Bush official has admitted that he leaked Valerie Plame's identity

[whometense]

Speaking of sheer vindictiveness, let's not forget who Valerie Plame's husband was advising...

American Prospect:

Plame Game Redux

The grand jury finds evidence of an aggressive administration campaign to discredit Joe Wilson. But charging someone with a crime has proven to be far more difficult.
By Murray Waas
Web Exclusive: 04.22.05

Two days before columnist Robert Novak named Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative, a Bush administration official told a reporter for The Washington Post that Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, had been sent to Niger on a sensitive diplomatic mission only because his wife recommended him for the job. The administration official admitted his role to federal prosecutors during their investigation into the leak of Plame's identity.

The Bush administration official, according to attorneys familiar with his testimony, told a federal grand jury that he made the claim to the Post reporter and others in an effort to undermine Wilson's credibility, who was alleging at the time that the Bush administration was relying on faulty intelligence to bolster its case to go to war with Iraq. But the official just as adamantly denied to the federal investigators that he had ever told the Post reporter, Novak, or anyone else that Plame was a clandestine CIA operative.

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It is unclear whether any of the House committees will now undertake such an investigation. But nine Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence last week wrote Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez asking him to explain to them why Fitzgerald has not brought criminal charges against anyone in the Plame matter.