Possibly interesting developments in the whole Plame affair. Check in with Daniel Drezner and also at Just One Minute.
Steve Clemons reports back from a Princeton conference that, according to BobbyRay Inman, the man in Special Counsel Fitzgerald's crosshairs is... Richard Armitage.
The most obvious connection seems to be here:
People familiar with this part of the probe provided new details about the memo, including that it was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage who requested it the day Wilson went public and asked that a copy be sent to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to take with him on a trip to Africa the next day. Bush and several top aides were on that trip. Carl W. Ford Jr., who was director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the time and who supervised the original production of the memo, has appeared before the grand jury, a former State Department official said.
A list of others on the trip here:
Rove has also testified that the first time he saw the State Department memo was when "people in the special prosecutor's office" showed it to him, said Robert Luskin, his attorney.
"He had not seen it or heard about it before that time," Luskin said.
Several other administration officials were on the trip to Africa, including senior adviser Dan Bartlett, then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer and others. Bartlett's attorney has refused to discuss the case, citing requests by the special counsel. Fleischer could not be reached for comment yesterday.
Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, have been identified as people who discussed Wilson's wife with Cooper. Prosecutors are trying to determine the origin of their knowledge of Plame, including whether it was from the INR memo or from conversations with reporters.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the memo made it clear that information about Wilson's wife was sensitive and should not be shared. Yesterday, sources provided greater detail on the memo to The Post.
The material in the memo about Wilson's wife was based on notes taken by an INR analyst who attended a Feb. 19, 2002, meeting at the CIA where Wilson's intelligence-gathering trip to Niger was discussed.
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