone “undercover” working domestically can expect zero protection for their identity, and that you have no problem at all with exposing identities for cheap political gain.
Meanwhile, why you live happily in your right-wing echo-chamber, the intelligence community has a rather different view of things:
But hey, she may not have been covert at the time, so who cares, right?
Let’s just make it so anyone who ever works in any capacity at the CIA must have his or her identity a state secret. Even the person who works there can never reveal his or her identity. No books, no lecture tours, etc.
The strange thing is how silent the libs are about Armitage. Why is he getting a pass? (That’s a rhetorical question. I already know the answer.)
tg: Figures you’d focus on just one of the several potential laws broken in this case. Not to mention holding the legalities as more important than the larger question of right or wrong.
Guess what? Abortion is perfectly legal. I’m glad that based on this, you’ll agree that there’s nothing wrong with abortion.
Fred: What is a potential law? How can a potential law be broken?
I’m not the one who has ranted incessantly about how terrible the situation is because Rove, Libby, etc. broke a law. Now it seems that you and other liberals are saying that even if no law was broken that morally it was wrong. Make up your mind.
Quit making up things(lying). I’ve never come close to saying that all laws are good. Where does that fertile imagination of yours come from? You should try writing books of fiction.
Fred:
Allow me to direct you to our first post on the matter, from July of 2003. Count how many times Kevin complains about a law being broken. Now count how many times he complains about undermining national security for petty political gain. From the outset, we have talked mostly about the morality of the outing, not the legality thereof. It was the conservatives, looking to defend Rove and Novak, et. al., who shifted the goal posts to the letter-of-the-law legality of the matter. In fact, in this very post, Kevin says nothing about the legality of their actions; you brought up the legality in citing the legal definition of “covert” as if that somehow changed the dynamics of what was done and who was impacted.
I challenge you to point out where we have ever argued that Rove et. al. breaking the law was more important than the effects of what they did (i.e., undermined national security). Until you can, quit making things up (lying). This debate has never been strictly about legality. Quit pretending that it ever was.
For 2 years the left has argued that the leakers broke the law. Is that not a fact?
I have never said that you claimed breaking the law was more important than the effects. All laws are implemented, or they should be, because of the effect that breaking them has on someone. Your reading comprehension definitely needs some improvement.
Fred:
You can keep dancing and moving the goal posts around as long as you like. For my part, I’m through with you on this. Unless, of course, you want me to hold you personally accountable for everything that I say “the right” has argued.
For clarity, my position on Plame: the leakers may well have broken the law, but even if they didn’t, what they did was morally wrong, and harmed national security, and they shouldn’t be given a pass for it.
Nobody has moved the goalposts. The left claimed that a law had been broken. It had not.
You have a bucket of speculation and assumptions in your post Fred.
1) Armitage leaked plame’s identity off the cuff without any knowledge of her status. How do you know that? Isn’t it odd that armitage leaked plame to woodward in june and then again to novak in july? Was it because woodward didn’t get the message out there? And what is this state department memo armitage is referring to? Why was Plame included in it?
2) Armitage supported the iraq invasion reluctantly. Really? If that it true, that means what exactly? He was against Bush? For the Wilsons? Are you aware that armitage signed the PNAC letter to clinton in 1998 urging him to topple saddam, by military force if necessary? Wasn’t armitage also part of Powell’s deceptive presentation to help rationalize Iraq at the UN?
3)And of course all of this intrigue with armitage has very little to nothing to do with the fact that rove and libby leaked plame to reporters before armitage novak published plame’s identity. Nor does it have any bearing on the fact that both rove and libby failed to tell the truth to the FBI and grand jury regarding their involvement in the Plame matter. Although, rove managed to come clean during his 5th trip to the grand jury that he hadn’t, in fact, told the truth in his previous testimnies. Apparently what happened was that his attorney was tipped off regarding Rove’s leak to Cooper of Time. Rove’s attorney also managed to discover an email that had been requested but had not been turned over to Fitzgerald which was supposed to support the claim that rove forgot. It just seems odd that rove and libby both forgot, doesn’t it? And that both erred on the side of not being truthful? Seem a little funny?
Oh, i forgot, you’re a republican. Never mind.