CUE THE FROGMARCH ORCHESTRA….Holy shit. Here’s the Washington Post today on the Valerie Plame scandal:
A senior administration official said two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson’s wife. That was shortly after Wilson revealed in July that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson’s account eventually touched off a controversy over Bush’s use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.
“Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge,” the senior official said of the alleged leak.
Let’s recap:
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This involves two top White House officials who blew the cover of a CIA agent solely for payback against a minor political enemy.
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They systematically called six different journalists.
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Only Robert Novak went with the story. (Which, by the way, actually speaks pretty well of the rest of the Washington press corps.)
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There are a whole bunch of people, including Mike Allen and Dana Priest, who know who the White House officials are.
So much for my thought that the Justice Department would mount a desultory investigation and then give up. This baby is just heating up and there’s no way to keep these names secret now. It’s only a matter of time.
Stay tuned. Stay very tuned.
