Capital Games

Armitage Confesses--and Prompts a Question for Rove

By David Corn

On Thursday, Richard Armitage went on CBS News and confessed: he was the original source for the Robert Novak column that outed Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer. He apologized to Valerie and Joseph Wilson. In an interview with The New York Times, Armitage said, "It was a terrible error on my part. There wasn't a day when I didn't feel like I had let down the president, the secretary of state, my colleagues, my family and the Wilsons. I value my ability to keep state secrets. This was bad, and I really felt badly about this."

Armitage is coming forward now because the book I co-wrote with Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, disclosed Armitage's role and quoted named sources at the State Department confirming Armitage's role as the leaker. Armitage says that he kept his silence all these years because special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had asked him not to say anything. But after our book triggered a splash of news reports, Armitage asked Fitzgerald if he could go public, and he obtained Fitzgerald's consent.

Which brings me to a rather simple question: When will Karl Rove do the same?

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September 7, 2006

The Meaning of the Armitage Leak in the Plame Case

By David Corn

One mystery solved.

It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee.

A Newsweek article--based on the new book I cowrote with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War--discloses that Armitage passed this classified information to Novak during a July 8, 2003 interview. Though Armitage's role as Novak's primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage's conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department's intelligence branch at the time, told us--on the record--that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing."

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August 27, 2006

Armitage Was the Original Leaker in Plame Case

By David Corn

The first piece of news from HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War, my new book (co-written with Michael Isikoff of Newsweek), has hit. Richard Armitage was the original leaker in the Plame case. The details are in a Newsweek story based on the book. Click here. I'll have more to say about this here and elsewhere on Sunday morning.

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August 27, 2006

At Press Conference, Bush Stays the Course

By David Corn

George W. Bush keeps trying to rally popular support for his war in Iraq. But he has little to offer other than stay-the course-ism. He cannot point to progress in Iraq. Nor can he point to a plan that would seem promising. Thus, he is left only with rhetoric--the same rhetoric.

That was on display during a presidential press conference at the White House on Monday. Here's a selective run-down.

One reporter asked,

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August 21, 2006

In the NSA Case, a Judge Says No to King George

By David Corn

In ruling on Thursday that the Bush administration's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and must be halted, U.S. district Judge Anna Diggs Taylor slammed the White House on several critical fronts.

For months, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other administration aides have been defending--even championing--what they call the "terrorist surveillance program," under which the National Security Agency can intercept communications that involve an American citizen or resident without a warrant if one party to the communication is overseas and suspected of being linked to anti-American terrorists). They have maintained that the president has the authority as commander in chief to authorize such surveillance. Though the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) generally forbids wiretapping without warrants, the White House has contended that Bush is not bound by the limitations of that law. This claim--arising from the Bush administration's view of expansive (even supreme) presidential power--set up a constitutional clash. And in the first round of the legal battle, Judge Taylor has knocked out the White House argument.

In her decision, she accused the administration of dishonestly arguing that the lawsuit filed by the ACLU and others (including journalists, researchers and lawyers) against the NSA wiretapping should be dismissed because it would expose state secrets:

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August 17, 2006

Cheney on Lamont: Can't Resist the Low Blow

By David Corn

Mayhem in Iraq. Global warming on the warpath. National debt to the moon. There's much to moan about. But it's the little things that sometimes can tick one off the most. For instance, in the news today of Ned Lamont's win over Joe Lieberman, there was the remark from Dick Cheney that suggested al Qaeda was buoyed by Lieberman's defeat. The veep said that anti-American terrorists are "betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task. And when they see the Democratic Party reject one of its own, a man they selected to be their vice presidential nominee just a few short years ago, it would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today."

Two points. First, it was Cheney's boss, George W. Bush, who ran for the presidency in 2000 vowing to change the tone of partisan political discourse in Washington. I know that's a promise that was never kept. But what a nasty shot from Cheney. Neither he nor Bush seem to realize that even though they are GOP partisans they are still president and the vice president of the entire nation and actually have a higher standard to meet than the usual political hacks (including those in their own employ). Yet they show no interest in doing so. Again, nothing new about that.

Second, the disruption of the latest suspected terrorist plot--the one to blow up airliners heading to the United States from London--illustrates that the evildoers are probably not developing their plans based on the outcome of primary elections in the Nutmeg State. Moreover, American policy should not be held hostage to what America's enemies want or don't want. The debate is over what's best for the United States (and the rest of the world). To suggest one path or another would hearten the "terrorists" is to avoid a serious discussion. But what else would you expect from a fellow who still believes he was right to say a year ago that the Iraqi insurgency was in its "last throes"?

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August 10, 2006

The Neverending Saga of Phase II

By David Corn

Why is it taking the Senate intelligence committee forty times longer to examine how the Bush administration used--or misused--the prewar intelligence on Iraq and WMDs than it took for the United States military to topple Saddam Hussein? American troops reached Baghdad in three weeks (there were a few complications after that). But the intelligence committee, led by Republican Senator Pat Roberts, has dilly-dallied for two-and-a-half years when it has come to reviewing how George W. Bush and his top aides represented--or misrepresented--the WMD intelligence as they led (or misled) the nation to war. Last fall, the Senate Democrats shut down the Senate for a few hours to protest the committee's lack of progress in producing the so-called Phase II report that was supposed to focus on this matter. Roberts and the Republicans promised to conclude the inquiry soon. Yet another nine months have gone by, and as The Washington Post reported on Sunday, the committee is still not yet done. The Post noted:

The Republican-led committee, which agreed in February 2004 to write the report, has yet to complete its work. Just two of five planned sections of the committee's findings are fully drafted and ready to be voted on by members, according to Democratic and Republican staffers. Committee sources involved with the report, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they are working hard to complete it. But disputing Roberts, they said they had started almost from scratch in November after Democrats staged their protest.

And those two sections do not focus on the central subject--the administration's use of the prewar intelligence. One examines the intelligence agencies' prewar WMD estimates with what was found on the ground in Iraq. The other looks at what information provided by Iraqi exiles made it into official intelligence estimates. (It does not explore the influence of Ahmad Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress on Bush administration officials before the invasion.)

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July 31, 2006

Why Is the US in Iraq?

By David Corn

The sectarian violence that's taking place in the Baghdad area...is probably the gravest threat to stability that there is in the country right now.
-- General John Abizaid, chief of US Central Command
July 25, 2006

The greatest threat Iraq's people face is terror; terror inflicted by extremists.
--Nouri al-Maliki, Iraqi prime minister
July 26, 2006

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July 26, 2006

Will Plame vs. Cheney, Libby & Rove Unearth New Info?

By David Corn

Several years ago, I was talking to a Democratic senator on the intelligence committee about the CIA leak case. I asked if Democrats had any intention of pushing for a congressional investigation of the administration leak that appeared in Robert Novak's column and that outed Valerie Wilson as a CIA operative. The senator noted that a special counsel (Patrick Fitzgerald) was already on the case. That's true, I said, adding that it was not Fitzgerald's job to tell the public about his findings. His task was to investigate (secretly) a crime and then mount a prosecution if he could. Any information he would unearth would only become public were he to mention it in an indictment or a subsequent prosecution. He would not be issuing any report. And at the end of Fitzgerald's inquiry, I said to the senator, there might no prosecution (or merely a limited prosecution) and that the public might not learn all there was to know about the case. So, I asked this legislator, if Democrats cared about the leak, shouldn't they push for a non-criminal investigation? The senator replied in an exasperated manner: "You want us to investigate everything?"

Well, why not? But it was clear he wasn't interested in a congressional probe of the CIA leak case. Nor were many other Capitol Hill Democrats. Many were satisfied by the Fitzgerald appointment. But after investigating the case for over two years, Fitzgerald, has only indicted one Bush official, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and that was not for the leak but for lying to the FBI and Fitzgerald's grand jury. (Libby disclosed Valerie Wilson's employment at the CIA to New York Times reporter Judy Miller and confirmed it for Time correspondent Matt Cooper.) In the course of the indictment and pretrial process, Fitzgerald has made some critical information available--such as the fact that it was Cheney who first told Libby that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA's Counterproliferation Division, a unit in the agency's clandestine operations directorate. But Fitzgerald has not--and cannot under Justice Department guidelines--share all that he knows about the leak with the public. Thus, much of the story remains untold. And George W. Bush and his White House still refuse to answer any questions about the leak case, continuing a stonewalling strategy that has served them well.

Enter a new lawsuit. On Friday, Valerie and Joseph Wilson filed a lawsuit against Cheney, Libby and Karl Rove. (Prior to the Novak column, Rove leaked information about Wilson's classified employment to Time correspondent Matt Cooper; he also confirmed this information for Novak. Fitzgerald, though, was not able to bring a criminal case against him.) In the suit, the Wilsons accuse the three Bush officials--and unnamed coconspirators--of having violated their various rights, such as Valerie Wilson's privacy rights and Joe Wilson's right to express his opinions, which he did in a New York Times op-ed piece that criticized the Bush administration's Iraq policy. That article led White House officials to assail him.

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July 17, 2006

Novak Speaks on Leak Case--Finally

By David Corn

Robert Novak finally speaks--in a way.

In a column published in newspapers today, the conservative columnist finally discloses that he cooperated with the investigation of the CIA leak. Novak, of course, outed Valerie Wilson (aka Valerie Plame) as a CIA officer in a July 14, 2003 column on her husband's now-infamous CIA-assigned trip to Niger. In disclosing Valerie Wilson's employment status at the CIA--which was classified information--Novak cited two senior administration sources. After I read the original Novak column, I wondered if these leaks meant that Bush administration officials had violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and wrote the first article that suggested the leaks might be evidence of a White House crime. (That article was posted on The Nation's website two days after the Novak column appeared.)

Novak's latest column answers only a few of the lingering questions. It has long been obvious that he cooperated with special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald--otherwise, he would have been subpoenaed by Fitzgerald, as had Judy Miller, Matt Cooper, Tim Russert and Washington Post reporters. The only question was the manner of Novak's cooperation. In public, he had proclaimed he would not give up his source. So what did he disclose to the investigators?

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July 12, 2006