With this week’s revelations that former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage was Robert Novak’s other Valerie Plame source, supporters of the White House have done an odd kind of victory dance. Armitage’s role is proof, they say, that there was no concerted effort to punish Joseph Wilson and expose [tag]Plame[/tag]’s identity because [tag]Armitage[/tag] wasn’t even on the [tag]Rove[/tag]/[tag]Libby[/tag] side of the debate.
If there was a genuine conspiracy, Armitage would have been the last guy to join in. The WaPo editorial board embraced the conservative line of thinking today.
It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House — that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame’s identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson — is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage’s identity been known three years ago.
I will concede that Armitage may have been a talkative gossip, with no real malicious intent, but the notion that the latest revelations let the Bush gang off the hook entirely seems badly misguided.
The truth is, we’re dealing with revelations that are not mutually exclusive — Armitage can be an inadvertent Novak source and White House leakers can be guilty of wrongdoing.
[A]s Media Matters noted, then-Time magazine White House correspondent Matthew Cooper, in his first-person account (subscription required) of his testimony before the grand jury in the CIA leak investigation, identified Rove as his original source for Plame’s identity and Libby as his confirming source. Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller identified Libby as her primary source for Plame’s identity. Corn noted in an August 27 entry on his Capital Games weblog for The Nation that Armitage’s role in the Plame leak — whatever it may have been — does not undermine the allegation that there was a “concerted action” by “multiple people in the White House” to “discredit, punish, or seek revenge against” Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson had accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence about Iraq’s purported weapons of mass destruction. Corn wrote:
The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House’s fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage [sic] had been sent a key memo about Wilson’s trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald [who was appointed to investigate the Plame leak], at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq.
The memo included information on Valerie Wilson’s role in a meeting at the CIA that led to her husband’s trip. This critical memo was — as Hubris discloses — based on notes that were not accurate. (You’re going to have to read the book for more on this.) But because of Libby’s request, a memo did circulate among State Department officials, including Armitage, that briefly mentioned Wilson’s wife.
In addition, as Media Matters has noted, according to a July 12 column by Novak, Fitzgerald knew who Novak’s primary source was as early as January 12, 2004. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald wrote in court filings released on April 6 that “it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to ‘punish’ Wilson.” Fitzgerald has also alleged that Cheney and Libby were “acutely focused” on the Wilson column and on rebutting his criticisms of the White House’s handling of pre-Iraq war intelligence.
Further, as the Associated Press reported in an August 22 article that Armitage met with Libby a week prior to his meeting with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in which he reportedly disclosed Plame’s identity. The meeting between Armitage and Libby also occurred prior to Armitage’s conversation with Novak during which he disclosed Plame’s identity.:
That meeting occurred as State officials were about to prepare a report outlining how Plame’s husband was sent to Niger before the Iraq war to check unverified intelligence that Iraq was seeking nuclear materials from Africa.
Armitage’s role aside, the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson’s CIA employment against her husband. Rove leaked the information to Cooper, and Libby confirmed Rove’s leak to Cooper. Libby also disclosed information on Wilson’s wife to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
This notion that somehow the White House has been “vindicated” is simply not true. Today’s Post op-ed suggests the entire scandal is a case of “no harm, no foul.” The record shows otherwise.