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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged Thursday that he was the source who first revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak back in 2003, touching off a federal investigation. Armitage told the CBS Evening News that he did so inadvertently. "I feel terrible," Armitage said. "Every day, I think, I let down the president. I let down the secretary of state. I let down my department, my family, and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson." In a column published on July 14, 2003, Novak, citing two senior...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged Thursday that he was the source who first revealed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak back in 2003, touching off a federal investigation. snip Armitage was not indicted by the federal grand jury that investigated the disclosure of Plame's name to Novak and other journalists. He told CBS that the special counsel investigating the leak, Patrick Fitzgerald, "asked me not to discuss this, and I honored his request." After Novak's column ran, Wilson accused Bush administration officials of leaking his wife's name in...

Jesse Watters pointed out today on The Five that during the Valerie Plame affair back in 2005 Senator Barack Obama called the leak a crime. He also called for an immediate investigation. “Remember what Obama as senator said about Valerie Plame? We have it right here. He called for an immediate Congressional investigation. He called it a possible “criminal act.” He said it jeopardized the safety of the networks of our intelligence agencies.” Plame was a CIA desk jockey at the time. Last weekend the Team O leaked the name of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan.

**SNIP** Valerie Plame, the ex-CIA operative outed by the W. Bush administration, also chimed in. “Astonishing: White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan,” she tweeted in a sardonic message on Monday. The name of the CIA’s chief of station in Kabul, the agency’s top spy in Afghanistan, was listed among the 15 officials briefing Obama upon his arrival at Bagram Air Base. The White House only caught the error when Washington Post reporter Scott Wilson alerted the press office, after Obama’s schedule was included in an email that was circulated to as many as 6,000 members of the media.

WASHINGTON — Looking back, John C. Kiriakou admits he should have known better. But when the F.B.I. called him a year ago and invited him to stop by and “help us with a case,” he did not hesitate. Only an hour into what began as a relaxed chat with the two agents — the younger one who traded Pittsburgh Steelers talk with him and the senior investigator with the droopy eye — did he begin to realize just who was the target of their investigation. On Jan. 25, Mr. Kiriakou is scheduled to be sentenced to 30 months in prison...

... the title is drawn from how Karl Rove told Matthews that the CIA agent Valerie Plame was fair game for critics of her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson. Wilson, you’ll recall, was dispatched by the CIA in 2002 at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to investigate whether Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson came back with the answer no, and he was outraged when President Bush nevertheless stuck with the claim in his 2003 State of the Union address, which made the case for war with Iraq. Just three...

Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously declared in the Valerie Plame affair that "there is a cloud over the vice president." Last week's release of an FBI interview summary of Dick Cheney's answers in the criminal investigation underscores why Fitzgerald felt that way. On 72 occasions, according to the 28-page FBI summary, Cheney equivocated to the FBI during his lengthy May 2004 interview, saying he could not be certain in his answers to questions about matters large and small in the Plame controversy. The Cheney interview reflects a team of prosecutors and FBI agents trying to find out whether the leaks...

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney told the FBI he had no idea who leaked to the news media that Valerie Plame, wife of a Bush administration critic, worked for the CIA.

Former vice president Richard B. Cheney told a special prosecutor in 2004 that he could not remember playing any role in leaking the identity of Valerie Plame as a clandestine CIA officer, according to FBI records released under court order Friday. In his May 8, 2004, interview with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, Cheney said he could not recall when he learned that Plame, the wife of Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked for the CIA; could not recall telling his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, about Plame's employment; and could not recall telling Libby to disclose...

The Associated Press reported today (Friday) that lawyers for certain detainees at the Gitmo Prison in Cuba, possibly violated federal criminal law by releasing the identity of CIA covert operatives. The current Justice Department investigation connects to both the Valerie Plame matter a few years ago, and the current issue of where and how Gitmo detainees should be charged and tried. First, the Plame affair. According to the mainstream media, that was about the “outing” of a CIA “covert operative” in violation of federal law. But that law applied only to people who had been a covert operative “within five...

Editor's Note: This special feature on Robert Novak first appeared in the March 2009 issue of Townhall Magazine.Robert David Sanders Novak has been called many names. His close friends call him “Bob.” Most people call him “Novak.” His wife calls him “Robert.” Keith Olbermann has called him “The Worst Person in the World.” His more petulant critics have viler names for him. Many critics and admirers have called him “The Prince of Darkness.” I have had the honor of calling him “Boss.” Since I went to work for him at the end of 2001, Novak has been a mentor and...

NEW YORK A lengthy Q and A with the ailing columnist Robert Novak-- who died today at age 78-- appeared last November in the Washingtonian. At the end, Barbara Matusow got around to asking about the CIA leak case and outed spy Valerie Plame Wilson. Novak replied: "From a personal point of view, I said in the book I probably should have ignored what I’d been told about Mrs. Wilson. "Now I’m much less ambivalent. I’d go full speed ahead because of the hateful and beastly way in which my left-wing critics in the press and Congress tried to make...

The saga of Scooter Libby continues with an in-depth report from Time on the final hours of the George Bush administration and Dick Cheney’s desperate attempt to get clemency for his former aide. Cheney “really got in the President’s face” like never before, according to one source close to Bush, but to no avail. By that time Bush had already been burned on one pardon — and for the president, the issue came down to one question: ----------------------------------------------------- On the Sunday before he left office, Bush invited Sharp to the executive mansion for a farewell cigar. While packing boxes in...

The Supreme Court announced Monday it will not give further consideration to a lawsuit brought by a fired CIA agent and her husband against high ranking Bush administration officials, including former Vice President Dick Cheney. The decision is a victory for Cheney and his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. They and nine unnamed co-defendants were sued by Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband Joseph after her CIA cover was leaked to reporters.

WASHINGTON – A federal judge said Thursday that he wants to look at notes from the FBI's interview with former Vice President Dick Cheney during the investigation into who leaked the identity of a CIA operative. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan's decision to review the documents followed arguments by Obama administration lawyers that sounded much like the reasons the Bush administration provided for keeping Cheney's interview from the public. Justice Department lawyers told the judge that future presidents and vice presidents may not cooperate with criminal investigations if they know what they say could become available to their political opponents...

Somewhere, Bill O'Reilly just threw a fit. The always-busy Sean Penn, fresh off his Best Actor win on Sunday night for playing Harvey Milk, is already lining up his next hot button, politically-tinged role that will rankle the ire of many a Fox News commentator. According to Variety, Mr. Penn is negotiating to play Ambassador Joseph Wilson in Fair Game, a new film based on the autobiography by Ambassador Wilson's wife, outed C.I.A. agent Valerie Plame Wilson. In a bit of fairly spot-on casting, Naomi Watts is signed on to play Ms. Wilson, with Doug Liman set to direct. Of...

Here is another example of a lib passing military secrets to the enemy. Where is the outrage of those who thought Cheney and Bush should hang for "blowing" the cover of an agent not currently undercover? Read on

I just can't seem to get off this topic. The question is, what could possibly possess Bush to refuse to pardon Libby? The more I think about it, the more I come up with bad or even unethical motives by Bush. I will not indulge them here, at least not now, because it is speculation of this sort that leads the nut-roots on the left to make all sorts of baseless allegations. But do let it be said that many reports now are that a number of influential people did try to convince Bush to make the pardon -- and...

In a move that has keenly disappointed some of his strongest conservative allies, President Bush has decided not to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case, two White House officials said Monday. On Bush's last full day as president, Bush did commute the sentence of two former Border Patrol agents—Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos—for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and then lying about it. But White House press spokesman Tony Fratto told NEWSWEEK "you should not expect any more" pardons and commutations from Bush before...

In a move that has keenly disappointed some of his strongest conservative allies, President Bush has decided not to pardon Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, for his 2007 conviction in the CIA leak case, two White House officials said Monday. On Bush's last full day as president, Bush did commute the sentence of two former Border Patrol agents—Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos—for shooting a Mexican drug dealer and then lying about it. But White House press spokesman Tony Fratto told NEWSWEEK "you should not expect any more" pardons and commutations from Bush before...