Posted on 09/08/2006 9:22:14 AM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on Thursday acknowledged being the original source in the leak of a CIA official's identity and expressed regrets and apologies in media interviews.
"It was a terrible error on my part," Armitage told The New York Times. "There wasn't a day when I didn't feel like I had let down the president, the secretary of state, my colleagues, my family and the Wilsons. I value my ability to keep state secrets. This was bad and I really felt badly about this."
Armitage was the first person to discuss the identity of former CIA official Valerie Plame with reporters after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, criticized the Bush administration's Iraq policy in a New York Times opinion piece.
Knowingly disclosing the identity of a covert CIA agent is against the law, but no officials have been charged with leaking Plame's identity to the news media in 2003.
Former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been charged with lying to investigators as they sought to find out who leaked Plame's identity. Armitage is expected to be a witness at his perjury trial, according to a court motion by the defense.
Armitage said he wanted to disclose his role in the leak as soon as he realized he was the main source for a Robert Novak column which named Plame as a CIA intelligence officer, the Times reported.
But he told the newspaper he kept quiet at the request of Patrick Fitzgerald, the prosecutor investigating the leak.
Armitage also confirmed he was the anonymous government official who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about Plame's identity before other Bush administration officials mentioned her name to reporters, the newspaper reported.
(Excerpt) Read more at today.reuters.com ...
Gee too bad he didn't speak up earlier before Scooter Libby was destroyed ... just too bad
Why accept the word of Powell-crony Armitage that the leak was unintentional? My guess is that it was very intentional and was designed to discredit Wilson in the wake of the Iraq invasion given Powell's reliance upon the Niger information during his appearance at the UN. It turned out that Wilson was lying and that he didn't need to be discredited; however, that was not necessarily known by Powell and Armitage at the time.
Also, it was not a single leak. Armitage "mistakenly" leaked info from the classfied State memo three times: 1) to Novak; 2) to Woodward; and 3) to an unnamed reporter. Finally, Armitage neglected to tell Fitzgerald about his Woodward conversation and did so only after having been prompted by Woodward. This is precisely the same kind of memory lapse that Fitzgerald is calling perjury on the part of Libby.
Source in C.I.A. Leak Case Voices Remorse
************************************AN EXCERPT **************************
Mr. Armitage, who has been criticized for keeping his silence for nearly three years, said he had wanted to disclose his role as soon as he realized that he was the main source for Robert D. Novak’s column on July 14, 2003, which identified Ms. Wilson. But he held back at the request of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. “He requested that I remain silent,” Mr. Armitage said.
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He expressed irritation over assertions in some editorials and blogs that, by his silence, he had been disloyal to the Bush administration, saying he had followed President Bush’s repeated instruction that administration officials cooperate with the Fitzgerald inquiry. “I felt like I was doing exactly what he wanted,” he said.
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This week, after news reports clearly identified him as the source, Mr. Armitage said Mr. Fitzgerald had consented to his public disclosure of his role. Mr. Fitzgerald sent Mr. Armitage a letter in February, notifying him that the inquiry into his activities had been closed.
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At a minimum. Frankly, Fitz needs to face charges.
It has very seriously become time to investigate the investigator.
Damn good question.
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:
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?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.Links to sources at the above link.$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.
Looks to me like a few people need to be prosecuted for an attempted coup against a sitting President.
Where do Rove,Cheney and Bush go to get their reputations back from the Leftist Joe McCarthyites?
Matthews: Plame Story Too Complicated to Cover Now [Interview with Hardball host]
Well Chrissy Matthews of Hardball fame isn't going to worry about it....see above....
Its really starting to look that way. I want my tax money back.
Fitz will NOT face charges because Alberto Gonzalez is almost as weak as Norm Minetta was.
We have a Shadow Govt led by co-cabalists, Armitage, Powell, CIA , Tenet, Grossman, etc.
Something we shouldn't lose sight of: following his Grand Jury appearance in the Lewinsky case, Syd Blumenthal immediately gave a press conference telling what transpired in his grand jury appearance including questions asked and his responses to those questions. Much of what Syd said turned out to be lies.
But now we have Richard Armitage saying the Special Prosecutor told him not to tell anyone that he was the leaker -- despite this, he was under no legal obligation to keep silent (unless Fitzgerald threatened prosecution and then that raises even MORE questions about his judgement and actions).
Isn't it interesting to see two "Clintonistas" behaving exactly as you would expect them to in similar circumstances: lying to protect his own butt in the one case, and keeping silent to protect his butt in the other. In both cases: the Nation be damned.
Soooo, now that Armitage has gone "public" will Novak CONFIRM that he is his source??? Has anyone asked Novak??? If Novak doesn't say it was then I will continue to believe it was Powell.
Too complicated?
Why didn't I think of that?
This story doesn't seem to be over even though Chrissy doesn't want to talk about it anymore....
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