Fitzgerald Investigation of Leak of Identity of CIA Agent

WASHINGTON - The No. 2 State Department official met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003, the same time the reporter has testified that an administration official talked to him about CIA employee Valerie Plame.

Official State Department calendars, provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, show then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage held a one-hour meeting marked "private appointment" with Woodward on June 13, 2003.

The Fitzgerald investigation goes on, and there may be more indictments. In fact, there is a sealed indictment, which probably means that the person is cooperating and/or has accepted a plea agreement. If cooperating, what other indictments may be down the road? Cheney is of keen interest of those legal experts observing the activities of investigation.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0608/S00238.htm

... Fitzgerald has signaled there are no plans - beyond the Libby indictment - to prosecute any other officials for releasing Plame's identity.

Armitage's calendar also shows that a week before Woodward's meeting with Armitage, the deputy secretary of state met for 15 minutes with Libby ...



... Two people familiar with the meeting, however, said the Libby-Armitage meeting dealt with issues involving Pakistan and said the subject of the CIA leak case wasn't raised. Both spoke only on condition of anonymity because some information about the meeting remains classified.

Revel wrote:

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I didn't miss it, to me it is not important as I have come to expect nothing more and I am surprised when in this crooked administration someone actually does get indicted or slammed with negative court rulings. The Armitage story of Armitage meeting reporter Woodward is another piece of the puzzle regardless of indictments.
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Are you saying,Revel, that the prosecutor, Fitzgerald, is "CROOKED"? If you are, you are in a small minority. Everyone, on the left and on the right says that Fitzgerald is a straight shooter!!

BernardR wrote:

Revel wrote:

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I didn't miss it, to me it is not important as I have come to expect nothing more and I am surprised when in this crooked administration someone actually does get indicted or slammed with negative court rulings. The Armitage story of Armitage meeting reporter Woodward is another piece of the puzzle regardless of indictments.
**********************************************************
Are you saying,Revel, that the prosecutor, Fitzgerald, is "CROOKED"? If you are, you are in a small minority. Everyone, on the left and on the right says that Fitzgerald is a straight shooter!!

No I said, "crooked adminstration." They just seem be incredibly lucky/skilled at covering their tracks with a lot of help from like minded folks.

revel wrote:

BernardR wrote:

Revel wrote:

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I didn't miss it, to me it is not important as I have come to expect nothing more and I am surprised when in this crooked administration someone actually does get indicted or slammed with negative court rulings. The Armitage story of Armitage meeting reporter Woodward is another piece of the puzzle regardless of indictments.
**********************************************************
Are you saying,Revel, that the prosecutor, Fitzgerald, is "CROOKED"? If you are, you are in a small minority. Everyone, on the left and on the right says that Fitzgerald is a straight shooter!!

No I said, "crooked adminstration." They just seem be incredibly lucky/skilled at covering their tracks with a lot of help from like minded folks.

Nov. 14: Post editor Bob Woodward testified that, contrary to Fitzgerald's public statements, a senior government official -- not Libby -- was the first Bush administration official to tell a reporter about Plame and her role at the CIA.

March 14: Vanity Fair reports that former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee says it is reasonable to assume former State Department official Richard L. Armitage is the likely source who revealed CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to Bob Woodward.

A person familiar with the information prosecutors have gathered, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the material remains sealed, said Woodward's meeting with the confidential source was June 13, 2003.

The calendar released to the AP is the first confirmation that Woodward and Armitage met during the key time in the CIA leak case that was the focus of Fitzgerald's probe.

The identity of Woodward's source remains one of the big mysteries in the case because the Post reporter is the first member of the news media known to have discussed Plame's CIA employment with an administration official.

If it is not immediately knocked out of the box, the civil suit by the Wilsons may be very edifying.

Do you think that the CIA was upset over nothing?

Timber, do you really believe that there was no administration misconduct?

Do you think that the CIA was upset over nothing?

Timber, do you have any support that the CIA routinely refers mundane things to Justice for investigation?

Just hypothesizing here ... playing a little "what if", more or less, as The Plame Game plays out. Bear with me here as I lay out a conspiracy theory.

The trigger incident occurred months ago ... with very little mainstream press attention, though generating determined interest on the internet. George Tenet, CIA Director and Democrat, who recently suffered the ignominy of having discovered it necessary to offer his own neck to the headsman, is unfond of Republicans as a matter of ideologic perspective, but its no secret Dick Cheney enjoys a very long-established special place in Tenet's worldview. Now, if one devastating leak, carefully crafted to create maximum negative impact on one's opponent, didn't have the desired effect, would it not be both prudent and logical to press one's attack? Say, for instance, to give the issue some legs, to see to it that media attention is called to a routine, more-or-less weekly, relatively obscure, otherwise-certain-to-be-overlooked legal filing which was of interest solely for its relationship to the earlier matter? Now, what if it turns out that the ultimate source for the entire current flap is someone in a position first to structure the somewhat improbable assignment of Administration-critic, non-technocrat Wilson to a technical verification mission in Niger on behaf of the Current Administration, then apprise a "trustworthy" "Senior Administration Figure" of highly priviliged information involving a putatively secret, and essentially irrelevant, relationship existing among Wislon, Ms Plame, and the CIA, with intent to counter and deflect ongoing criticism of the CIA's value in the Iraq Matter? Can you think of anyone better positioned to pull all that off, or to gain the most personal satisfaction and job security, than George Tenet? I'm sure he's read both Machiavelli and Sun Tzu.

Admittedly ... that's far-fetched. The issue is sure to generate more energy in the near term, and it is in the best interest of The Current Administration to resolve the matter as expeditiously and economically as can be achieved. To manage that without incurring significant cost could be difficult. To turn it to advantage would be extraordinarily slick.
I don't really figure this was all set up by Tenet. Still, I expect this will be of far less service to The Democrats than they would wish, and result in far less inconvenience to The Republicans than they would prefer. If nothing else can be said of The Current Administration, it is widely opinined that them boys is slick. It is neither impossible nor unprecedented that The Current Administration might come out of this very well indeed.

And whether or not CIA recruiting is affected one way or the other, I'm reasonably confident that the CIA will shortly have a senior-management position to fill.

I think there are technical reasons why Fitz has not obtained indictments under intelligence law. Mainly, I think, he had to consider the fact that Bush effectively declassified Plame's ID when he authorized disclosure of it.

This is all amusing considering that the Republicans persecuted Clinton over nothing for 5 years, at a cost of about $100 M, coming up with nothing. Clinton remains unconvicted. But when Bush operatives out a covert CIA agent, they contend the matter warrants no attention.