Posted on 07/31/2005 9:57:09 AM PDT by Pikamax
Posted Sunday, Jul. 31, 2005
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.
That prospect 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.
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. That office then contacted Plame's unit, which had sent Wilson to Niger, but stopped short of drafting an internal report.
The same week, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman asked for and received a memo on the Wilson trip from Carl Ford, head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. 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.
When Pincus' article ran on June 12, the circle of senior officials who knew about the identity of Wilson's wife expanded. "After Pincus," a former intelligence officer says, "there was general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others" about Wilson's trip and its origins.
A source familiar with the memo says neither Powell nor Armitage spoke to the White House about it until after July 6. John McLaughlin, then deputy head of the CIA, confirms that the White House asked about the Wilson trip, but can't remember exactly when. One thing he's sure of, says McLaughlin, who has been interviewed by prosecutors, is that "we looked into it and found the facts of it, and passed it on."
From the Aug. 08, 2005 issue of TIME magazine
Gee, an Administration concerned about a fraud being committed on the Public. They knew Wilson was lying about his trip, were they supposed to look the other way?
Says it all! Frankly WGAS!
Just like Rathergate, this piece will give Keith Olbermann another 2 weeks of dead horsemeat to gnaw on.
The liberal MSM want to get Rove so bad they can literally taste it. Objectivity be damned.
Hope it all blows up in their face.
You have to admire their tenacity if nothing else. If only they brought such resolve to the fight against America's enemies rather than America itself.
Oh, that's right, they're a fifth column destroying us using the very freedoms that form the foundations of our society.
Did they know she was CIA?
I think its Time to give up on this one. Your bogus "scandal" is bogged down in a "quagmire."
i am sure they knew as soon as his 'verbal' report was given, and was appropriately dismissed as more proof of subversion from within....
I don't see how the timing of the information has anything to do with whether or not Rove learned of it from a media person.
Hmmm...is he still on the air? Sad part is I actually kind of used to like his old CNBC show many years ago, but the foray into sports and descent into MSNBC have NOT been kind. I just kind of assumed he was already gone...
At the risk of repeating myself again,
And why haven't they stalked Sandy Berger with this type of drive? Oh, I guess naming a CIA agent is more dangerous than pants full of top secret papers, hmmmmmmm.
"covert CIA operative"
If the media can't even get this information correct - WHY THE HELL SHOULD I BELIEVE ANYTHING THEY SAY ...??????
Read an interesting comment on another site that suggested Fitz might be sneaking in then back door of the Oil for Food Program? I personally can't see it based on what we know but he has been at this for two years. This is not about Rove warning someone off a story whether it was with purpose or not. I think the media is beating a dead horse with that angle but I suspect there could be a huge steel toed boot to drop, if this investigation calls out all who committed crimes. And given the coordinated hyper response and the seemingly in unison attacks on this president I suspect that treasonous crimes by the progressive mafia might come to light. If not its time for the second restoration of our Constitution.
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