seabass -- could it be that Ashcroft removed himself because there is nothing there -- here is what Novak wrote on July 14, 2003:
...That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20030714.shtml ============= I understand that it was common knowledge within the beltway insiders that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and, in the first sentence, Novak is just stating a generally known fact, and in the second sentence, the two senior admin officials are just saying the Wilson's wife suggested, etc -- but with the BushBashers looking for any straw that can damage Bush a witchhunt was mandated.
Now, just suppose that the FBI has concluded that the above summary is indeed what happened -- there is noway that Ashcroft could announce such a conclusion -- therefore: ======== Special Counsel Is Named to Head Inquiry on C.I.A. Leak By ERIC LICHTBLAU Published: December 31, 2003
WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 — Attorney General John Ashcroft disqualified himself on Tuesday from any involvement in the investigation into whether Bush administration officials illegally disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer. At the same time, the Justice Department brought in a special counsel to lead the politically charged case.
The two steps suggested that the three-month-old investigation had reached a crucial juncture at which Mr. Ashcroft's continued involvement was considered politically untenable, officials said. Leading Democrats had pushed for months for Mr. Ashcroft to remove himself from the case because of his close ties to the White House, but he had consistently resisted those demands until Tuesday.
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