Why wasnt armitage charged

He did so. Sources, let me remind you, for a story that was never published. Sources who might have lied to Fitzgerald about talking to Miller and therefore might have committed perjury the way Fitzgerald says Libby committed perjury. The day Libby was indicted, Fitzgerald made a whole spiel about the sanctity of the grand jury process and how no one can lie to a grand jury.

You know what? Somebody — or somebody else — probably lied to his grand jury, but Fitzgerald has allowed that person to slip loose. How could he! Miller says she found notes indicating that in two meetings with Libby, they discussed Valerie Plame Wilson. Still, because the notes make it appear Libby talked about Mrs. No crime was committed, according to Fitzgerald, by the White House press secretary who actually and actively tried to spoon-feed the name to three journalists.

She went to jail for 85 days. Now Fitzgerald wants to send Libby to jail too — on the basis of dimly remembered conversations and indecipherable chicken scratches. So why did this series of conversations end up being the subject of a criminal investigation?

Both Libby and Rove have said they forgot details about their conversations with reporters. Although Libby was the only one indicted, two reporters were threatened with jail for not disclosing sources. One of them — Miller — served 85 days. Berman, the Libby supporter, sees things differently. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. In other words, the information was classified and too sensitive to be shared with foreigners.

He says months after his meeting with Novak he was re-reading Novak's July newspaper column and on Oct. Armitage then immediately met with FBI agents who were beginning to investigate the leak. He didn't get a lawyer, however. And, when Libby was indicted on October 28, , Fitzgerald said, at a news conference at the Justice Department, that it was Libby who was the first official to discuss Plame.

It wasn't until after Fitzgerald's news conference in October, that Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward reminded Armitage that he had made a passing comment to him about Plame just days before Libby's conversation with Miller in June.

That meant that Armitage, not Libby, had been the first to mention Plame to a reporter. Armitage said he quickly informed Fitzgerald of that recollection.

Armitage had spoken to FBI investigators and testified before the grand jury about his conversation with Novak. But had forgotten, until reminded by Woodward, about a conversation he had with him about Plame. Memory lapses and factual distortions? Weisenberg says Armitage's lapse in memory - on the meeting with Woodward, which occurred prior to speaking with Novak - can be exploited by Libby's lawyers to a Washington jury.

He says Armitage's memory lapse about Woodward may put doubt in the mind of the jury that Libby was the only person to have "misremembered" the facts and chronology of the leak to reporters.

Special Counsel Fitzgerald asked Armitage not to say anything publicly about his conversations with Woodward and Novak until he was allowed to speak with CBS recently. Armitage on Oct. Armitage is responsible for one of the most factually distorted investigations in history.

Misrecollected facts Barcella does not feel that Armitage finally admitting he was the primary source of Plame to Novak and Woodward will have any legal effect in the Libby trial. Robert Bjork as an expert witness on memory. Libby's attorneys write that their reason to explain to the jury what their client and other witnesses were doing in June and July of , responding to Wilson's damaging New York Times op-ed, is for a jury to "understand that Mr. Libby may have been confused or may have misrecollected facts in good faith, and did not act with a specific intent to give false testimony.

Libby did not need to attack Mr. Wilson personally to rebut his allegations, because the administration had clear factual support for its position that Mr. Wilson's criticisms were wrong. Also, Libby's attorney's have signaled that they may delve deeply into interagency infighting, what they call, "finger-pointing" among the White House, the CIA and the State Department over pre-Iraq war intelligence failures.

Weisenberg further says, Libby attorney Ted Well's can also exploit to a jury how the "hatred between government agencies, the finger-pointing on who was to blame for the 16 words in the State of the Union address," could also have been ample motivation for Armitage to reveal Plame's role in sending her husband to Africa.