The
Plame affair was a political scandal concerning the outing of
Valerie Plame as a
covert intelligence operative during the Bush administration in 2003. An American syndicated columnist and conservative pundit,
Robert Novak, had learned of her employment by the CIA from Armitage, who was then working for the State Department, and Novak had publicly identified her as the source of a recommendation given to the President in the course of her duties. Plame had to resign from the CIA because her identity was no longer secret. A criminal investigation into the revelation produced no charges against Armitage, but several charges against
Scooter Libby, an assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney, for lying to the investigators about the matter. Libby was convicted, but his jail sentence was ultimately commuted by Bush, and he was subsequently pardoned by President
Donald Trump on April 13, 2018. and Secretary of State
Colin Powell, August 6, 2003 Armitage's defense that he had inadvertently made an off-hand remark during a probing interview with Novak, coupled with his candor and cooperation, was accepted, although the decision not to prosecute was not made until 2006. Meanwhile, the long and slow investigation played out in the press as a scandal, "the Plame Affair" or "Plamegate". On November 15, 2005, journalist
Bob Woodward of
The Washington Post revealed in an article that "a government official with no axe to grind" leaked to him the identity of Valerie Plame in mid-June 2003. According to an April 2006
Vanity Fair article (published March 14, 2006), former
Washington Post executive editor
Ben Bradlee said in an interview "that Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption", though Bradlee later told the
Post that he "[did] not recall making that precise statement" in the interview. The following year, on March 2, 2006, bloggers discovered that "Richard Armitage" fit the spacing on a
redacted court document, suggesting he was a source for the Plame leak. In August 2006, the
Associated Press published a story that revealed Armitage met with Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003. The information came from official
State Department calendars provided to the Associated Press under the
Freedom of Information Act. Novak, in an August 27, 2006 appearance on
Meet the Press, stated that although he still would not release the name of his source, he felt it was long overdue that the source reveal himself. He had reason to think that the source might do that. Armitage had reportedly been a cooperative and key witness in the investigation. According to
The Washington Note, Armitage had testified before the
grand jury three times. Press reports continued to mount and pressure to build. On August 29, 2006,
Neil A. Lewis of
The New York Times reported that Armitage was the "initial and primary source" for Novak's July 14, 2003 article, which named Plame as a CIA "operative" and which triggered the CIA leak investigation. On August 30, 2006,
CNN reported that Armitage had been confirmed "by sources" as leaking Wilson's CIA role in a "casual conversation" with Novak.
The New York Times, quoting "people familiar with his actions", reported that Armitage was unaware of Wilson's undercover status when he spoke to Novak. In the September 4, 2006 issue of
Newsweek magazine, in an article titled "The Man Who Said Too Much", journalist
Michael Isikoff, quoting a source "directly familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities", reported that Armitage was the "primary" source for Novak's piece outing Plame. Armitage allegedly mentioned Wilson's CIA role to Novak in a July 8, 2003 interview after learning about her status from a State Department memo which made no reference to her undercover status. Isikoff also reported that Armitage had also told Woodward of Plame's identity in June 2003, and that special counsel
Patrick Fitzgerald investigated Armitage's role "aggressively", but did not charge Armitage with a crime because he "found no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status when he talked to Novak and Woodward". On September 7, 2006, Armitage admitted to being the source in the CIA leak. Armitage claims that Fitzgerald had originally asked him not to discuss publicly his role in the matter, but that on September 5 Armitage asked Fitzgerald if he could reveal his role to the public, and Fitzgerald consented. On July 2, 2007, President Bush issued a grant of
executive clemency that commuted the prison term imposed on Libby. In a review of
Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, by Michael Isikoff and
David Corn, which hit bookstores in early September 2006, Novak wrote: "I don't know precisely how Isikoff flushed out Armitage [as Novak's original source], but
Hubris clearly points to two sources:
Washington lobbyist Kenneth Duberstein, Armitage's political adviser, and
William Taft IV, who was the State Department legal adviser when Armitage was deputy secretary". ==Pakistan and the fight against terrorism==