A lawyer involved in the Valerie Plame leak case has confirmed that Armitage was the primary source for Bob Novak's column outing Valerie Plame and the source of Washington Post Bob Woodward. [Note: Edited to reflect that the article may be referring to a lawyer involved in the case rather than Armitage's lawyer. Thanks to Patriot Daily for pointing this out to me.]

But the lawyer and other associates of Mr. Armitage have said he has confirmed that he was the initial and primary source for the columnist, Robert D. Novak, whose column of July 14, 2003, identified Valerie Wilson as a Central Intelligence Agency officer.

The Times says this ends the mystery. I disagree. The question remains of whether there was a concerted effort to use Valerie Plame Wilson's undercover or classified employment status with the CIA in an attempt to smear Joe Wilson and his public statements that Iraq was not attempting to acquire uranium from Niger, as Bush erroneously claimed in his 2003 State of the Union Address.

Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and David Corn's new book, Hubris, names Richard Armitage as the leaker of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity and the source for both Bob Woodward and Bob Novak. Isikoff reports in Newsweek that Armitage realized he was the leaker when he read Novak's October 1, 2003 column describing his source as "no partisan gunslinger." Armitage then reported his suspicion

Within hours, William Howard Taft IV, the State Department's legal adviser, notified a senior Justice official that Armitage had information relevant to the case.a team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors investigating the leak questioned the deputy secretary. Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA. (The memo made no reference to her undercover status.) Armitage had met with Novak in his State Department office on July 8, 2003--just days before Novak published his first piece identifying Plame. Powell, Armitage and Taft, the only three officials at the State Department who knew the story, never breathed a word of it publicly and Armitage's role remained secret.

This doesn't end the discussion. Isikoff has been speculating about Armitage since 2005. As Needlenose, who has followed the case closely writes:

Crooks and Liars has the video of Bob Novak's appearance on Meet the Press this morning. Christy at Firedoglake provides her view.

Shorter version: Novak now claims he made a mistake when he told Newsday one week after his infamous column in which he outed Valerie Plame that his primary source gave him Valerie Plame Wilson's name.

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." [my emphasis]

Memories weaken upon the passage of time, they become comingled with post-event information --things the person experiencing the event later hears and reads about the case -- so that often it is no longer possible to distinguish between their original memory of the event and the blended memory that is created by what they heard, observed or later learned from others. Novak's memory is undoubtedly a mish-mosh now, but it wasn't one week after the event.

I'm going with what Novak said then: his primary source, who is no partisan gunslinger, not only told him Joseph Wilson's wife had a role in sending him to Niger but supplied her name.

Here's one post from last week on Novak Then vs. Novak Now.

Update: Editor and Publisher has the majority of the transcript.

Media Matters has a round-up of the reporting on Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson's lawsuit against Rumsfeld, Rove, Libby and others as yet unknown. Prime offenders:

• Good Morning America and Special Report

• ABC's World News Tonight and CBS Evening News ignored the lawsuit while devoting airtime to Shakespeare and the Kentucky Derby.

• On CNN, John King and Darren Kagan repeated false statements by Republicans about Wilson's trip to Niger. echoed Republican falsehoods on Wilson's trip to Niger. [corrected on my part to reflect John King, not the other King.]

Crooks and Liars has the video of the Wilsons' news conference yesterday. It's the first time Valerie Plame Wilson has spoken publicly about the damage done to her by the leak of her identity and employment, and she's very impressive. If you'd like to lend a hand to the Wilsons, contributions to the Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust can be given here or sent to P.O. Box 40918, Washington, D.C. 20016-0918.

I've been wondering why the Wilsons chose today to file their civil lawsuit against Cheney, Libby, Rove et. al. (Background here.)

I figure it has to do with the statute of limitations. July 14, 2003 was when Bob Novak's column outing Valerie Plame was published. So, there must be a three year statute of limitations lurking somewhere.

It's not that easy to determine. The lawsuit is a Bivens federal civil rights lawsuit. Bivens is a judicially created remedy that does not have its own statute of limitations. Usually, Bivens actions borrow the limitations statute in the state where the action arose. And, while state law establishes the statute of limitations, federal law determines when the federal Bivens claims accrued.

Under federal law, the statute of limitations on a Bivens claim "begins to run when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the existence and cause of the injury which is the basis of his action." This would seem to be the date Novak's column was published.

Some of the Wilsons' claims allege a violation of their 5th Amendment due process rights. The Supreme Court has recognized the due process clause and its equal protection component as being valid for Bivens claims.

On July 14 at 10:00 am Joseph and Valerie Plame Wilson will announce the filing of civil lawsuit against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice-President Richard Cheney and Karl Rove. Via Christy at Firedoglake.

Update: Here is the Wilson's latest press release, the lawsuit has been filed, you can read the complaint here.

Also, if you'd like to lend them a hand.

Contributions to the Joseph and Valerie Wilson Legal Support Trust can be given here or sent to P.O. Box 40918, Washington, D.C. 20016-0918. [link fixed]

Some excerpts from the complaint:

Update: TPM Muckraker calls out Novak on Waas. Novak said,

"I know that the Murray Waas piece in the National Journal, which interestingly was not picked up by anybody, was totally wrong and a total lie," he said.

In fact, Muckraker says, Bloomberg News and MSNBC confirmed Waas' article using their own sources.

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Original Post:

Bob Novak was on Fox News yesterday explaining and defending his involvement in PlameGate. As Crooks and Liars reports, he called Murray Waas a liar on Hannity and Colmes.

He was also on Britt Hume's show. Here's the transcript of his appearance.

Thanks to Tom Maguire for reminding me of this old post of mine in which I cite Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce's Newsday article of July 22, 2003, 8 days after Novak's column outing Valerie Plame was printed, in which he is quoted as saying,

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." (my emphasis.)

Now he says he got it from Who's Who and no one in the Administration told him her name.

Murray Waas, who has been following Rove and Novak as close as anyone in Plamegate, offers up his reactions to Bob Novak's latest disclosure on his role in leaks investigation, particularly Novak's willingness to out Karl Rove.

Also on Novak's latest: Think Progress which notes he has backtracked on his prior promise to tell all.

My reaction, posted yesterday, is here.

Update: See Swopa here, who asks who the first person was to tell Novak that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and whether he knew this before he talked to his "primary source"? Swopa says it's a subject Novak dances around in his latest column. Also see Christy at Firedoglake who calls Novak's statement a "big yawn."

Bob Novak says his lawyers have told him Patrick Fitzgerald says the Valerie Plame leaks investigation is over as to him. The column is available to subscribers, which I am not, but I just got a full copy. Here's what's available on their website, more is below the fold:

I have cooperated in the investigation while trying to protect journalistic privileges under the First Amendment and shield sources who have not revealed themselves. I have been subpoenaed by and testified to a federal grand jury. Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue.

While I was attending a Hillary fundraiser in Denver, Bill Clinton was in Aspen speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival. He talked about Karl Rove and PlameGate.

Clinton didn't hold back when Atlantic Monthly national correspondent James Fallows asked him what one question he would ask President Bush's highly controversial political operative.

....The 42nd president said he most wanted to know what Rove would do had Clinton's senior advisor blown the cover of a CIA agent who happened to be married to the man who refused to falsify findings about nuclear transactions taking place between Niger and Iraq (see Valerie Plame). And he openly wondered whether Rove would instruct Republican congressmen to call a White House official who would do such a thing a traitor. bqq. Lastly, Clinton wanted to know why it is that, if the Bush administration is as concerned with national security as it claims, why it would spend 20 times the amount of money it would take to shore up gaps in port security to repeal the estate tax for the nation's elite, which consists of less than one percent of the population.

Murray Waas breaks news in PlameGate today:

Bush told prosecutors he directed Cheney to disclose classified information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson.

However, Waas reports, Bush did not tell Cheney to leak Valerie Plame's identity.

Some snippets: