Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Associated Press has acquired official State Department calendars showing that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Bob Woodward of the Washington Post for an hour on June 13, 2003. And why might this be newsworthy?
It might be newsworthy because of the upcoming trial of I. Lewis Libby, charged by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald with lying and obstructing his investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has investigated whether Bush administration officials intentionally revealed Plame's identity as a one-time CIA covert operative to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for criticizing the administration's march to war with Iraq.
Ms. Plame, you may recall, is the CIA wife of Joseph C. Wilson who came to prominence by accusing the White House of "twisting" intelligence to make a case for the invasion of Iraq. An editorial column Wilson wrote for the New York Times, describing a "fact finding" trip he took to Africa on behalf of the CIA, was interpreted by some to contradict the President's 2003 State of the Union speech, in which the President said, "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa ."
All hell broke loose when Bob Novak wrote a column that explained how Wilson got such a plum assignment. It seems his wife suggested him for it. That blossomed into the outing of Valerie Plame. If he wasn't the very first, Joseph Wilson was at least among the first to point out that Ms. Plame's employment at the CIA was classified information, and went on to further accuse the White House of outing her in revenge for his earlier accusation. And that was the premise of the Fitzgerald investigation -- evil White House strikes back at noble whistle blowers.
Unfortunately, Fitzgerald's investigation immediately ran into the ditch when he discovered that the person who outed Valerie Plame wasn't from the White House. In fact, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post testified to Fitzgerald that he heard about Valerie Plame a month before the White House was supposed to have blown her cover -- such as it was -- and he also testified that he didn't get his information from the White House.
In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.
Which brings us to Richard Armitage. Although Woodward won't say who told him, the speculation centered on Mr. Armitage, and that speculation is now supported by this latest bit of hard evidence, in the form of a calendar appointment that puts the two together at just about the time Woodward said he first heard about Plame.
The burning question today: Who cares? Certainly not Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Charged with investigating the dastardly outing Valerie Plame, Fitzgerald found his man almost immediately, but continued his investigation anyway. His man didn't work at the White House. Not to be denied, Fitzgerald soldiered on, and finally managed to get an indictment against a senior White House official. I. Lewis Libby now faces charges of disagreeing with reporters. It ought to be a gem of a trial.
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