[Robert Novak] couldn't say anything because the FBI was now on the case, investigating whether Novak's publication of Valerie Plame Wilson's name had been a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. If she was a covert CIA agent and the person who told Novak about it had done so with the knowledge that she was covert, that official would've committed a grave felony.

For those of us obsessed with the case, it isn't exactly news. Indeed, I thought back in October 2003 that Novak's source was probably [Richard Armitage] because a) Novak said his source was "not a partisan gunslinger" - Armitage to a T - and b) everybody in Washington knows that the only thing Richard Armitage loves more than [Colin Powell] is a reporter's off-the-record phone call.

So here we are, more than three years after the publication of the Novak column. No one's come forward with the proof that Valerie Wilson was a covert operative. Special prosecutor [Patrick Fitzgerald] brought no charge on that matter, despite his outrageous and unseemly claim, during his notorious press conference announcing the indictment of Libby, that Plame's identity was "classified" - a word that in this context has no legal meaning.