Novak And Armitage

This post has some background to earlier speculation that Novak's primary source on the Plame leak was Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State.  However, the notion that Novak and Woodward shared a source remains a matter of Bob Woodward's speculation (echoed by Novak).  System puzzles prevent me from linking to the relevant post from yesterday.

My gist - Novak and Armitage seem to fit well, professionally anyway.  Checking Novak's archives, Lexis kicks up about nine columns from Jan 1 2001 to July 1 2003 where Novak mentions Armitage by name, each time as a hero of the piece.

By contrast, Stephen Hadley gets zero mentions.  Condi Rice gets about a dozen.

That doesn't mean Novak didn't speak with Hadley off the record.  However, Novak praised Armitage regularly, seemed to use him as a source (just from reading between the lines of some of the columns), shared Armitage's skepticism about the war in Iraq - he would have to be a much friendlier source than Hadley.

Here is a sampler of the Novak columns.  Don't forget Lexis a la Carte, the poor man's version of Lexis - searches are free, documents are $3 each.

(1) Colin Powell driving

Colin Powell, seated in the U.S. delegate's seat at the United Nations, kept a poker face Thursday that concealed justifiable satisfaction as he listened to George W. Bush; Sep 16, 2002

(2) Bush in control

On the plane ride to Prague for last week's NATO summit, President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell sat side by side for hours talking about the confrontation with Iraq; Nov 25, 2002

(3) Chris Dodd's vendetta

Venezuela's agony under a leftist demagogue elected by the people has enabled Democratic Sen. Christopher Dodd to revive his vendetta against Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich; May 2, 2002

(4) Inside Report: Confirmation politics

President-elect Bush's priority of confirming former Sen. John Ashcroft as attorney general is making it harder for Senate Republican leaders to keep opposing Richmond, Va., lawyer Paul Gregory as a...; Jan 6, 2001

MORE:  The emptywheel explains why Armitage is not the leaking type.  In a scenario where State and CIA were battling the neocons, and any whisper about Wilson's wife could only be meant to bash Joe Wilson, this theory makes sense.

However - Woodward described his source as mentioning the Plame connection casually.  When Armitage talks to Woodward, he is talking to history, not tomorrow's headlines.  In that context, Armitage might very well want to talk the CIA down and the State Dept. up.

As to Armitage leaking to Novak - I am baffled that Armitage might have leaked to both (why not tell Fitzgerald initially, or hold Woodward to his promise?).  But a leak to Novak, based on what we see above, would hardly be a shocker.

MORE:  Here is Bob Novak on Meet The Press, June 1, 2003.  The question before the panel - what about the missing WMDs?  (Via Lexis):

MR. NOVAK: Oh, several of the people who are hard-liners in the administration, when the war was still going on inside Iraq, said it was absolutely essential, that we were going to be hugely embarrassed, if they didn't find weapons of mass destruction. So this is a tremendous problem for the Iraqi hawks. You know, however, after the attack on Afghanistan, I wrote a column for the next day, the next Monday, and I talked to a lot of people in the administration who wanted to say, "The next step is Iraq.  We have to hit Iraq." Nobody mentioned weapons of mass destruction. They mentioned the need for a regime change, the brutality, the security of Israel, the general posture of the Middle East. But once Secretary Powell talked the president into going to the U.N., they had to have a better reason, and that's where the weapons of mass destruction came up. You want to call it a pretext? That's a hard word, but that's the difficulty, I think, they have found themselves in.

Whose side was he on, Armitage or Hadley?

Comments

[r flanagan]

Empty wheel had a head splitting post yesterday explaining why it's not Armitage.

By now the reporting contains so many
contradictions that a plausible case could
be made for just about anyone.

[kim]

Tenet's the source for both of them and it's not a leak, because too many knew already, and because Tenet can't, by definitiion, leak.
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[clarice]

BTW the WH has denied Novak's assertion that the President knows his (and Woodward's) source. What's he talking about?

[kim]

C, saying that he doesn't know what Novak is basing it on is hardly taking issue with it. That was basically a 'no comment' that has been misrepresented, then followed with paragraphs of lying boilerplate meme.

But, I'm sure you saw that.
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[clarice]

I saw that, but I don't get your point. How does the WH know who told Novak or Woodward?

I think Tenet told Novak. I've thought that for a long time. Do you suppose Tenet told the President that he was Novak's source? If so, why in the world would the WH not disclose that? Don't you think Novak is making a huge supposition and perhaps sending out a major clue?

[kim]

To protect Tenet's privacy and dignity, maybe legacy. I think Tenet told both, and it is no big, big deal to be telling Novak, right before telling the world. Telling Woodward a month earlier is perhaps a little more shameful. It makes the picture in the puzzle clarified.

Novak, bless his heart, is trying to get it over with. In my experience, the only way assholes like him make it in the world is to be tough as nails on the outside, and pattycakes on the inside.
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[clarice]

Assuming that were true, kim, I think the President should say it. He's put his best people to enormous trouble and expense by not saying that. In any event, Tenet was interviewed early on by the FBI. If he had been the source I'd expect he'd have so testified and I'd expect a rational SP to have closed the investigation immediately afterward.

[Seixon]

I am leaning heavily towards Armitage for being the source of one of these journalists. Why? The INR/State Department was telling the CIA that this whole mission to Niger was just going to end up showing nothing. Which makes me wonder if someone at the State Department or INR leaked also to Pincus who said it was a "boondoggle set up by his wife". That certainly would be consistent with a disgruntled INR or State Department person...

That still doesn't explain the creepy silence of INR and the CPD on the Niger forgeries...

Also, as to why the source came forward to have Woodward testify, like I said yesterday, perhaps the source wants to establish that he told Woodward much earlier than he told Novak, to solidify the fact that this wasn't some sort of smear against Wilson, but just idle chatter.

[ed]

Alright Clarice, it's been like four days. What's the scoop?

[danking]

No, I did not put Ed up to that nor do we share the same IP address.

And my damn foot won't stop tap, tap, tapping....

[clarice]

In the same place you are--waiting..

[kim]

Sure he should say so, Clarice. That he hasn't explains Novak's remark about how poorly the White House has handled this. Perhaps he doesn't have Tenet's permission. Things like that Bush pays attention to.

Two other hopes spring in my breast and those are that both Bush and Fitz know the real story, and the layers of the onion are coming off.
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[Dwilkers]

Come on guys, leave Clarice alone. She'll tell us what she knows when she knows it.

Clarice I had to drive into town today and found myself listening to Limbaugh for the first time in a very long time. Did you know he mentioned one of your AT articles on the air and quoted it at some length?

[Jim Elbe]

Limbaugh sez his favorite blog is AT. He has mentioned Clarice a number of times.

[Dwilkers]

Really. I had no idea.

Wow I feel like I'm in the presence of somebody IMPORTANT. Like Babs, or Tom Cruise, or Jane Fonda. Or George Clooney.

>8^D>~~

[TP]

TM. Did you ever do a Lexis Nexis on Armitage and Judy Miller?

[Jim E.]

Regarding TM's addition of Novak's MTP appearance in his main post:

One month after Novak's appearance, Wolfowitz famously admitted that the administration settled on selling the war on WMD for "bureaucratic reasons."

So maybe Novak was listening to Wolfowitz (who really is a true believer about spreading democracy, nation building, etc.), not Hadley or Armitage. In short, the MTP quote is not that helpful.

[Jeff]

Whose side was he on, Armitage or Hadley?

Funny, from the MTP excerpt you give, I would have answered Hadley, not Armitage or Powell.

And I'm with kim on this: the White House, and now apparently Bush himself, issued a classic non-denial denial in response to Novak. Now, Novak is a deeply unreliable guy prone to outright lying, so it's hard to know what to make of his assertions before the John Locke society. But the very fact that the White House and Bush himself have failed to deny Novak's assertion that Bush must know who the leaker is suggests to me that Bush knows who the leaker is. Ok, it's a very strong claim from Novak to say that he would be amazed if Bush didn't know who the leaker was. Why would he be amazed? From the Department of Wishful Thoughts: because it is someone very very close to Bush. Murray Waas' latest points a big, though rather indirect, finger at the VP's office. But I seriously doubt Fitzgerald would have left out a Libby leak to Novak from the timeline in Libby's indictment. So who might it be?

And surely Armitage is back in the country, so some journalist can hound him into responding to the question whether he was Woodward's and/or Novak's source. But I do wonder whether Bob Novak (again, assuming against history that he is not just making this up) would be amazed if Bush didn't know that Armitage is the leaker. Surprised, maybe. But amazed?

[kim]

It's Georgie Porgie, Puddnin' an' Pie.
Signed and kissed his ass good-bye.
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[Sylvia]

Here is a guess of mine that I haven't seen considered anywhere. Another possible source is Richard Clarke. He is a former non partisan senior admin type who would have been in the know. I'm also wondering about the rumors that Stephen Hadley was the source and he has since denied it. Perhaps the source for that rumor got it wrong and confused one national security adviser for another.

[Sylvia]

I also believe that Fitzgerald didn't know about Woodward knowing because I'm sure Fitz didn't ask Novak's source if he had told any other reporter before he had told Novak. Fitz, as you mentioned elsewhere in the blog, was trying to conduct himself with the utmost of professionalism and probably would not have engaged in a fishing expedition like that. The fact that he was asking a reporter to testify about sources in the first place was sensitive and he probably made an agreement with Novak and the source that he would limit his questions to the known subject matter.

[Sylvia]

And by the way, this has nothing to do with this segment, but I just saw footage on TV of IED's going off in Iraq on a US convoy. I just wanted to put forward an idea for this. Why not equip the lead vehicle in a military convoy with a metal detector, attached to a long leading pole, with sensors that covers the whole lane, kind of like a tractor crop fertilizer. Any signs of significant metal, the convoy stops and goes around the area. They might have to drive more slowly but could work.

[Kate]

Read Waas' article and it is amazing to me that the cipher Fitzgerald is still considering charges against Rove. He will probably do this as his masters in the media don't want the talented Rove coordinating the 2006 elections.

I'm sorry. After reading about the real national security leaks, I can't get excited about what Rove said or did not say to Cooper as he tried to escape the nuisance and go on vacation. It's silly.

[kim]

Sylvia, Clarke is out of the administration now and his partisan stripes are as evident as his long nose, however, I agree he might have been considered non-partisan by some at the time.

And I think you've nicely illustrated a major flaw with Fitz's method of investigation. He has limited his questions to these witnesses in a way that defense will not be limited, and he is failing to thoroughly investigate as a result. At trial he will discover that he has investigated enough to uncover evidence of a crime, but not enough to show that the evidence is inadequate to convict. If he is doing this on purpose because he can't get at the journalists and is expecting defense to do it, it would be a novel and unusual presecutorial tactic. However, there are novel aspects to investigating the press, just as there are difficulties in informing the public about an investigation whose subject and object is those tasked with informing the public. I hope this is Fitz's plan; why I hold such a strange hope, I'm not sure.
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[kim]

There's your guess about Clarke several posts above at 12:01 on 12/18, Sylvia. He is a rat.
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