Posted on 07/31/2005 8:49:58 AM PDT by Republican Red
THE STATE DEPARTMENT PLOT THICKENS [John Podhoretz] Time Magazine has a new story about the revelation of Valerie Plame's name -- a story that, despite Time's own bizarre spin, reinforces the claim that Karl Rove and others learned that Joseph Wilson was married to a CIA operative from the media.
"As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration," writes Massimo Calabresi.
Later, he writes: "The previously undisclosed fact gathering began in the first week of June 2003 at the CIA, when its public-affairs office received an inquiry about Wilson's trip to Africa from veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus....The same week, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman asked for and received a memo on the Wilson trip...Sources familiar with the memo, which disclosed Plame's relationship to Wilson, say Secretary of State Colin Powell read it in mid-June. Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy then too."
According to Calabresi, "A source familiar with the memo says neither Powell nor Armitage spoke to the White House about it until after July 6."
So what does this tell you?
It tells you that the State Department, which leaks like a sieve, knew about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame in June. It also tells you that neither Powell nor Armitage talked to anybody in the White House about it until after Joseph Wilson published his New York Times op-ed on July 6 -- though he had clearly been the anonymous source for a piece by Pincus and an op-ed by the Times' own Nick Kristof back in early June.
So for those who think something very bad happened here, why isn't attention now circling around the State Department, whose two top guys at the time -- Colin Powell and Richard Armitage -- leaked like sieves to the media?
Instead of asking that question, Time's Calabresi instead suggests that this "increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer."
That doesn't follow at all. Doesn't this tale "increase the chances" that Rove and others are simply telling the truth? It seems a bunch of people knew a bunch about this in June, and their names are Walter Pincus of the WaPo, Kristof and evidently Judith Miller of the Times, not to mention Colin Powell and Rich Armitage at State (not to mention State's Marc Grossman and Carl Ford, who generated the memo). Their names are not Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
Reporters and State Department people were in the know here. Which makes the idea that White House people found out about Wilson's marriage to a CIA operative who got him the gig in Niger from reporters even more plausible
Sometimes when I read this stuff, , especially late at night, it occurs to me that the entire government could fall.
Nah. The leaker is Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson. She has been tight with a group of leftie newsettes forever. It could have been stuff she was leaking "off the record." Joe has been a loudmouth forever, and in fact "outed" his old lady a long time before this particular brouhaha.
Fun story.
Hate to burst your bubble, but people at the top in DC all excel at this. If they didn't they wouldn't survive.
The most interesting fact here is that the special prosecutor has been on this ivestigation for two years. The media, in its hubris, sought to solve it in one week. That's very unlikely.
Sometimes, I feel the same sort of chill.
I've also heard from folks who served with Powell that he would stab someone in the back in a heartbeat if it meant getting ahead, but then, maybe that's true more often than we think.
Yes, but now Condi is at State and she arrived with a great big, industrial sized broom :o)
Sounds like the MSM is getting ready to deep-six the Rove/Plame story now that the facts are not panning out quite like the Libs hoped.
You're not busting my bubble; he's just quit an accomplished leaker and backbiter, which, needless to say, the press never reports.
He's not quite as "clean" as he or the MSM protrays himself/him.
No.
No one in the media would go to jail to protect any Republican. The information had to come from someone the MSM likes - either a fellow reporter, a dem CIA agent, or a dem who's still in the administration.
Hell would freeze over before any liberal would go to jail for a Republican - they would expose the guy themselves if he was one of us.
No.
No one in the media would go to jail to protect any Republican. The information had to come from someone the MSM likes - either a fellow reporter, a dem CIA agent, or a dem who's still in the administration.
Hell would freeze over before any liberal would go to jail for a Republican - they would expose the guy themselves if he was one of us.
I tend to agree. Of course, with the numerous possibilities now apparent, it's hard to be sure. But why would Powell or Armitage have leaked? To harm GWB by outing Plame, exposing Wilson as lightweight? Not likely, IMO. More likely Wilson and/or Plame letting it slip into their conversations with journalists trying to build attention in the importance of his trip. Remember, he was in the process of completely shifting his field from being supportive of the need to take out Saddam to the view that Saddam was doing nothing to acquire nuke capabilities and posed no threat.
And what else is new :0)
And David Corn; you can add him to the mix of people Joe Wilson talked to BEFORE her name came out.
Though I agree with you they would not go to jail for a Republican
But here's a thought .. if they out Powell .. then they start to out the rest who are behind this set up .. and IMO, this was a set up
Powell could very well be a part of the puzzle .. but he is not the only part .. there are MANY pieces to it
This was a group of people that cooked up this scheme
I think Powell is the person who leaked to Novak. Since Miller never wrote an article about this, I'm really curious to find out why Fitgerald is interested in her. At any rate there is nothing to suggest she is protecting the same source Cooper was protecting. She might be sitting in jail to protect wilson or Plame for all we know.
Just because she didn't write about this story .. doesn't mean she doesn't have any notes on the story
I know, but we don't know what direction she was headed. Had she published we would have known what line of investigation she took. That in turn could lead to clues about who she is protecting.
bookmark
I think that Fitzgerald is going after illegal State Department (or CIA) leaks. Miller tipped off a terror mosque to an impending federal raid and ruined one of Fitzgerald's other investigations. He wants to know how Miller got her info, and maybe he believes that the sources for the Plame info and the terror mosque info are one and the same.
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