A juicy tidbit from the weekend talking heads, Wolf Blitzer to Richard Armitage on his disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson’s employer to Robert Novak:
ARMITAGE: They’re not words on which I disagree. I think it was extraordinarily foolish of me. There was no ill-intent on my part and I had never seen ever, in 43 years of having a security clearance, a covert operative’s name in a memo. The only reason I knew a “Mrs. Wilson,” not “Mrs. Plame,” worked at the agency was because I saw it in a memo. But I don’t disagree with her words to a large measure.
The CIA published Wilson’s name in a memo. Covert agents names are never published. Mrs. Wilson was not covert. Patrick Fitzgerald knew that Mrs. Wilson was not covert. There was no leak of an agent name and utterly no need for an investigation.
Hat tips, Byron York, National Review [1]; Memeorandum [2].
Addendum I: (Bit) Which brings us back to the obvious question of why in the world Richard Armitage was not a much larger part the investigation which eventually convicted Scooter Libby, instead The obvious answer is that the conviction of Richard Armitage, was not nearly as politically fruitful to those feeding the investigation.
It also calls to mind the possibility of a setup of the White House involving Armitage. Let’s remember that in the last eight years there have been several occasions where the state department has gone directly contrary to White House policy on foreign affairs. It doesn’t take much imagination to assign motivation to members of the state department in this case.
Addendum II: (David L)
The bigger questions include, but go beyond Patrick Fritzgerald. Question is why did the CIA refer the mention of Mrs. Wilson’s name to the DOJ when she was not convert and not protected by IIPA [3]. Why is Fitzgerald still sitting on the referal letter?