SHE WAS CIA, NO?:

Calendars show Armitage met reporter (MATT APUZZO and JOHN SOLOMON, 8/21/06, Associated Press)

Then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage met with Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003, the same time the reporter has testified an administration official talked to him about CIA employee Valerie Plame.

Armitage's official State Department calendars, provided to The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act, show a one-hour meeting marked "private appointment" with Woodward on June 13, 2003. [...]

A person familiar with the information prosecutors have gathered, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the material remains sealed, said Woodward's meeting with the confidential source was June 13, 2003.

The calendar released to the AP is the first confirmation that Woodward and Armitage met during the key time in the CIA leak case that was the focus of Fitzgerald's probe.

The identity of Woodward's source remains one of the big mysteries in the case because the Post reporter is the first member of the news media known to have discussed Plame's CIA employment with an administration official.

Woodward's former Post editor, Ben Bradlee, has speculated publicly that Armitage was the reporter's "likely source."

And defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the lone administration official charged in the CIA leak case, also have suggested Armitage could have been Woodward's source when they unsuccessfully tried to persuade a court to order the release of State Department documents.

In a sane media, the story would be the CIA running an op against the elected government, which is why political appointees like Powell, Armitage, Cheney, Rove and Libby would think Woodward and company should know.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 21, 2006 11:51 PM