The Daily Background

Yesterday I wrote that Richard Armitage, former Deputy Secretary of State met with Bob Woodward and seems to have outed Valerie Wilson to the veteran reporter (who never published it). If true, Armitage would join several other Administration officials who could be facing legal trouble with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (update on Fitzgerald here).

It now appears that Armitage may be also facing legal action by the Plame-Wilson family in the form of the private suit already launched against several Administration officials including Karl Rove, Lewis Libby and the Vice President of the United States. Associated Press reports:

Former CIA officer Valerie Plame is considering suing the recent No. 2 State Department official in a case accusing members of the Bush administration of conspiring to leak her identity to the media, Plame’s attorney said Tuesday.

[…]
The calendar released to the AP is the first confirmation that Woodward and Armitage met during the key time in the CIA leak case.

Plame attorney Melanie Sloan said she was considering adding Armitage’s name to the suit. Based on the calendar entry, Sloan said, “it sure sounds like” he was Woodward’s source.

The real question, Sloan said, is whether Armitage revealed Plame’s identity to columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to get the information into print. If so, she said that doesn’t get Libby or others off the hook in the civil case, but it widens the conspiracy.

I’ll have more on this as it happens, but it might be a while. This story is sort of in incubation mode right now though. Here’s to hoping it pops up again before the midterm elections.

Filed under: Plame Leak, Z-TDB Blog