Robert Novak Talks About Plame Leak
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Law, Media, The Plame GameAnd he details how the conversation with Richard Armitage went down.
I then asked Armitage a question that had been puzzling me but, for the sake of my future peace of mind, would better have been left unasked.Why would the CIA send Joseph Wilson, not an expert in nuclear proliferation and with no intelligence experience, on the mission to Niger?
“Well,” Armitage replied, “you know his wife works at CIA, and she suggested that he be sent to Niger.” “His wife works at CIA?” I asked. “Yeah, in counterproliferation.”
He mentioned her first name, Valerie. Armitage smiled and said: “That’s real Evans and Novak, isn’t it?” I believe he meant that was the kind of inside information that my late partner, Rowland Evans, and I had featured in our column for so long. I interpreted that as meaning Armitage expected to see the item published in my column.
The exchange about Wilson’s wife lasted no more than sixty seconds.
Given this, it really seems like Armitage should have been dealt with much more harshly. It doesn’t matter if you ignorantly expose a CIA agent or not…a crime was still committed.
In any event, this is an interesting new addition on a story that just doesn’t seem to want to die.
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This entry was posted on Monday, July 9th, 2007 and is filed under Law, Media, The Plame Game. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
So much for the Joe-Wilson-Prosecuted-Sage bullshit Her identity was “leaked” in an explanation of how Wilson the Great got the gig only through nepotism. The “story that won’t die” is a story of horizontally integrated inanity from the media, to the BDS hacks, to the bungling bureaucrat, to the head-hunting virginal prosecutor, to the Double-0 Bimbo. It is a bonefire of the vanities which almost put a decent man in prison, because some (like Justin Gardner) took such orgaistic schadenfreude with the criminal prosecution of someone (anyone!) in this Administration – especially Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. This story is only half over – the rest of it will be a fantastic display of cannibalism on the part of the media and blogasylum.
July 9th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
“Given this, it really seems like Armitage should have been dealt with much more harshly. It doesn’t matter if you ignorantly expose a CIA agent or not…a crime was still committed.”
Armitage would have to have known she was covert first. That has never been shown, as far as I have ever heard. Accidental outing is not a crime.
July 10th, 2007 at 12:54 am
First, Rich Horton is correct. Secondly, Armitage wasn’t the one shopping the story around to other journalists which is something the people who defend the Bush Administration on this issue always conveniently forget. In addition it isn’t nepotism when someone suggests someone they know for a job or contract. It is nepotism when they are the ones with the authority to hire and fire and do so.