I have a new piece up on Richard Armitage’s role as the CIA leaker. But to address the Libby issue and the question of why Libby was indicted, and not Armitage:

Once the FBI started asking questions, in October 2003, Armitage told investigators he talked to Novak. Karl Rove told investigators he talked to Novak. The CIA’s Bill Harlow told investigators he talked to Novak. Their stories, along with Novak’s description of how he learned about Plame (Novak talked to investigators at the same time, describing the process, but not naming sources), all lined up pretty well.

And then came Libby. Libby wasn’t Novak’s source. But in his interviews, Libby clearly raised eyebrows when he told investigators he learned about Plame from Tim Russert. According to the Libby indictment, Libby said that “Russert asked Libby if Libby was aware that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA.” The story didn’t fit with the others, and that would most likely make investigators suspect that somebody wasn’t telling the truth. In this case, it probably appeared that person was Libby.

Add to that the effects of the war over the war raging inside the Bush administration. Armitage’s allies at the State Department clearly believe he was a “good” leaker while Libby and others in the White House were “bad” leakers. We do not know what State Department and CIA officials told Fitzgerald during the investigation, but we do know that fevered imaginings about the awful acts of the neocon cabal were not the exclusive province of left-wing blogs; they were also present inside the State Department and CIA. Fitzgerald may have chosen the course that he did — appearing to premise his investigation on what might be called the firedoglake theory of the case — because he was pointed in that direction by the White House’s enemies inside and outside the administration. That might raise questions about Fitzgerald’s judgment — was he spun? — but it is one possible explanation of why things happened as they did.