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The main reason I am writing this column is that many people have asked me how I first realized I was suffering from a brain tumor and what I have done about it. But I also want to relate the reaction to my disease, mostly compassionate, that belies Washington's reputation. The first sign that I was in trouble came on Wednesday, July 23, when my 2004 black Corvette struck a pedestrian on 18th Street in downtown Washington while I was on my way to my office. I did not realize I had hit anyone until a shirt-sleeved young man on...

McClellan To Testify Before House WASHINGTON (AP) ― President Bush's former spokesman, Scott McClellan, will testify before a House committee next week about whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered him to make misleading public statements about the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. McClellan will testify publicly and under oath before the House Judiciary Committee on June 20 about the White House's role in the leak and its response, his attorneys, Michael and Jane Tigar, said on Monday. In his new book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," McClellan said he was misled...

WASHINGTON - Former CIA operative Valerie Plame is trying to resurrect a lawsuit against those in the Bush administration she says illegally disclosed her identity. A federal judge dismissed Plame's lawsuit last year, saying there was no basis to bring a case. Plame's lawyers asked a federal appeals court Friday to send the case back before the judge and force him to consider its merits. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sued Vice President Dick Cheney; his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; former White House political adviser Karl Rove and former Deputy Secretary of State...

Q. Is it possible to get through an extended interview of Valerie Plame Wilson without mentioning Richard Armitage? A. Yes, if Joe Scarborough is the interviewer. The "Morning Joe" host conducted a 15-minute conversation with and about Plame today, much of which focused on her "outing" as a CIA operative. But the name of the State Department official who first disclosed her identity was never uttered. That wouldn't have fit the template that the disclosure was a nasty White House plot to punish Plame's husband Joe Wilson. Armitage, at State, was anything but a partisan GOP operative with an anti-Wilson...

A federal judge Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by former CIA operative Valerie Plame and her husband seeking damages against officials she accused of conspiring to disclose her identity. The defendants included Vice President Dick Cheney, former Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter� Libby, and two others. Plame and her husband, former diplomat Joe Wilson, had alleged that Cheney, Libby, White House political adviser Karl Rove and former State Department official Richard Armitage had violated their constitutional rights in the events that led to Plame being identified in news reports in summer 2003.

<p>Judge dismisses Valerie Plame's lawsuit accusing members of the Bush administration of leaking her identity... Developing..</p>

WASHINGTON - Jurors began deliberating Wednesday in the perjury and obstruction trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with lying and obstructing the investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity. Jurors heard about an hour of legal instructions from U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Wednesday morning before beginning deliberations shortly before 11:30 a.m. They heard a full day of closing arguments Tuesday after a monthlong trial. The jury of eight women and four men must be unanimous before...

With all the journalists testifying about how and when they learned Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent and anti-war diplomat Joe Wilson’s wife in the perjury and obstruction trial of Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr., The Stiletto thought that this handy dandy chart would help keep the story straight: Libby Told Me Libby Did Not Tell Me Matt Cooper (formerly with Time Magazine) Walter Pincus (Washington Post): Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told me Judith Miller (formerly with The New York Times) Glenn Kessler (Washington Post): Topic never came...

Updated Sat. WASHINGTON -- A smorgasbord of Washington insider details has emerged during the perjury trial of the vice president's former chief of staff. For example, when Dick Cheney really needed friends in the news media, his staff was short of phone numbers. No one served up spicier morsels than Cheney's former top press assistant. Cathie Martin described the craft of media manipulation -- under oath and in blunter terms than politicians like to hear in public. The uses of leaks and exclusives. When to let one's name be used and when to hide in anonymity. Which news medium was...

Former vice presidential chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby is finally going on trial - after three years of investigations by a run-amok prosecutor, costing millions of taxpayer dollars - for a case in which, it is now conceded, no crime was committed. And that's the important point to remember, as a who's who of prominent witnesses - including "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert and even Vice President Dick Cheney - testifies at the trial. To repeat: The crime that was ostensibly under investigation never occurred. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had set out to uncover who leaked FBI agent...

What a Load of Armitage! What did Patrick Fitzgerald know, and when did he know it? BY VICTORIA TOENSING Friday, September 15, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT Richard Armitage has finally emerged from the cover-my-backside closet, "apologizing" on CBS for keeping quiet for almost three years about being the original source for Robert Novak's July 14, 2003, column stating that Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA and had suggested him for a mission to Niger. He disingenuously blames his silence on Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's non-legally-based request--any witness is free to talk about his testimony--not to discuss the...

For months Washington’s liberal chattering class filled the airwaves and spilled barrels of ink on the always implausible conspiracy theory holding that Bush White House Pooh-Bahs intentionally leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband’s very public and largely untruthful campaign against the Bush administration’s war policy. But a new book by two decidedly not Bush-friendly reporters — David Corn of the left-wing Nation and Michael Isikoff of the Washington Post — shows the whole controversy to be a sham. No White House people were involved at all. Instead, the leaker was Deputy Secretary of...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the source who revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak in 2003, touching off a federal investigation, two sources familiar with Armitage's role tell CNN. The sources said Armitage revealed Plame's role at the CIA almost inadvertently in a casual conversation with Novak, and it is not clear if he knew her identity was classified at the time. Armitage was not indicted by the federal grand jury that investigated the disclosure of Plame's name to Novak and other journalists. Deliberately revealing the identify...

Valerie Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, filed suit on Thursday against Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Cheney’s former top aide and the senior presidential adviser Karl Rove, charging they had conspired to violate their constitutional rights. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court, accused Mr. Cheney, Mr. Rove and the former Cheney aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., of conspiring to destroy Ms. Wilson’s career by leaking her identity as an undercover C.I.A. operative to the press. It says the three men had conspired to punish Mr. Wilson for his public assertions that the Bush administration had twisted...

June 13, 2006, 6:44 a.m. No Indictment of Rove in CIA-Leak CaseProsecutor Patrick Fitzgerald makes a decision. By Byron York Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed top White House adviser Karl Rove that Rove will not face indictment in the CIA-leak investigation, National Review Online has learned. The word came yesterday, when Fitzgerald told Rove lawyer Robert Luskin that he, Fitzgerald, did not plan to seek charges against Rove. This morning, Luskin released a brief statement:  On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove. In deference to...

WASH POST's Ben Bradlee Claims Plame Leaker Was Richard Armitage Mon Mar 13 2006 10:48:34 ET THE WASHINGTON POST's famous Watergate editor Ben Bradlee claims that it was former State Department Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage who was the individual who leaked the identity of CIA official Valerie Plame. In the latest issue of VANITY FAIR: "Woodward was in a tricky position. People close to him believe that he had learned about Plame from his friend Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's former deputy, who has been known to be critical of the administration and who has a blunt way of speaking. 'That...

What a difference a few weeks make in the world of politics. One day, the Democrat Party and the mainstream news media are celebrating the indictment of a key White House staff member, then suddenly facts start to emerge that just might put a damper on the prosecutors case. Recall how Patrick Fitzgerald announced the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice charges. During his jovial press conference, Mr. Fitzgerald lectured Americans about how serious it is to leak classified information. He avoided using the term "covert" when describing Valerie Plame, because in order for...

FNC just read a blurb from the office of Patrick Fitzgerald, which annnounced that there will be no announcements today from his office (other than that one, I guess) regarding the CIA Plame/Flame Blame case.

Tonight on NBCs evening news, after the gleeful reporting of the 2,000th combat death in Iraq, giving only passing mention to the fact that 79% of the voters in Iraq approved of the Iraqi Constitution and Bill of Rights, describing later that the people are still "divided", NBC went on to their continuing biased coverage of Plame-gate, There was either a deliberate lie, or a blatant example of lazy ineptness on behalf of the script David Gregory was reading. The comment was to the effect of "…regarding the phone conversations of Karl Rove, and whether or not he "outed" Valerie...

Lawyers close to the Plame investigation say that Fitzgerald will indict Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson for obstruction of justice and perjury. In addition, Wilson will be indicted for outing his wife, who was a covert CIA agent. Additional charges are being considered against Valerie Plame for her role in selecting her own husband for a government assignment in a concerted political effort to undermine the administration. Now, that's actually not true. But, given the media's handling of this matter, this post should be treated with the same credibility that the media is presenting statements of "lawyers close to the...

This summer, one big story is replaced by another--the London bombings July 7, the speculation that Karl Rove illegally named a covert CIA agent, the nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court, more London bombings last week. But beneath the hubbub, we can see the playing out of another, less reported story: the collapse of the attempts by liberal Democrats and their sympathizers in the mainstream media--the New York Times, etc., etc.--to delegitimize yet another Republican administration.

A statement attributed to the former CIA spokesman indicating that I deliberately disregarded what he told me in writing my 2003 column about Joseph Wilson's wife is just plain wrong. Though frustrated, I have followed the advice of my attorneys and written almost nothing about the CIA leak over two years because of a criminal investigation by a federal special prosecutor. The lawyers also urged me not to write this. But the allegation against me is so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist that I feel constrained to reply. In the course of a front-page story...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., revealed Friday that two years ago he discussed the blown cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame with then CIA director George Tenet and that Tenet "was furious." Tenet promptly called the Justice Department to demand an investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak, Schumer said at a hearing held by House and Senate Democrats. Novak revealed Plame's identity in July 2003 in a column in which he said she played a key role in having her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger to investigate...

I am thinking about writing a letter to my local fish wrap because editor was crying about the Rove nonsense and the fact that Judith Miller was a hero to all for standing up for the press and their "First Amendment Rights" and protection of confidential sources. The jest of my letter is going to focus on why we shouldn't feel sorry for Ms. Miller and the rest of the press because they (the liberal press) are the first ones to applaud when the First Amendment protections to free speech during federal elections was attacked (McCain/Feingold) and when a court...

In journalism, the definition of “leak” suggests that it is applied to government officials who purposely give reporters secret or confidential information in order to publicize something they do not like so that it can be defeated before being voted upon. “Outing” a CIA agent is only a crime if the agent is under cover overseas or has been during the past five years. This law was created to prevent the assassinations of CIA agents on foreign shores as had been caused by Philip Agee in 1978 who listed CIA agents undercover in foreign cities, causing the murder of some....

The buzz is that all of the fun-loving Dims are having "Rovegate" parties to trash Karl Rove and GWB over the CIA outing controversy. We need to show we can have fun too......by having a Wilson-Plame Look-Alike Contest. Post here your choices for the look-alikes.

Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA? It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA? What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?" I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson, a retired diplomat sent to Niger to look into reports that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium for his nuclear-weapons program. On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an...

Now I read that Matt Cooper’s (the journalist who received Rove’s so-called ‘leak’) wife is Mandy Grunwald; media consultant and campaign advisor to both Bill and Hillary Clinton......

David Corn responding to Clifford May's column in National Review. Blah, blah, blah. Unconvincing. Those of you following this closely will want to read it for clues, but I'm only going to post what (to me) was the big news: Here's another fact that may interest anyone who thinks May might have a point:Number of times I've been contacted by Patrick Fitzgerald, interviewed or contacted by his investigators, and called before the grand jury: 0. What the h*ll is this? David Corn published an article only two days after Novak's column that exposed Plame in far greater detail than Novak...

Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's "cover" (even if she had not been a covert CIA agent at the time of the alleged "leaks")? It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press. Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a...

An interesting post by Cliff May: "This morning, I have a piece up elsewhere on NRO showing that The Nation’s David Corn--not syndicated columnist Bob Novak--was the first to reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover operative. It further suggests that David did so based on information provided to him by none other than Joseph C. Wilson IV. While working on that piece, I had an exchange with David and, with his permission, I thought I’d share that with you. Dear David: I have a question--one you may not be willing to answer but I’m curious so let me try:...

<p>Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV today accused the Bush administration of keeping an intelligence file on him and his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson.</p> <p>Wilson made the charge at a Capitol press conference with Sen. Charles Schumer ('Rat-NY). He stated that he's been told that at a March 2003 meeting held at the White House by aide to Vice President Cheney Scooter Libby, a 'work up' file on him and his family was ordered.</p>

Leak? What Leak? Submitted by editor on July 13, 2005 - 12:12pm. By Howard Kurtz Source: Washington Post From the moment the Karl Rove story exploded over the weekend, I've been intensely curious as to what tack the conservatives would take. This is a big political embarrassment, no question about it, and while Scott McClellan could try the old can't-comment-during-the-investigation (though he had earlier denied any Rove involvement during the same investigation), what would the denizens of the right do? I tuned into O'Reilly and Hannity on Monday night, but there was no mention, none, of the Rove/Plame affair. Imagine...

Karl Rove was right. The real story about Joseph C. Wilson IV was not that Bush lied about Saddam seeking uranium in Africa; the story was Clown Wilson and his paper-pusher wife, Valerie Plame. By foisting their fantasies of themselves on the country, these two have instigated a massive criminal investigation, the result of which is: The only person who has demonstrably lied and possibly broken the law is Joseph Wilson. So the obvious solution is to fire Karl Rove. Clown Wilson thrust himself on the nation in July 2003 when he wrote an op-ed for the New York Times...

Graydon Carter’s War The Mind of a Great Editor Is a Terrible Thing To Waste By RUSS SMITH Mr. Smith writes weekly columns for New York Press and Baltimore’s City Paper. I wonder when Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter is going to wake up from his increasingly public nightmare. Mr. Carter, a charming and intelligent man, has clearly not come to grips with the stark reality, as Spy magazine would’ve said 15 years ago, that the go-go 1990s are over and the gaudy colors that washed over that decade have given way to black and white. In fact, Mr. Carter’s...

Bad newsWhite House errand boy Robert Novak and credulous New York Times reporters were burned by their sources. Should they be forced to name them?- - - - - - - - - - - -By Eric BoehlertJan. 22, 2004  |  As U.S. courts take an increasingly skeptical look at the long-held belief among journalists that they enjoy a special privilege when it comes to protecting their sources, two high-profile legal skirmishes are addressing that very issue. Unfortunately for advocates of a free press, these battles don't involve stirring instances of media courage, but stories that exemplify what many...

A group of former intelligence officers is pressing Congressional leaders to open an immediate inquiry into the disclosure last summer of the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame. Their request, outlined in a letter on Tuesday to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and others, reflects discontent and unrest within the intelligence services about the affair, along with concern that a four-month-old Justice Department investigation into the matter may never identify who was behind the disclosure. The syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who first identified Ms. Plame as a C.I.A. officer in a column last July, has identified his sources only...

Investigators are pressing Administration officials to let journalists tell whatever they know about the leak of a CIA agent's identity FBI investigators looking into the criminal leak of a CIA agent’s identity have asked Bush Administration officials including senior political adviser Karl Rove to release reporters from any confidentiality agreements regarding conversations about the agent. If signed, the single-page requests made over the last week would give investigators new ammunition for questioning reporters who have so far, according to those familiar with the case, not disclosed the names of administration officials who divulged that Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador...

He says the Bush administration violated his wife's privacy by revealing that she worked for the CIA. But now Spygate accuser Joseph Wilson is sharing with reporters intimate details about his relationship with the allegedly secretive Valerie Plame, offering an account of the couple's "heavy make-out" session just before she told him she worked for the CIA. Wilson, who said recently he would have sacrificed anything to guard his wife's privacy, offers the steamy details in the Jan. 2004 issue of Vanity Fair magazine. The move has even supporters wondering if he's blown his credibility as a White House whistleblower...

<p>WASHINGTON Dec. 30 ? Attorney General John Ashcroft will recuse himself from an investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA operative, Justice Department sources said Tuesday.</p> <p>The investigation will be headed by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, who will report to Ashcroft's new deputy, James Comey, the officials said. It was not immediately clear why Ashcroft made the decision.</p>

I sat between this incredible guy who had been on death row for eighteen years before being freed by the Innocence Project at Medill Journalism school (the winner of this year’s $100K Puffin/Nation prize) and Joe Wilson, winner of this year’s Ron Ridenhour prize. I asked Joe why Powell had turned out to be such a wimp—failing to use any of his prized credibility to put the breaks on his lying colleagues, and instead telling all those falsehoods at the UN and convincing a boatload of gullible reporters of a whole mess of stuff that just ain’t so. Wilson—whose speech...

Just a few short months ago Uraniumgate whistleblower Joseph Wilson was complaining that his wife's life was endangered by a gabby White House aide who outed her as a CIA employee to columnist Robert Novak. But if shy spy Valerie Plame-Wilson is still troubled by her newfound celebrity, she's doing a good job of hiding it. First there was talk of a movie deal from Mr. Wilson himself, who revealed to the Washington Post in August that the couple had discussed who would play her should a suitable screenplay materialize. Then there was the book deal - real, not imagined,...

The CIA spy at the centre of a row over allegations that the White House endangered national security by leaking her identity appears to have undermined her supporters' case by appearing in Vanity Fair. Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, are pictured in next month's edition looking glamorous in their Jaguar car. Sunglasses and a headscarf provide the only disguise for the woman the celebrity magazine calls "the most famous female spy in America". Just two months ago Mr Wilson said his wife had authorised him to say that she would "rather chop off her right...

Who outed Valerie Wilson as a CIA secret agent? Clue: her husband, Joseph, had just criticised the Bush administration. Julian Borger talks exclusively to the man who may have started a new Watergate It is early autumn in Washington. The leaves are falling, another election season is limbering up, and the nation's capital is once more embroiled in a gale-force scandal. It is an extraordinary affair that combines espionage, political dirty tricks and weapons of mass destruction - a heady mix normally found only in airport thrillers. But fact has had a knack of trumping fiction in Washington lately. In...

<p>Democrats began running a television ad yesterday saying the Bush administration's purported leaking of the identity of a CIA officer is another in a series of scandals from this White House.</p> <p>"It keeps getting worse. Scandals in the Bush White House," the ad announcer says as the screen flashes news headlines about leaks. "Now they illegally leaked the identity of an American CIA agent, all to hide Bush administration deceptions about the war in Iraq."</p>

Since midsummer, the Senate Intelligence Committee has been attempting to solve the biggest mystery of the Iraq war: the disparity between the Bush Administration’s prewar assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and what has actually been discovered. The committee is concentrating on the last ten years’ worth of reports by the C.I.A. Preliminary findings, one intelligence official told me, are disquieting. “The intelligence community made all kinds of errors and handled things sloppily,” he said. The problems range from a lack of quality control to different agencies’ reporting contradictory assessments at the same time. One finding, the official went...

LIKE MANY FORMER and active-duty case officers of the Central Intelligence Agency, I often find it painful listening to outsiders talk about the clandestine service. Operations are usually rather straightforward, earthy affairs between consenting adults--espionage is seldom a seductive recruitment plan played out in the shadows. But outsiders routinely depict clandestine intelligence collection as a sexy, dark, and dangerous profession. Intelligence officers, too, often can't resist exaggerating the importance, the sleuthful methods, and the risk attached to a normal career in the Directorate of Operations. The common man, the journalist on the intelligence beat, and the spooks at Langley all...

WASHINGTON Oct. 14 — A federal judge has ordered five reporters, including one from The Associated Press, to reveal their sources for stories that portrayed Wen Ho Lee, a former nuclear weapons scientist, as a chief suspect in a Chinese espionage investigation. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the reporters to answer questions about their sources and to provide Lee's attorneys with notes and other documents from their reporting. "It does not detract from the importance of the First Amendment principle at stake to conclude, in the instant case at least," that making possible evidence of government leaks available...