Mark Kleiman has an excellent post summarizing the current status of the investigation into who revealed Valerie Plame's status as a covert CIA agent. In it, he also notes that another investigation is also underway - this one looking into who created the forged documents indicating that Iraq was trying to get uranium from Niger.
It looks like there's maybe some actual progress being made, and that the prosecutors working on the case are doing more than just making a 'show' of an investigaion while trying to avoid actually finding anything. There may be hope that someone will actually be held accountable for these crimes - though, as always, I'm not exactly holding my breath.
Now that the Valerie Plame investigation has been turned over to a special prosecutor and John Ashcroft has recuse himself from any involvement in the case, it looks like we're starting to see some progress - at least on the Justice Deparment's end of things. It's not so clear what's happening from the White House end of things.
The Justice Department has started asking administration officials to sign a form stating that they want journalists to cooperate with the investigation and to not claim journalistic privilege when questioned by authorities. Bush's press secretary, Scott McLellan, isn't saying, however, whether Bush feels those who are asked to sign the forms need to or not.
McClellan said Bush has directed his aides to "cooperate fully in this investigation." Citing an ongoing investigation, however, he would not say whether the president thinks that extends to signing the forms.Ok. Bush says his aids should "cooperate fully," but then won't say if part of that full cooperation includes actually cooperating with the investigation. Sure. That makes sense."That's asking a specific question about matters that should be directed to the career officials at the Department of Justice," McClellan said. "The president has always said that leaking classified information is a serious matter, and certainly no one wants to get to the bottom of this more than he does."
If the aides are not guilty, then there should be no harm in signing the releases. Bush has often said he doesn't want to see leaks coming out of the White House, and that he considers leaks to be a serious matter. Releasing journalists from any pledge of confidentially might help accomplish that. Unless, of course, Bush means that he only wants to stop the leaks that he doesn't approve of - and that the leak of Plame's status as an undercover operative is one that he has no problem with.
Ok, so I'm in slight shock here. It's exceedingly rare that someone in the Bush administration does something that I approve of - and it's basically unheard of for John Ashcroft to do anything I like, so the announcement today that not only has Ashcroft recused himself from the Plame investigation, there's also been a special prosecutor named as well just about floored me.
Like many, I'd been worried that this investigation was just quietly being dropped behind the scenes and that soon we'd hear that they just weren't able to find out anything substansive and that would be the end of that. Today's announcement, though, says that that's not the case at all.
Admittedly, though, the explaination offered by James Comey -the number 2 man in the Justice Department who will now be running the investigationfor the recusal and appointment of a special prosecutor - was a bit enigmatic.
"The attorney general in an abundance of caution believed that his recusal was appropriate based on the totality of the circumstances and the facts and evidence developed at this stage of the investigation," Comey said. "I agree with that judgment."It makes me wonder if something has been uncovered that indicates someone with specific ties to John Ascroft might be directly involved in the revealing of Plame's identity as a CIA operative. If that is the case (and this is just my own speculation) my first guess would be that it's Karl Rove, given that he has previously worked on John Ascroft's campaigns.
In any event, it's good to know that they are still investigating the situation and that it's being taken seriously enough to bring in a special prosector. Hopefully, whomever was responsible will be found and duly punished for any crime they mave had committed.
Vincent Cannistraro tells Financial Times that Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIA agent was leaked - not as revenge against her husband for embarassing the White House - but rather to punish the CIA for not providing the kind of intelligence the White House wanted.
Vince Cannistraro, former CIA operations chief, charged yesterday: "She was outed as a vindictive act because the agency was not providing support for policy statements that Saddam Hussein was reviving his nuclear programme."Ths doesn't get us any closer to knowing who leaked the information - and given the way the investigation is going - slowly - it seem less and less likely that we will be anytime soon.The leak was a way to "demonstrate an underlying contempt for the intelligence community, the CIA in particular".
Roger Ailes has posted excerpts of a letter from John Ashcroft to Dennis Hastert discussing how leaks from government officials should be handled. It's interesting to note the striking differences between what is discussed and what is current happening with the Valerie Plame case.
The full document is available also.
A few days ago, I posted an entry about a column John Dean had written in which he said he believed that a criminal case might be able to be made against White House staffers who tried to push the Plame story after Novak had initially published it, even if they were not responsible for the original leak. Today, Mark Kleiman has posted his response to Dean's comments and presents his argument as to why Dean's suggestion is evidence that we're better off without an "independent counsel" law. (Note that an "independent counsel", such as Ken Starr was, is different than a "special prosecutor", which is someone appointed by the Justice Department to handle a case. Special prosecutors are generally given specific issues to investigate, while independent counsels are supposed to prosecute every crime they possibly can.)
I was especially struck by how Kleiman shows that what Dean is suggestion is actually quite similar to a tactic Ashcroft has already used, and which Dean previously wrote about and condemned.
Josh Marshall has commented several times recently about how Scott McClellan's response to questions about whether Karl Rove, Libby Lewis or Elliot Abrams took part in leaking the information about Valerie Plame's status as a CIA operative has consistently been "They were not involved in the leaking of classified information." Part of what's piqued Josh's interest is that this has been virtually the only answer McClellan would give. He also notes that it doesn't really answer the question, and it's a very narrow, very legalistic response.
Today, a reporter in the press gaggle decided to try and pin McClellan down a bit more, by specifically asking if the three were involved in the Valerie Plame leak. As might be expected, McClellan once again demonstrated what a good tap dancer he can be.
QUESTION: Scott, earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?Right back to the basic "not involved in the leaking of classified information" again.MCCLELLAN: Those individuals -- I talked -- I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.
QUESTION: So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?
MCCLELLAN: They assured me that they were not involved in this.
QUESTION: Can I follow up on that?
QUESTION: They were not involved in what?
MCCLELLAN: The leaking of classified information.
QUESTION: Did you undertake that of your own volition, or were you instructed to go to these --
MCCLELLAN: I spoke to those individuals myself.
There's definitely something more going on here. It's just a matter of how long it'll take to find out what.
John Dean has had a lot to say lately about the Bush administration. In his most recent "FindLaw's Writ" column, he discusses the possibility that criminal charges against members of the White House may be possible, even if the White House itself was not behind the leak. I'm reposting a good deal of the column here to make it easier to follow the legal issues he's discussing, but, as always, I recommend checking out the rest to get the full context.
The White House Need Not Have Leaked to Have Committed a CrimeIt should be noted that, according to the Newsweek article where Rove's contact with Matthew's was initially described, that a "source familiar with Rove’s conversation" has said that Rove did not say that Plame was "fair game", but that "it was reasonable to discuss who sent Wilson to Niger."[...] It is entirely possible that no one at the Bush "White House" or on the President's personal staff, was involved in the initial leak to Novak. It could have been someone at the National Security Council, which is related to the Bush White House but not part of it.
[...] But even if the White House was not initially involved with the leak, it has exploited it. As a result, it may have opened itself to additional criminal charges under the federal conspiracy statute.
Why the Federal Conspiracy and Fraud Statutes May Apply Here
This elegantly simple law has snared countless people working for, or with, the federal government. Suppose a conspiracy is in progress. Even those who come in later, and who share in the purpose of the conspiracy, can become responsible for all that has gone on before they joined. They need not realize they are breaking the law; they need only have joined the conspiracy.
Most likely, in this instance the conspiracy would be a conspiracy to defraud - for the broad federal fraud statute, too, may apply here. If two federal government employees agree to undertake actions that are not within the scope of their employment, they can be found guilty of defrauding the U.S. by depriving it of the "faithful and honest services of its employee." It is difficult to imagine that President Bush is going to say he hired anyone to call reporters to wreak more havoc on Valerie Plame. Thus, anyone who did so - or helped another to do so - was acting outside the scope of his or her employment, and may be open to a fraud prosecution.
What counts as "fraud" under the statute? Simply put, "any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing, or defeating the lawful function of any department of government." (Emphasis Dean's.) If telephoning reporters to further destroy a CIA asset whose identity has been revealed, and whose safety is now in jeopardy, does not fit this description, I would be quite surprised.
If Newsweek is correct that Karl Rove declared Valerie Plame Wilson "fair game," then he should make sure he's got a good criminal lawyer, for he made need one. I've only suggested the most obvious criminal statute that might come into play for those who exploit the leak of a CIA asset's identity. There are others.
I'm not sure, however, that in the context Dean is referring to, that the actual phrasing makes much difference when it comes to the possible criminal implications. Either way, Rove was trying to promote the story and encourage other reporters (or at least one other reporter) to run with it. I'm not a legal expert, but if I understand what Dean is saying in his analysis, it sounds like the law would still apply.
Josh Marshall has a couple notes up about the Plame scandal. One discusses the latest conservative attempt at finding what Josh calls the Holy Grail - an "innocent" explanation for the Plame leak. He quotes a "Nick. Y" who wrote
When was Wilson's wife last on a clandestine operation? As a 40 year old mother of 2 year old twins I would imagine it has been a long time ago. Don't you?He then has a second piece where he takes Bob Novak up on his suggestion that someone should search the Nexis database to show just how many times he's used the word "operative" and how that demonstrates that he might have used it in describing Plame without his having meant to imply that she was undercover. (Josh finds only 6 examples of Novak using it in reference to the CIA, and in each case, he uses it to refer to someone who's undercover). One of the stories he described this way:
Did the CIA change her status? Is she now just an analyst as she has been working at in the CIA Langley Office?Is there a pay scale difference among analysts and operatives? Could it be that she retained that title even though there was no intention of ever using her again in a clandestine operation? After all she is the wife of a former Ambassador and now has two small children.
The lady may have been an operative at one time but my bet is that she was still with the CIA and would have continued her career as an analyst until her retirement and that's why her role at the CIA was well known in Washington Circles.
The CIA needs to answer some questions about this woman.
Enough said.
On December 3rd 2001 Novak reported on the surprise and even outrage among CIA veterans that Mike Spann’s identity had been revealed even in death. Spann was the agent killed at the uprising at Mazar-i-Sharif Thus Novak: “Exposure of CIA operative Johnny (Mike) Spann's identity as the first American killed in Afghanistan is viewed by surprised intelligence insiders as an effort by Director George Tenet to boost the embattled CIA's prestige.”Oddly, these two pieces kind of found an intersection in my head. It seems to me that if people in the CIA expect that someone's identity as a CIA operative would survive even their death (presumably because of the need to protect the operative's contacts, networks, agents and projects), that there would also be a similar expectation that their identity as an operative would survive marriage and motherhood, and for the same reasons. So, even if Plame's duties have changed or if she's working more at the "home office" now that she used to, it doesn't make revealing the fact that she used to be undercover any less egregious.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution has a nice editorial about how Bush seems to be just a bit too casual about the Plame leak.
Bush has shown no sign of anger at the leak and, in fact, has publicly suggested that he doesn't think an investigation will succeed in finding the culprit. That doesn't concern him much either. He is trying to treat it as a leak just like any other leak, in a town that leaks like a sieve anyway.Hmmm.... I wonder what country they might be referring to, eh?This is not any leak.
The agent in question, Valerie Plame, has been a CIA operative for almost 20 years, recruiting and running undercover agents overseas to gather intelligence on the spread of weapons of mass destruction. That is a critically important line of work, so important that certain nations have even been known to go to war over WMD.
Bush, by his apparent indifference, sends the disturbing message to his staff that such behavior is no big deal. That reveals more about his administration than all the investigators in the world ever could.Assurances that he wants to "get to the bottom of this" aside, Bush's reaction to the entire scandal has made it clear that he really doesn't want the culprit to be found.
According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, 5 Democratic Senators, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, have sent a letter to President Bush outlining five ways in which this investigation has already been compromised:
"Already, just fourteen days into this investigation, there have been at least five serious missteps," the senators wrote. "We are at risk of seeing this investigation so compromised that those responsible for this national security breach will never be identified and prosecuted."Bush has spoken before about how he's the "master of low expectations" meaning that he's so good at lowering expectations of what he's capable of doing that when he fails, it doesn't appear to be that big of a deal, and when he succeeds, he looks that much better by comparison to what he set people up to expect. In this case, he wants us to expect the inquiry to fail because that way he can claim it's a "non-issue", and try to repudiate anyone who wants to make it a point in the upcoming election.The letter was signed by Daschle and Sens. Joseph Biden, D-Del., Carl Levin, D-Mich., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
The objections were:
- The Justice Department began the investigation Sept. 26 but did not ask the White House to order employees to preserve relevant evidence until Sept. 29.
- Gonzales did not order employees to preserve their records until the next day, when the investigation was announced.
- The Justice Department did not ask the Pentagon and State Department to preserve possible evidence until late on Oct. 1, after news reports that such a request was coming.
- White House press secretary Scott McClellan has said he determined that three senior officials who were the subject of speculation in news accounts were not involved in leaking classified information.
The senators wrote: "Clearly, a media spokesperson does not have the legal expertise to be questioning possible suspects or evaluating or reaching conclusions about the legality of their conduct."- Ashcroft remains responsible for the probe despite his close political and personal relationships with Bush and his top aides.
If his opponents try to paint him as someone who willingly tolerates having in his employ the kind of person who would not only put the life of a woman who has faithfully served the country for nearly 20 years in danger, but commits a felony in the process, he can respond by pointing out his statement that he wants to get to the bottom of this and the "thorough" investigation that was done and found nothing. Unfortunately, for many, that will probably be enough.
That's one reason why its so important to stay on top of this investigation and to keep the pressure on. The fact that we're starting to see papers, like the Atlanta Journal Constitution, denouncing Bush's laissez-fair approach to the investigation is good. We need to see it from more, though - and that means we need to be writing letters to the editor to help convince them that this is a significant issue that they should take a stand on.
It's also why we need to write to our Representatives and Senators and let them know that an independent investigation is necessary - something that isn't being run by someone with close ties to Bush, and a personal stake in seeing him re-elected (such as John Ashcroft who's personal interest would be in getting to keep his job - which he would lose if Bush is defeated).
This isn't some kind of blunder than can be set aside and easily forgotten. This is a serious, criminal matter and deserves to be treated as such.
I just received this from MoveOn.org, and I would like to encourage everyone to participate if they want to make it clear to the President that we want to see some real effort toward finding out who leaked Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative:
Today we're giving you a chance to clear your name. We're asking you and tens of thousands of other MoveOn members to sign an affidavit affirming that you didn't leak the identity of an undercover CIA agent to the press last July.I have to admit, I find Bush's certainty that we'll find Osama and Saddam, but his uncertainty that we'll find the leaker is pretty ironic. One might even get the feeling that maybe our President doesn't want to find the leaker. I know, I know, it's shocking, but it's a truth we may have to consider here. It needs to be made clear to President Bush that we think the leaker can be found - and that he or she, in fact, must be found, as this leak is far more serious than some of the others he's gotten so worked up about previously.Here's why:
President Bush told the press on Tuesday that he doesn't "have any idea" whether the senior administration officials who blew a CIA operative's cover will ever be found. But if he just asked his staff to sign a legally binding affidavit confirming that they weren't involved, and referred anyone who wouldn't to the FBI, it's possible he could flush out the perpetrators in a day. To date, the President hasn't even discussed this matter with his staff.
We've already done the President's homework for him by writing the affidavit. Now let's show him how easy it is for innocent people to legally declare their innocence. You can sign the affidavit and send it to the President in under a minute by going to:
http://moveon.org/affidavitOn Sunday, Reuters reported that Valerie Plame, the CIA agent whose cover was blown "was probably the single highest target of any possible terrorist organization or hostile intelligence service that might want to do damage," according to a former senior CIA official. It's now clear that the leakers in the White House are willing to put national security and the lives of CIA operatives in danger for their own ends. But President Bush seems unconcerned -- he hasn't even looked into who it might be.
Here are a few quotes from the Bush Administration that give some contrast to the task of finding the leakers.
On finding Osama Bin Laden in Central Asia:
"We're going to hunt them down one at a time. . . it doesn't matter where they hide, as we work with our friends we will find them and bring them to justice."On finding Saddam Hussein in the Mideast:--President George W. Bush, 11/22/02"We are continuing the pursuit and it's a matter of time before [Saddam] is found and brought to justice."On finding the leaker in the close confines of the White House:--White House spokesman McClellan, 9/17/03
"I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official. I don't have any idea."President Bush can do better than that. He could start by simply asking his staff to sign a legally binding affidavit. Show the President how easy it is. Sign the affidavit and send it on to the President today at:--President George W. Bush, 10/7/03
http://moveon.org/affidavitIt's been three months since Valerie Plame's identity was leaked to the press. The time for President Bush to take command and find the leakers is long overdue.
Sincerely,
--Carrie, Eli, Joan, Noah, Peter, Wes, and Zack
The MoveOn Team
October 9th, 2003(Many thanks to the Center for American Progress for the research and quotes.)
Go sign the affidavit, and then pass the address (http://www.moveon.org/affidavit/) on to others - lets get as many people involved in this as possible.
Josh Marshall offers a look at why he believes both Novak and his source were well aware that Valarie Plame was undercover and that her identity as a CIA operative was classified information. He offers three main points:
In other "Go Read This" News today, CalPundit has a thorough look at the Republican Party and how it is being shaped by it's Texas branch. He breaks out some of the scarier provisions of the Texas GOP platform, including their belief that gay sex should be a criminal act and that gays should be legally forbidden to have custody of or unsupervised visits with children, abortion should be Constitutionally outlawed, the Supreme Court should be forbidden to rule on issues related to the Bill of Rights, any department involved in Welfare should be abolished, as should Social Security and the Federal Reserve, and we should do away with the separation of Church and State.
Keep in mind that the Texas GOP produced George Bush, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Tom DeLay, four of the most powerful men in this country - and four of the scariest. Apparently, there's a lot more where they came from.
Yesterday, I'd posted this based on a Michael Isikoff article in Newsweek. Today, Atrios reminds us of this quote from the Washington Post's 9/29 issue:
Another journalist yesterday confirmed receiving a call from an administration official providing the same information about Wilson's wife before the Novak column appeared on July 14 in The Post and other newspapers.So, even if Isikoff is right in his speculation that the senior administration official was confused about whether the "WaPo 6" were all called before or after Novak's July 14th column, there's separate evidence confirming that at least one other journalist did get a call before July 14th - which shows that there were other attempts to get the information put out there before Novak ran with it.
The journalist, who asked not to be identified because of possible legal ramifications, said that the information was provided as part of an effort to discredit Wilson, but that the CIA information was not treated as especially sensitive. "The official I spoke with thought this was a part of Wilson's story that wasn't known and cast doubt on his whole mission," the person said, declining to identify the official he spoke with. "They thought Wilson was having a good ride and this was part of Wilson's story."
Unfortunately, I'd totally forgotten about this when I wrote the piece yesterday, and I am sorry for any confusion.
Mark Kleiman offers a great idea one of his readers, Michael Ham, submitted for President Bush to get at the truth of who outed Valarie Plame
The President should require every official in his administration at Executive Level II or higher (that's cabinet secretaries and their immediate deputies, plus others of equivalent rank) to submit, within 48 hours, either a sworn statement that he or she had no discussion mentioning Joseph Wilson's wife with any reporter in the period before July 14, 2003 (the date of the first Novak column) and has no knowledge of anyone who did have such discussions, or a sworn statement listing any such discussions as that person did have or any knowledge that person has regarding such discussions by other persons.I like this idea - it would show that Bush actually has some integrity and that he actually meant it when he said he wants to know the truth. His continuing refusal to even simply ask the people in the White House who could be described as "senior administration officials" speaks volumes to how little he truly cares about the situation, and its a message that won't be lost on everyone.The President has, of course, no power to compel compliance with that order. He does, however, since all of the officials involved except the Director of the FBI and the Director of Central Intelligence serve at his pleasure, have the power to dismiss anyone who refuses to submit such a statement, or who submits a statement claiming the privilege against self-incrimination.
It would take intrepidity amounting to temerity for anyone to falsely certify innocence under oath, given the high probability that the truth will come out. There might be legal defenses for the original act, but not for a false statement.
UPDATE: Kleiman also has a discussion of some of the possible objections to this idea and his answers to those objections. I personally think this is a great idea and would love to see it get picked up by a group like, say, MoveOn or something of that nature, calling for Bush to make this kind of request and give members and other interested individuals the opportunity to sign on to a letter or ad promoting it, so that it can start getting out of the web-consciousness and into the general public's mind as well.
From the Tom Paine.com blog, Take On the News, a look at President Bush's latest excuse for his not knowing anything about who leaked Valerie Plame's information.
"I have no idea," President Bush said yesterday, "whether we'll find out who the leaker is, partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers." Pardon us? First of all, journalists do a good job of protecting their sources; an administration official who cold-calls a reporter and releases information amounting to a federal crime is not a confidential source -- he or she is just a vindictive person. Not only that, but we see from Bob Novak's July 12, 2001 column that he will expose sources - in that instance, Robert Hanssen - where national security is at stake. He wrote, "disclosing confidential sources is unthinkable for a reporter seeking to probe behind the scenes in official Washington, but the circumstances here are obviously extraordinary." Surely exposing an undercover CIA agent is also "extraordinary." Why won't the White House demand a similar concern for national security from Novak now?
Newsweek is running a story today suggesting that the senior administration official who told the Washington Post about two White House officials calling 6 reporters and telling them about Valerie Plame's CIA status may have been mistaken in implying that those particular calls came prior to Robert Novak's July 14th colum rather than after.
This still leaves unanswered the question of who told Novak, and while this is a theory that is, apparently gaining currency in some circles (and is, admittedly, quite plausible), it is by no means certain that such an error was made. It does, however, add another dimension to the scandal.
The article also notes that so far, the only specific denials to come from the White House have been through Scott McClellan and only that Lewis Libby, Karl Rove and Elliot Abrams have denied leaking any "classified" information to Novak. The phrasing is a bit vague, however. It could mean that they gave no information that was classified to anyone, or that they gave no information that they knew to be classified to anyone. If it's intended to mean the second of those options, then its possible one of them may have given the information to Novak, unaware that her status as a CIA agent was classified. In that case, the Intelligence Identities Act wouldn't apply, as one of the requirements for conviction under the act is that the person is knowingly transmitting classified information.
As things stand right now, the main questions to be answered are:
One thing that is clear right now is that after Novak's article was published, at the very least, Andrea Mitchell and Chris Matthews were contact, most likely by Karl Rove, to push the Wilson story and try to get word spread that Wilson's CIA wife had "gotten" him the Niger gig. Rather than being concerned that a NOC operative - the deepest kind of undercover agent that we have (these are the people who, if they get caught by a foreign government, are on their own, the government won't provide them with any assistance) - had just had her cover blown, they were more interested in using that information to smear her husband because he had the temerity to make Bush look bad. Even if nothing that happened was technically illegal, that, in and of itself, should be cause for heads to roll.
It's hard to see that happening, though, when the President, while promising to 'get to the bottom of this' and swearing he wants to know the truth, continues to refuse to ask his staff any questions himself and is having all of the documents that are to be turned over to the Justice department for their investigation, reviewed by the White House counsel to make sure they're ok to pass on.
CalPundt has a good look at Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, his qualifications for being sent to Niger, and his opposition to the war, and points us back to where the real scandal lies: With people trying to find ways to distract everyone from the fact that one of our nations top government officias has both committed a felony and compromised national security.
I know I'm giving a lot of links lately without much analysis, but there's a lot of good material out there, well worth reading, and these writers have done so well with it, I don't think I would have anything new or original to add to it, so I figure I might as well just let y'all go read it for yourselves. It doesn't mean I've changing my basic concept here or anything - I just don't see any reason to either steal their thunder or duplicate their efforts on some of these stories.
Mark Kleiman has a good piece detailing why it's unlikely that no one in the White House knew about the Plame story back in July. And excerpt:
What all that means, to me, is that the White House, though not necessarily the President personally, showed guilty knowledge of this affair nearly from its inception. So far, they've done fairly well at spreading the perception that, as soon as they learned about the problem, they acted to "get to the bottom of it." That has worked because the laxity of the mass media didn't bring this to the public's attention until eleven weeks after it started, and of course the media have little incentive now to remind us that the White House was keeping silent at the same time they were.Go read it all - he has a very thorough timeline and does a good job of showing just how much they had to have known, and when.
David Corn has a new column on the Plame scandal, looking at the White House reponse so far and how the administration has tried to use the leak for their own purposes. In one place, he notes some of what I was trying to say in an earlier entry, but does it much better and points out the extra little twist to it:
He was arguing that a serious leak attributed to anonymous sources was still not serious enough to cause the president to ask, what the hell happened? And he made it seem as if the White House just ignored the matter. Not so. Mitchell's remark and even the Rove-friendly account of the Rove-Matthews conversation are evidence the White House tried to further the Plame story--that is, to exploit the leak for political gain. Rather than respond by trying to determine the source of a leak that possibly violated federal law and perhaps undermined national security ( The Washington Post reported that the leak also blew the cover of a CIA front company, "potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure"), White House officials sought to take advantage of it. Spin that, McClellan.So, not only did the White House, upon learning of the leak, fail to begin trying to find out who had threatened national security and broken the law, they tried to get more people to write about the "Plame got her husband the job" aspect of it.
He also notes in his article that at least one NSC staffer was aware of Plame's connection to the CIA, and that Bush, contrary to the image of someone who is taking the investigation seriously and is committed to "getting to the bottom" of the situation, is amusing himself and his admirers by making jokes about it.
Bush met with reporters for African news organizations and joked about the anti-Wilson leak. When asked what he thought about the detention in Kenya of three journalists who had refused to reveal sources, he said, "I'm against leaks." This prompted laughter, and Bush went on: "I would suggest all governments get to the bottom of every leak of classified information." Addressing the reporter who had asked the question, Bush echoed the phrase that McClellan had frequently used in his press briefings and quipped, "By the way, if you know anything, Martin, would you please bring it forward and help solve the problem?"Corn also looks at the still-changing story about Iraq's WMD and differences between how the case was presented before the war and how it's being characterized now.
Perhaps Bush needed a good chuckle after reading--or being briefed on--the testimony that chief weapons hunter David Kay was presenting that day to Congress. In an interim report, Kay had noted that his Iraq Survey Group had found evidence of "WMD-related program activities," but no stocks of unconventional weapons. Kay also had an interesting observation about the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMDs: "Our understanding of the status of Iraq's WMD program was always bounded by large uncertainties and had to be heavily caveated."My favourite paragraph, though, has to be this one:Wait a minute. That was not what Bush and his compadres had said prior to the war. Flash back to Bush's get-out-of-town speech on March 17, two days before he launched the war. He maintained, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal" weapons of mass destruction. Yet Kay was saying there had been "large uncertainties" in the intelligence. How does that square with Bush's no-doubt claim? It doesn't.
Kay's testimony is more proof that Bush misrepresented the intelligence. Regular readers of this column will know that Kay's remark were preceded by similar statements from the House intelligence committee and former deputy CIA director, Richard Kerr, who has been reviewing the prewar intelligence. Both the committee (led by Representative Porter Goss, a Republican and former CIA officer) and Kerr have concluded the intelligence of Iraq's WMDs was based on circumstantial and inferential material and contained many uncertainties.
Prior to the invasion, administration officials consistently declared there was no question Iraq had these weapons. On December 5, 2002, for instance, Ari Fleischer, then the White House press secretary, said, "the president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it." But what had been that "solid_basis"? Intelligence "bounded by large uncertainties"?
Kay also reported, "Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production, although we continue to receive and follow leads related to such stocks." But before the war, the Bush administration had said flat-out that Iraq possessed chemical weapons. Did it neglect to pass along to Kay the information upon which it based this claim? (Actually, the Defense Intelligence Agency in September 2002 concluded there was no "reliable information" on whether Iraq had produced or stockpiled chemical weapons, but that did not stop Bush and his aides from stating otherwise.)Indeed
The Washington Post has an interesting article today on the ethics of revealing sources. In on part, it discusses one aspect of the Plame scandal - that reporters are now trying to determine if once the info about Plame was out there, were officials trying to get the story (of Plame's identity, not of the leak) noticed.
The murkiness of the subject emerged at a White House briefing last week. Reporters wanted to know whether administration officials had not only leaked the identity of Wilson's wife but also called attention to Novak's July 14 column in subsequent conversations with reporters. Press secretary Scott McClellan accused them of "moving the goal posts," saying: "The subject of this investigation is whether someone leaked classified information."And he's right, in a sense. The current investigation really is about whether someone leaked classified information or not. (Perhaps he could also remind those in the administration who keep trying to turn this into a question of Joseph Wilson's character that the investigation is about who leaked, not who Wilson supported for president.) But the question of whether, once the information was out there, the administration tried to get the story spread further is also an important one, as it helps to show that there was certainly interest within the White House to make this information known.
As noted earlier, though, it looks like we have at least part of the answer to that question. According to Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, Karl Rove brought the suject up while talking to Chris Matthews and let it be known that it was "reasonable" to discuss "who sent Wilson to Niger" - implying that talking about Plame was ok because it could cast doubt on why Wilson was chosen, thus making his conclusions and his opinion more suspect - which was, apparently, the goal all along.
So, while McClellan is right in that the true story is who leaked the information, the reporters are also right to be "moving the goal posts" a bit - it looks like this story may require a bigger playing field before it's all over.
A new article by Michael Isikoff of Newswee says that both Andrea Mitchell and Chris Matthews were among the reporters who called Joseph Wilson after the initial leak of his wife's connection to the CIA was published, letting him know that they, too, had spoken to Karl Rove and that his wife had come up as part of the conversation.
Whoever initially leaked Plame’s name, the White House clearly had a hand in fanning the flames. Wilson told NEWSWEEK that in the days after the Novak story appeared, he got calls from several well-connected Washington reporters. One was NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell. She told NEWSWEEK that she said to Wilson: “I heard in the White House that people were touting the Novak column and that that was the real story.” The next day Wilson got a call from Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show “Hardball.” According to a source close to Wilson, Matthews said, “I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game.” (Matthews told NEWSWEEK: “I’m not going to talk about off-the-record conversations.”)This will, of course, add more grist to the mill, and shows that, at the very least, once the initial leak had been made, Karl Rove had no problem with trying to spread the information - and the allegations being made by releasing it (that Wilson got the Niger trip mission because of his wife's connections inside the CIA.)The White House spokesman dismissed as “ridiculous” the charge that Rove outed Plame. A source familiar with Rove’s conversation acknowledged that Rove spoke to Matthews a few days after Novak’s column appeared, but said that Rove never told Matthews that Wilson’s wife was “fair game”—rather, that it “was reasonable to discuss who sent Wilson to Niger.”
Note that the "source familiar with Rove's conversation" isn't denying that he contacted Matthews or that Plame was a topic of conversation. He or she is only saying that Rove did not specifically say that Plame was "fair game", though it's not hard to see how someone might get that impression from Rove's comment that it's "reasonable to discuss who sent Wilson to Niger" since the allegation is that it was Plame.
There's more to come - it's mainly just a matter of when at this point, though there's still no guarantee we'll get the top names. Still, there is some hope, right?
[Updated 3:06 am to correct a minor error in a name I'd mistyped]
Brian Flemming offers us a hard-hitting, day-by-day analysis of everything George Bush has done to bring the person who leaked Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIA agent to justice.
If for any reason the above leak doesn't work, Billmon is mirroring the post at the Whisky Bar.
One of the risks involved in outing a US undercover operative is that in revealing their status as a spy, it's likely that other things will become known as well. According to a report in the Washington Post, the blowing of Valerie Plame's cover and subsequent attempts by conservatives (in this case, Robert Novak - again) to make the Wilson's look to be of dubious credibility has exposed a company used by the CIA as a front.
The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."The CIA has said that it was not immediately known if other agents also used Brewster, Jennings and Associates as part of their cover. If any did, however, it is now likely that their cover will be blown as well. Foreign governments can look through whatever information they have on contacts made by people in sensitive positions to find out if they ever met with or had dealings with someone from Brewster, Jennings & Associates - and if they did, they can conclude that the person was dealing with a spy. How likely is it that other could be outed this way? I honestly have no idea, but it's both possible and plausible, and it's inexcusable."There is no such firm, I'm convinced," he continued. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery."
In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates.The phone number in the listing is not in service, and the property manager at the address listed said there is no such company at the property, although records from 2000 were not available.
The revelation came about because Novak was trying to point out that Wilson and Plame are Democrats, and show that they had donated money to Al Gore in 1999/2000 for the Presidential campaign. Apparently, Wilson had given Gore's campaign $2000, which was over the limit, so they returned $1000 of it, and Plame went ahead and made a $1000 donation in her own name. This isn't anything terribly sinister in that. Of course, he neglects to mention that they also gave $1000 to George Bush's campaign, but since that might mitigate the hoped-for damage of "he's a Democrat" that would be considered irrelevant by Novak and his ilk.
What they fail to understand, however, is that what's irrelevant here is Wilson. If the evidence in this story rested solely on his claim that Plame's cover had been blown, then Wilson and his character would be relevant to the discussion at hand. At this point, however, it's gone well beyond whatever Wilson might be claiming. The CIA has confirmed that they have enough reason to believe that a law has been broken that they turned it over to the Justice Department, and Justice decided there was enough meat on the bones of this story to warrant a full criminal investigation. They're not acting only on Wilson's word, so his credibility no longer matter. So what if he's a partisan Democrat who's out to get Bush? (Not saying that he is, mind you, but I'll go with the concept at the moment for the sake of argument) So what? It doesn't matter. Wilson isn't the story any more, and neither is Plame, for that matter. The story is the White House and whether they deliberately burned an agent - regardless of their motive, be it revenge, as a warning to others not to get too uppity about leaking information or just for the hell of it.
The article points out that the election document filed by Plame citing Brewster, Jennings and Associates as her employer is evidence that she was still working undercover within the last 5 years, which means at least one of the criteria used to determine if the Intelligence Identities Protection Act applies in this case.
It'll probably be a while before it's know how much, if any, additional fallout there is from the uncovering of the Brewster, Jennings & Associates front agency, but it stands as a warning of the potential dangers that exist when an agents identity is made known.
An article in the New York Times looks at how the White House is planning to defend itself dring the Plame scandal.
The White House encouraged Republicans to portray the former diplomat at the center of the case, Joseph C. Wilson IV, as a partisan Democrat with an agenda and the Democratic Party as scandalmongering. At the same time, the administration and the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill worked to ensure that no Republicans in Congress break ranks and call for an independent inquiry outside the direct control of the Justice Department.It's imperative that those of us who want to see a full and honest investigation into this mess do what we can to prevent the White House from changing the topic. "Slime and Defend" depends on their ability to make Joseph Wilson the focus of this investigation when, in reality, who he is, what he believes, who he supports and what is does are all completely irrelevant to the matter at hand."It's slime and defend," said one Republican aide on Capitol Hill, describing the White House's effort to raise questions about Mr. Wilson's motivations and its simultaneous effort to shore up support in the Republican ranks.
"So far so good," the aide said. "There's nervousness on the part of the party leadership, but no defections in the sense of calling for an independent counsel."
Some are saying that if the CIA hadn't decided to send a partisan hack to Niger, we'd never have gotten to this point. Well, duh, if things were different they wouldn't be the same. However you want to characterize Wilson, if he hadn't been sent to Niger, they're right, we wouldn't be talking about his wife at all.
That is, however, entirely beside the point. The issue isn't who the CIA sent or why that person was chosen. Its how the White House and others in the Administration chose to react to that decision that matters.
If they wanted to discredit Wilson or his findings, they could have released as much information as they wanted to about his alleged partisanship. They could have brought up every flaw they think the man possesses. They could have provided evidence to show that his conclusions were wrong (if, in fact, any such evidence existed, which I, at least, doubt). There were a thousand different things they could have done to make his character or his opinions look weak. What they chose to do, however, was to blow his wife's cover. That's not Wilson's fault, no matter how you slice it.
The whole idea that Wilson, by going on the trip to Niger and then making his own views on the matter known, or the CIA, by choosing to send Wilson on the Nigerien mission, are somehow responsible for the way the White House responded is no different than when a criminal tries to blame his victim for "causing" him to commit a crime. In fact, if the allegations being investigated are true, it is a criminal trying to blame its victim for "causing" it to commit it's crime.
We abhor the defense when it's used in court. We should abhor it no less when it's used by the White House and Bush Administration.
One issue in the Plame scandal that the press has been asking about is why, if Bush is so eager to "get to the bottom of this", it took him 2 1/2 months to start looking. Yesterday, the press corps peppered White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan with questions regarding when President Bush learned that a CIA operative's status as an undercover agent had been blown, allegedly by "two senior administration officials" (as cited by Robert Novak". McClellan said he'd look into it and post an answer later.
Well, today, he got asked again, and his response was a bit dodgy
McClellan said he could not say when Bush first learned of the leak. "I looked into it, and I just don't know," he said.Seems to me that, since Bush has acknowledged that leaking classified information is a serious matter, and since he's said he wants to find out who - if anyone - did this, it wouldn't be that difficult for him to remember when he first learned about the incident. Even if he doesn't know the exact day he heard about it, I'd think he'd be able to recall whether it was, say, last week when the story really broke wide, or two months ago, when Novak's original column was published.
Yet if McClellan is to be believed, the President can't seem to remember that - unless, of course, McClellan didn't ask the President when he learned of the leak. But that doesn't really make any sense either - I mean, if you were the President's press secretary, and you needed to report back to the press on when the President learned that a CIA agent - one working on the crucial issue of Weapons of Mass Destruction proliferation - had been burned, and suspicion was centering on someone within the White House, wouldn't you as the President? I mean "Mr. President, when did you first learn that someone had leaked Valerie Plame's status as a covert operative for the CIA?" would be one of the first questions I'd want to ask.
Unless I simply didn't want to know when the President found out about it because giving a firm answer - regardless of what that answer might be - would be embarrassing to the President. Think about it. If the President knew about it back in July, why didn't he pursue the identity of the leaker back then? And if he didn't learn about it until more recently, why didn't he know?
So for McClellan to say that he "just doesn't know" is more than a bit disingenuous. The more accurate answer would be that he just doesn't want to know - and the honest answer would be that he just doesn't want the American people to know.
A few days ago, I pointed out that one potential conflict of interest for John Ashcroft in running the investigation into the Plame scandal is the fact that Karl Rove has worked on Ashcrofts campaigns since 1985. Now it turns out that a Republican senator is speaking out about the same concern.
Asked whether White House political aide Karl Rove's history as a political advisor to Ashcroft during his gubernatorial and Senate campaigns were grounds for the attorney general to step away from the case, Sen. Arlen Specter said, "Recusal is something Ashcroft ought to consider."Senator Charles Shumer, a New York Democrat offers an additional reason for Ashcroft to consider recusing himself from the case.
Schumer's press secretary said Justice Department rules hold that a federal prosecutor cannot issue subpoenas of news media phone records without the express written consent of the attorney general. Since media phone records may end up being subpoenaed, Schumer believes Ashcroft should step aside.With even Republicans starting to be willing to speak up and say that Ashcroft should consider handing the investigation over to someone else, he probably should start paying attention to the idea. It may be that Ashcroft could run the investigation fairly, but, like many others, I don't trust him to. The fact that there is sufficient concern from so many - in and out of the government - to question his suitability should send a message to Ashcroft that his very presence could cause a taint - fairly or not - on the investigation, particularly if the investigation doesn't find anything.
While it's certainly possible that the investigation may not be able to break the wall of anonymity, if Ashcroft - and especially Bush - ever want the investigation to be able to offer the last word on the matter, Ashcroft at the very least needs to back out of it now. Otherwise, there will always be those who will ask if he blocked the investigation in some way or manipulated the situation to help protect Bush or whomever close to him could be caught up in the scandal.
Howard Fineman has a piece posted at MSNBC offering his take on what is really at the root of the Valerie Plame scandal, and why the issues involved are more than just whether or not a law was broken. He offers a good history of both Wilson's involvement in the first Iraq war, explaining why some in the White House probably weren't happy with the CIA choosing to sent him to Niger in the first place, as well as a history of the relationship between the Bushes and George Tenet. He also provides this bit of insight into the scandal:
Bush presumably trusted Tenet and the CIA to get the goods on Saddam and his WMD. Cheney's staff evidently did too. But why did Tenet send Wilson to Africa? Maybe he just thought he was sending the most qualified guy. But the neo-cons and their allies came to see it as a conspiracy to ignore the truth - especially after Wilson, last July, went public with the essence of his findings, which was that the yellowcake rumors were false.It's a bit of an interesting theory as to why the Plame leak was engineered - I'm not sure what I think of it, but I can certainly see it as plausible. I'm still more of the mind that it was done as a means of intimidating anyone in the CIA who might think of leaking information that might be embarrassing to the President - a kind of "we burned her and we'll burn you too", but I can see that pointing out that Wilson has a reason to side with the CIA could also be a factor.
The moment that piece hit the op-ed page of the New York Times, it was all-out war between the pro- and anti-war factions, and between the CIA and its critics. I am told by what I regard as a very reliable source inside the White House that aides there did, in fact, try to peddle the identity of Joe Wilson's wife to several reporters. But the motive wasn't revenge or intimidation so much as a desire to explain why, in their view, Wilson wasn't a neutral investigator, but, a member of the CIA's leave-Saddam-in-place team. [Emphasis mine, except for the underscore on "did", which Fineman emphasised in his piece]
Of course, the most interesting aspect of the article is Fineman's assertion that he, too, has been told that the White House did want to burn Plame. It'll certainly be interesting when some of the names of who did the leaking - and maybe also who's giving information to the press confirming parts of the story - come out.
Yesterday I posted a quote from The Note inferring that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, may be starting to look like a suspect in the leaking of Plame's CIA status. Kevin at CalPundit posts an email he received today, which indicates former CIA agent Larry Johnson seems to be hinting at Lebby as well, along with a quote from a 2001 Newsweek issue pointing out that Libby isn't a total stranger to scandal.
Like other theories about who may have leaked the information, it's still speculative at this point, but it's worth keeping an eye on.
This time around, the question so far isn't "What did the President know and when did he know it, but "When did the President know it, and what did he do about it?"
QUESTION: When did he become aware that --Josh Marshall frequently posts the transcripts - or exceprts from the transcripts - of the morning press gaggles in DC. Scott McClellan has been having some difficulty the last couple of days with lots and lots of questions about the Plame scandal. Fortuantely, it seems that some reporters are still on the ball and are willing to ask some of the more difficult questions. There's other good stuff in this transcript, take a minute to check it out.MR. McCLELLAN: That there was an allegation that someone leaked classified information? When was that first --
QUESTION: No, no, that an undercover official of the United States government had been outed. When did the President of the United States know that? When was he informed of that? And what was his reaction? Where's the outrage, I think, was the question that was asked.
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, the outrage has always been made known. If someone leaks classified information -- are you -- when did --
QUESTION: When did the President know it, and what did he do about it?
MR. McCLELLAN: When did someone make the allegation that this -- that someone had leaked classified information?
QUESTION: On July 14th or 15th, it was clear that --
MR. McCLELLAN: I'll look back at the timing and post the information --
I find it somewhat disheartening that reporters seem to think its necessary to mention that investigations of leaks usually don't seem to lead anywhere. While this may be a valid point, repeating it can help set the public expectations to expect a failure, making it easier for journalists not to probe the case - or their own involvement in it - with more vigor.
While I'm sure it's awkward for reporters to be working on a story that involves other reporters and brings to a head questions about source confidentiality, I don't think that they should back down from something that has the kind of potentially serious implications that the Plame scandal does. If they accept the canard that leak investigations lead to nothing, they can create and atmosphere that might make it easier for the FBI to tank their probe.
Obviously, though, the CIA was able to come up with enough information that Ashcroft knew he couldn't just bury it, which is why the FBI has it now. It may well be possible to get information on who made the leaks without forcing journalists to reveal their sources, and that would perhaps be the best approach for reporters to take.
Kevin at Calpundit has a section from Larry Johnson's interview with PBS's Terence Smith where Johnson, a former CIA analyst and official at the State Department, confirms that Plame was a covert agent for the CIA. His comments are excellent and I recomment reading them. There is, however, one potential problem with his comments that I'm sure the right will be jumping all over.
TERENCE SMITH: Larry Johnson, explain what the dangers are that are inherent in identifying an undercover operator. What is the worry here?Twice he mentions that Plame has been with the CIA for "three decades". According to this article at the Washington Post, however, Plame is 40 years old. This makes her having been with the CIA for 'three decades' sound impossible, and will, I'm sure, lead to many conservatives branding Johnson as either a liar or someone who's trying to exaggerate the situation for political gain (even though Johnson makes it clear that he is a Republican).LARRY JOHNSON: Let's be very clear about what happened. This is not an alleged abuse. This is a confirmed abuse. I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades, she is not as Bob Novak suggested a CIA analyst. But given that, I was a CIA analyst for four years. I was undercover. I could not divulge to my family outside of my wife that I worked for the Central Intelligence Agency until I left the agency on September 30, 1989. At that point I could admit it.
So the fact that she's been undercover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous because she was put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she meets with overseas could be compromised. When you start tracing back who she met with, even people who innocently met with her, who are not involved in CIA operations, could be compromised. For these journalists to argue that this is no big deal and if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that well, this was just an analyst fine, let them go undercover. Let's put them overseas and let's out them and then see how they like it. They won't be able to stand the heat."
What I suspect has happened, though, is that Johnson, when he said 'three decades' didn't necessarily mean 'thirty years'. Rather I think he meant that she had served in three distinct decades - the 80's, 90's and now 2000's. During the interview, he says that he and Plame were in the same training class, and he also says he left the service in 1989 after serving 4 years - meaning he started in 1985. Put it all together, and you get that Plame also started in 1985, which jibes with what I think he may have meant.
I've heard the 'decades' term used this way before - most commonly in reference to the musical group "The BeeGees" who are the only act to have had at least one hit record in each of 5 decades. Their first album came out in the late 60's, and they've had songs chart in the 70's, 80's, 90's and 2000's as well.
Still, it's not the most common useage of "decade", which is frequently taken to simply mean "ten years" as opposed to a specific 10-year-period, and I think that Johnson probably would have been better to use the clearer "for alomst 20 years" rather than "for three decades".
One of the arguments some on the right have been making to try and defuse the Plame scandal is that if it was so important to keep her identity secred, then why did Joseph Wilson include her maiden name in a bio of his that is available online? Mark Kleiman explains
why this is just one more specious argument among man. My favourite part is this:
Now energy consultant Valerie Plame marries Ambassador Joseph Wilson. That probably rates an entry on the New York Times social page. It certainly rates a line in his Who's Who entry and his c.v., and it would be very odd indeed -- undesirably attention-catching -- to exclude the bride's maiden name from the newspaper announcement, the Who's Who, or the bio. "Mr. Wilson is married to a woman named Valerie, whose maiden name is available only on a need-to-know basis." And of course the people who knew Valerie Plame before her marriage had to know that she was now Ms. Wilson, and would be very puzzled to see a reference to Amb. Wilson's marriage to "the former Valerie Chojnowski." There simply wouldn't have been any alternative to the truth.Kleiman has a lot more, though, so be sure to read it all.
ABC's "The Note" suggests reading this section of today's Washington Post article on the Plame scandal "very s-l-o-w-l-y"
Another journalist yesterday confirmed receiving a call from an administration official providing the same information about Wilson's wife before the Novak column appeared on July 14 in The Post and other newspapers.The Note's analysis:The journalist, who asked not to be identified because of possible legal ramifications, said that the information was provided as part of an effort to discredit Wilson, but that the CIA information was not treated as especially sensitive. "The official I spoke with thought this was a part of Wilson's story that wasn't known and cast doubt on his whole mission," the person said, declining to identify the official he spoke with. "They thought Wilson was having a good ride and this was part of Wilson's story."
In addition to Novak's column, an administration official told The Washington Post on Saturday that two White House officials leaked the information to several journalists in an effort to discredit Wilson.
An article that appeared on the Time magazine Web site the same week Novak's column was published said that "some government officials have noted to Time in interviews . . . that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." The same article quoted from an interview with I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, saying that Cheney did not know about Wilson's mission "until this year when it became public in the last month or so."
One obvious implication of this is that the oft-press shy Libby was taking journalists' calls during the period when [Wilson's wife]'s name was named, but, of course, that doesn't mean that Libby had anything to do with it.I'm not entirely sure what to make of it, but I thought it was interesting enough to at least make note of. There may be nothing to it - right now, any discussion of who may or may not be the leakers is entirely speculative - but it's interesting to see where some of the speculation is heading.Of course, the Post printing that pretty much non-sequitarial paragraph COULD suggest two things:
A. The Post has its suspicions … .
B. Maybe Mr. Libby should have played nicer with the intel boys during the run-up to the Iraq war … .
The Note also quotes the question from at least one Democrat earlier today, regarding the fact that the DOJ notified Alberto Gonzales at 8:30pm last night but told him he didn't need to notify the White House or tell them to preserve documents and other evidence until this morning:
"There's absolutely no basis for that kind of heads-up. (Imagine if that was the Clinton White House.) Unprecedented, completely out of line and over the top. DOJ should not have given any direction to the target of an investigation about when they should preserve documents."And they also remind us - in a quote from The Wall Street Journal (no link provided) of John Ascroft's recent comments about the leaking of classified information:
"The problem may be especially acute for Mr. Ashcroft, who earlier this year created a task force to review sanctions governing leaks of classified information. 'Leaks of classified information do substantial damage to the security interests of the nation,' he said at the time. 'As a government, we must try to find more effective measures to deal with this damaging practice, including measures to prevent it.'"
Here is the text of the notice that White House counsel Alberto Gonzales sent to all White House employees this morning:
PLEASE READ: Important Message From Counsel's OfficeWe were informed last evening by the Department of Justice that it has opened an investigation into possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee. The Department advised us that it will be sending a letter today instructing us to preserve all materials that might be relevant to its investigation. Its letter will provide more specific instructions on the materials in which it is interested, and we will communicate those instructions directly to you. In the meantime, you must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the Department's investigation. Any questions concerning this request should be directed to Associate Counsels Ted Ullyot or Raul Yanes in the Counsel to the president's office. The president has directed full cooperation with this investigation.
Alberto R. Gonzales
Counsel to the president
Glenn Reynolds has a rather bizarre comment on the Plame scandal:
THE REAL WILSON SCANDAL: Forget Valerie Plame, the big scandal is why anyone in the Bush Administration would ever have tasked a guy with Wilson's views with an important mission.Whatever views may be held by Wilson, there's no excuse for what the White House did. Perhaps Wilson wasn't the best choice to send on this mission. For the sake of this discussion, I'll even grant Glenn that point. It still doesn't excuse anyone for blowing his wife's cover.
If there was an issue with Wilson's view or his suitability for having been sent on the mission, that's the argument that should have been made. Have the critics point out what they find objectionable in what he's said. Point out every reason why he was unqualified to go to Niger. Show why his conclusions are wrong. Those are all perfectly fair and justifiable ways of countering his criticism of the Bush White House.
But releasing classified information about his wife, putting her, her missions and her contacts in danger, and committing a felony in the process? No, that is not something that should be forgotten. Regardless of what Bush's supporters may want you to think, that is the real scandal, and to try and dismiss it on the logic that Wilson shouldn't have been sent in the first place is reprehensible. It's also childish. "He shouldn't have gone, so it doesn't matter what we did. Nanner-nanner-boo-boo" Sorry Glenn, it doesn't work that way.
True, we wouldn't have this scandal today if Wilson hadn't been asked to go - but that's only because he wouldn't have been in the public eye and wouldn't have been in the position to say anything that would incur the wrath of the White House. But he was sent, he did speak out, and someone - apparently someone in the White House - decided that the best way to try and discredit him as well as scare others into keeping quiet was to take a very serious shot as his wife, and there's nothing about Wilson or his trip that can justify that kind of reaction.
The Justice Department has decided to instigate a full-blown investigation into the Plame scandal.
White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales told the staff: "You must preserve all materials that might in any way be related to the department's investigation." Presumably that would include telephone logs, e-mails, notes and other documents.Interestingly, while the White House counsel was notified last night of the investigation, the Justice Department told them that the "White House could wait until the next morning to notify staff and direct them to preserve relevant material, McClellan said." In addition, McClellan said that the President has instructed his staff to "cooperate fully with this investigation" and that he "wants to get to the bottom of this."
McClellan also says that the "The White House said that leaking classified information was a serious matter that should be "pursued to the fullest extent" by the Justice Department." This is good to hear, but if it's true, then why has it taken this long for them to show any interest in the case at all? It's been known that there have been suspicions that the leak came from the White House since the story broke in mid-July, and as reports since the CIA's request for an investigation became known on Friday have made clear, Bush has shown no interest at all in even asking his staff if they were involved in any way. Pledges of cooperation and concern at this point appear to be based on political expidiency rather than any genuine belief that this is actually a serious matter (which it is).
The article also notes that Wilson is backing off his accusation that Karl Rove was the leaker.
Wilson backtracked Monday, saying he had not meant to imply that Rove "was the source or the authorizer, just that I thought that it came from the White House, and Karl Rove was the personification of the White House political operation."Some conservatives seem to be trying to spin Wilson's semi-retraction as evidence that this is somehow not a real issue. At this point, however, the story doesn't rest on Wilson's personal credibility. In fact, Wilson's credibility doesn't have much to do with it at all. There is little doubt that Plame was a covert operative, nor that her cover was blown by Robert Novak's article. The CIA has done an internal investigation and have determine that, in their opinion, there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed. Wilson's need to take back of some of what he's said may not make Wilson look very good, but it doesn't change the basic facts of the case.But Wilson also said in a telephone interview that "I have people who I have confidence in, who have indicated to me that he (Rove), at a minimum, condoned it and certainly did nothing to put a stop to it for a week after it was out there."
Kevin at CalPundit has a good look at the various defenses being offered by Bush's supporters and why most of them don't work well as defenses.
One more bit on Robert Novak's comment on crossfire yesterday. This is from Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo
Another big problem with Novak's comments on Crossfire today. Today he said ...Here's my thoughts on it: I may be missing something, but I'm not sure his two statements are inconsistent. Initially he said that the information was "given" to him by a source. Now he's saying that he was told this by someone he was interviewing. It's possible that he was given the information during the interview. Essentially, I think that he may have had an interview set up with whomever was trying to get this information out (most likely about some other subject), and during the course of that interview, his source brought up the Plame information and presented him with the idea that Wilson's credibility was allegedly shaky because of the "nepotism" angle. He then contacted a different senior administration official to confirm the story and called the CIA.
Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.
But then there's this passage in a July 22nd article in Newsday ...
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
I'd say the story's changed.
The only thing that might contradict that kind of a scenario is his comment that a source "brought" the story to him - but even that could be an accurate way of describing some information brought up voluntarily by the person he was interviewing, especially if the interview was basically covering an unrelated (or only semi-related) topic.
Remember, though, I'm just speculating, and its possible that Josh, having experience as an actual reporter, may be aware of something in Novak's statement that has a specific meaning I don't know anyhting about. But I think its possible, at least, that the statement's do make sense together.
The ABC Note that I quoted in the entry right below this one made the semi-cryptic comment that "students of recusal politics will have to consider the Rove-Ashcroft history". Curious, I went to the Time article the item links to, and found this:
Bush knew Ashcroft mostly by reputation when the Missourian flew to Austin on Dec. 20, but had long considered him the kind of guy he wanted for AG. Bush's father knew Ashcroft well, and Rove had done campaign work for him since 1985 and assured Bush that Ashcroft was solid. In the meeting, Bush made it clear that he expected his Cabinet members to be team players, not independent operators.I don't know what the legal rules are on recusal, but since Rove is at the center of the speculation, and since Rove has worked on Ashcroft's campaigns for almost 20 years, I'd say there even if it doesn't fit the legal definition of a conflict of interest, it certainly fits the concept of a "perception of a conflict of interest", and are they supposed to avoid that, too?
This may be just a bit more ammo for the effort to get Ashcroft to turn this over to an independent investigator.
Some interesting stuff from ABCNEWS.com's "The Note" about the Plame Scandal, including a look at what journalists are thinking.
It might not be fair and it might not be right, but 480 members out of the Gang of 500 have the same theory about what happened, and The Note's strong belief in the First Amendment makes us duty bound to tell you about this operating premise.Other tidbits of note:Based on the original Novak story; on the language in yesterday's Washington Post story; on the "kind" of people Novak talks to; on the prophetic warnings of Wayne Slater; and on the fact that CIA agents have memories and the capacity to hold grudges nearly as long as the Bush family — based on all that, here's what people are thinking:
Two White House officials lashed out at Wilson, hoping to smear him in the minds of enough elite reporters to discredit him before his platform grew. They didn't want his wife's name out there in the public domain, so much as they wanted it in the brains of gatekeeping reporters.
Again, it might not be right or fair, but we dare you to find a member of the Gang who doesn't think the Post 's source was someone familiar with George Tenet's thinking.
[...] Since several of you have asked: the THEORETICAL reason the White House would have had to try to nip Wilson stories in the bud by putting out the fact that his wife is a CIA operative would be to try to discredit Wilson by saying he only got the assignment because of his wife, and that he would have been too captive to the CIA mindset on (read: against) the war.
A reminder that students of recusal politics will have to consider the Rove-Ashcroft history: LINKBe sure to check out the Note daily for some good "insider"-type information on political journalism, and the politics of journalism.All of today's stories, eating the dust of the Post 's Sunday story:
- New York Times : Carl Hulse and David Sanger LINK
- Washington Post 's Mike Allen, taking a second-day victory lap with a phony lead. LINK
- Howie Kurtz on the media angle. LINK
- The Wall Street Journal 's Cloud, Hamburger and Fields have a very balanced story. [No link provided]
- The Los Angeles Times' Richard Schmitt doesn't advance the story any, but he brings his Los Angeles Times readers up to date. LINK
- USA Today : Barbara Slavin LINK
- Boston Globe : Mary Leonard and Bryan Bender LINK
- Dictionary.com: frog march. LINK
Can we PLEASE find something to call the Valerie Plame scandal OTHER than "Plamegate", "Wilsongate", "Leakgate" or anything else-gate? We've got to be more creative than that!
My suggestion?
The Plame scandal. Simple, short, to the point, and all gates are closed. :)
I found a quote from Robert Novak at Jane Galt's "Asymmetrical Information". The contention there is that Novak's comment sufficiently contradicts what we have been told about the Plame situation thus far, and someone must be lying. I'm not so sure its that clear cut. Here's what Novak had to say, apparently on Crossfire:
'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives'...First, lets address the obvious issue. Here he says that Plame (Mrs. Wilson) was an analyst, but in his original story, he said that she was an operative. One statement or the other is incorrect, and so far, the information I've seen indicates that she was a covert operative, who's cover was that she was an energy analyst. It is possible that when he called the CIA in July to get information on Plame that they, in following with her cover, said she was an analyst - I don't know - but it is possible. I've never tried to call the CIA to find out the status of someone who might be working for them, so I don't know what they say or how they would handle that, but I can't imagine that if someone - even Robert Novak - called them up and said "I was told so-and-so is a covert agent, is that true" that they're going to say "yes, she is." They did, however, ask him not to use the name, so that might be indicative of something - but at the moment, the analyst/operative issue is the only one I see as being a real conflict between what Novak has to say and what else has been reported.
As for the rest of his statement, I've seen posts around the blogosphere indicating that since Novak says he wasn't called with the story that "someone" must be lying. I don't think so. Novak says only that he wasn't called. He doesn't say no one was called, nor does anything in his statement rule out the idea that the senior administration officials in question could have or did call other reporters.
The Washington Post report says that the two senior administration officials called "at least six" reporters and gave them Plame's name. It doesn't say whether or not this includes Novak, so its possible that there are six others with the information in addition to Novak. In addition, Novak doesn't deny that he got the information from two senior administration officials. He said that in his initial report and he says again here thats who he got it from. He also notes that the information was given to him by one of the officials during an interview and he confirmed it by calling the 2nd. Again, nothing in that contradicts the Washington Post report.
It's very simply, really. The senior administration officials could have been calling other reporters seeing if anyone else would pick up the story. One of them had an interview with Novak and gave him the information during that interview, and Novak called the other to confirm it. It's likely there was no need for the senior administration officials to call Novak because they were able to given him the info through the interview and confirmation process.
So, unless I'm missing something major, I'd say Novak's statement doesn't cause any problems in regards to what the Washington Post reported.
People For the American Way have a petition they're asking people to sign demanding an independent investigation into the Plame situation. The text of the petition reads as follows:
We the undersigned demand that Attorney General John Ashcroft name an independent investigator to determine and prosecute the Bush administration sources of illegal national security disclosures last July revealing the identity of an undercover CIA agent.If you agree that John Ashcroft is not the best person to decide if this investigation should go further or not, please click on the link and sign the petition.
The Washington Post tonight is running a story that offers some good background on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the law most frequently cited as having been broken by whomever leaked the name and CIA status of Valerie Plame.
The law was passed as a reaction to Phil Agee, a former CIA agent who had written a book and wrote a column for the "Covert Action Information Bulletin", both of which revealed the identity of undercover operatives. The article notes that if the law has been used at all since it was passed, it's been used very rarely. Most think it hasn't been used at all.
The law enacted to stop Agee and others imposes maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $50,000 in fines for the unauthorized disclosure of covert agents' identities by government employees who have access to classified information.This, of course, opens up a possible line of defense if whomever named Plame is ever identified. If they can raise reasonable doubt (or if the prosecution can't prove) that they meet all three criteria, then there may not be a prosecutable crime under this law.The statute includes three other elements necessary to obtain a conviction: that the disclosure was intentional, the accused knew the person being identified was a covert agent and the accused also knew that "the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."
The law says no person other than the one accused of leaking the information can be prosecuted, a provision that would protect journalists who report leaked classified information identifying a covert agent. But there is one exception to that protection.
The measure says people who engage in a "pattern of activities" intended to identify covert agents and who have "reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States" can be prosecuted. Smith said that language was aimed at the publishers of the Covert Action Information Bulletin and others who made it a practice to identify undercover CIA agents.
However, as noted yesterday, Ashcroft has been successful in at least one case using Title 18, Part I, Chapter 31, Section 641 of the US Code, which makes it a crime to
...embezzle[s], steal[s], purloin[s], or knowingly convert[s] to his use or the use of another, or without authority, sell[s], convey[s] or dispose[s] of any record, voucher, money, or thing of value of the United States or of any department or agency thereof...to prosecute someone who leaked non classified information to the British press, claiming that the information passed on was the "thing of value". Richard Nixon also tried using this statutes along with the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute Daniel Ellsburg for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times, but that case was dismissed. Ronald Reagan's justice department also used those same statutes to prosecute Samuel Morison for sending classified photos of a Soviet sub to Jane's Defence weekly.
Now, I'm not a lawyer, but even if a case can't be made under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, it may be possible using the general theft statute (I would imagine that the identity of a covert agent would be considered a "think of value" to the CIA, which is an agency of the United States), plus one or more other laws creatively, such as Ashcroft has already done, to find a statute under which the leaker could be prosecuted.
Whether the leaker is in the White House or is some low-level flunky who just grabbed onto some interesting information, whomever did this needs to be identified and prosecuted. And sure, I'd love to see this damage the Bush administration - but even if it turns out that somehow this was a setup job done by someone just trying to make the Bushies look bad, the truth needs to come out and the guilty party needs to be punished. It really that simple.
Josh at Talking Points Memo has the transcript of this mornings press gaggle where the press was trying to get a straight answer from Scott McClellan in regards to several question son the Plame situation. This is just one portion of it, but it shows just how hard it can be to get even a simple yes or no kind of question answered. (The comment about clairvoyance is priceless, BTW):
QUESTION: Has the President either asked Karl Rove to assure him that he had nothing to do with this; or did Karl Rove go to the President to assure him that he --Go read the rest, it's fascinating. I didn't know it was possible to tap dance that fast for that long....McCLELLAN: I don't think he needs that. I think I've -- and I've spoken clearly to this publicly that -- but it's -- yes, I've just said it's -- there's no truth to it.
QUESTION: But I mean --
McCLELLAN: So I think it doesn't --
QUESTION: But is the President getting his information from you? Or did the President and Karl Rove talk, and were there assurances given that Rove was not involved?
McCLELLAN: I've already provided those assurances to you publicly.
QUESTION: Yes, but I'm just wondering if there was a conversation between Karl Rove and the President, or if he just talked to you, and you're here at this --
McCLELLAN: He wasn't involved. The President knows he wasn't involved.
QUESTION: How does he know that?
QUESTION: How does he know that?
McCLELLAN: The President knows.
QUESTION: What, is he clairvoyant? How does he know?
QUESTION: You spoke specifically -- you spoke to Rove specifically about this matter, correct?
McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: You spoke to Rove specifically about this matter? You asked him whether or not he was the leaker, or --
McCLELLAN: I don't know what the relevance of getting into every private conversation, John -- is, John. I've made it very clear that it's simply not true.
QUESTION: Based on what?
QUESTION: Based on what?
QUESTION: What are you basing -- what are you --
McCLELLAN: Someone asked me if I had spoken with him, and I said, yes.
QUESTION: And you spoke with him about this issue?
QUESTION: Did you ask him, directly?
McCLELLAN: I have spoken with him, yes.
QUESTION: But the President hasn't spoken with him directly about this issue? You have and the President hasn't?
McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Keith.
QUESTION: Well, that was the question.
McCLELLAN: I'm sorry?
QUESTION: You spoke directly with Rove about this?
McCLELLAN: I have spoken -- I speak to him all the time, on a lot of things.
QUESTION: He categorically denied to you --
McCLELLAN: I just told you, it's simply not true.
QUESTION: Yes, but you refuse to say whether or not it was Rove who told you it's untrue.
McCLELLAN: No, no, I spoke to Rove. I spoke to him about -- no, I spoke to him about these accusations, I've spoken to him.
QUESTION: And Rove told you that they were not true --
McCLELLAN: That's why I would be telling --
QUESTION: -- or is it just you --
McCLELLAN: That's why I would be telling you what I did.
QUESTION: -- or is it just you who is telling us?
McCLELLAN: No, I have spoken to him and been assured. And that's why I reported to you and reported to the media that it is simply not true. I like to check my sources, just like you do.
The White House today has said that Karl Rove is not responsible for the leak of Valerie Plame's identity.
...the chief White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said today that he had spoken to Mr. Rove and had been assured that it was "simply not true" that Mr. Rove had had anything to do with the leak.The Times article also notes that the initial request for the Justice department to look into whether any administration officials were invovled in the leak or not was first made back in July by the CIA's office of general counsel. This recent burst of attention to the scandal has come about because of a report on Friday that the CIA had made such a request. Right now, however, I'm not sure if the request referred to in Friday's story is the one from July, and someone in the CIA just got tired of the Justice Department sitting on the matter, or if the initial request was somehow deficient and the CIA had to do additional investigating before resubumitting their inquiry request to the Justice Department. I'll let you know if I find out what the timeline on this is."The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved," Mr. McClellan said at a midday news briefing. Pressed on just how the president knew that, Mr. McClellan said, "Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place," adding, "It is simply not true."
Additionally, the article comments on numerous Democrats calling for someone other than John Ashcroft to be responsible for deciding if this goes to the FBI or not and, if it does go to the FBI, to oversee the course of the investigation. There is widespread concern that Ashcroft won't be able to remain neutral enough to run a fair investigation.
"This administration has played politics with national security for a long time, but this is going too far," one of those Democratic hopefuls, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, told Reuters, suggesting an independent commission look into the accusations. "I don't think, in this administration, the Department of Justice will have the credibility it needs to reassure American allies abroad, and people around the world, about this matter."
Found at Talking Points Memo
Sources close to the former president [George H.W. Bush] say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted.Now, this doesn't prove anything at all - and there may still be some explaination that we're not expecting which clears everyone in the White House of any wrongdoing - but it sure doesn't look very good.
"Why Are These Men Laughing?" Ron Suskind
Esquire
January 2003
Take a bit of time today and go read Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo. He has some great stuff on the Valerie Plame situation, including Condi Rice's full response on ABC's "This Week" show, which takes the art of non-denial denials to a whole new level. He also reminds us why it shouldn't be too difficult to get a look at Karl Rove's phone recoreds, and W's daddy's opinion on people who reveal the names of our intelligence sources, among other astute analysis and commentary.
The Washington Post has another good article on the situation today, which notes that reporters from three national networks have told Joseph Wilson (Plame's husband) that someone from the White House had tried to contact them in July and revealed Plame's name and status to them at that time. He has only named one of these reporters so far, and that's NBC's Andrea Mitchell.
A second Post article notes that the White House has said they will cooperate with any investigation, but that
...Bush has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role in revealing the name of an undercover officer who is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, one of the most visible critics of Bush's handling of intelligence about Iraq.Earlier today, I'd posted an entry about John Dean's article on how the Justice Department is trying to use laws that were never intended to be applied to government officials leaking information to reporters to try and prosecute exactly that. Its also no secret that the Bush administration in general has been trying to put the kibosh on leaks throughout most of his term.
Yet here we have perhaps one of the most serious leaks - the identity of a covert agent - and even though the leak has been known about for over 2 months, both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice are claiming they know nothing about it, and Bush has so far not ordered any kind of an internal White House investigation, nor does he have any intention of doing so.
Does that strike anyone else as just a little bit strange?
Ok, we've got a thread started at the Freedom 2004 Forums for Project Frog-Walk. Check it out and help us keep the story alive so that the truth - whatever that may be - can be found.
On the Sunday talkfests today, Condaleeza Rice and Colin Powell said that they were unaware of any leaks from the White House related to Valerie Plame but neither did they flatly deny them.
Rice told "Fox News Sunday" the same thing, in almost identical language. "I know nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this, and it certainly would not be the way that the president would expect his White House to operate."Obviously, this doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but I do find it interesting that they're being somewhat cagey in their responses, rather than saying "No, this didn't happen." It's not like there hasn't been time for them to find out in order to give a flat denial if one were available.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said he knew nothing about the matter. Powell told ABC's "This Week" that he thought that if the CIA believed the identity of one of its agents have been revealed, it had an obligation to ask the Justice Department to look into the matter. But he added: "Other than that, I don't know anything about the matter."
Be sure to keep an eye on the Freedom 2004 - Build-a-Meme Project forums for information on Project Frog-walk.
Rayne has suggested that as many of us as possible band together to help keep the pressure on about the Valerie Plame story and investigation, to see if we can't keep it from being swept under the rug. She will be posting information at the forums soon.
You can also check back here at different strings or at her site Rayne Today for more information as the project gets underway. Also, The Agora and Emphasis Added are posting on the issue as well.
Remember, the blogosphere was credited with helping keep the Trent Lott story alive long enough for the media to pick up on it and see him pushed out as the Senate Majority Leader. The fish in this case are much bigger, but that also means they're more important. The story may not turn out the way we hope it will, but regardless of what the final outcome is, we have a chance now to try and make sure that the full story gets told and that an honest investigation is done.
We also have a chance now to show that the blogosphere can be a true force in American politics. Shall we?
Former Presidential counsel John Dean did a piece for FindLaw's 'Writ' back in August when the Plame story broke for the first time. In his column, he provides a solid overview of the legal issues involved and explaines why the blowing of a CIA agent's cover is considered to be a serious offense.
He also looks at how the White House initially responded to questions about the leak. His words are worth keeping in mind as the White House is forced to respond again to these latest charges - especially now that the story is likely to get more play (especially if we citizens can keep the pressure on the media to stay on the story). Most interesting is that even when faced with rather direct questions about the possible involvement of the White House in revealing Plame's identity, it was hard to get a flat "no" out of Scott McClellan, the Presidents press secretary:
In the past, Bush and Cheney have gone ballistic when national security information leaked. But this leak - though it came from "two senior administration officials" - has been different. And that, in itself, speaks volumes.On July 22, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked about the Novak column. Offering only a murky, non-answer, he claimed that neither "this President or this White House operates" in such a fashion. He added, "there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step."
So was McClellan saying that Novak was lying - and his sources were not, in fact, "two senior administration officials"? McClellan dodged, kept repeating his mantra, and refused to respond.
Later, McClellan was asked, "Would the President support an investigation into the blowing of the cover on an undercover CIA operative?" Again, he refused to acknowledge "that there might be some truth to the matter you're bringing up." When pressed further, he said he would have to look into "whether or not that characterization is accurate when you're talking about someone's cover."
McClellan's statement that he would have to look into the matter was disingenuous at best. This ten-day old column by Novak had not escaped the attention of the White House. Indeed, when the question was first raised, McClellan immediately responded, "Thank you for bringing that up."
As David Corn has pointed out, what McClellan did not say, is even more telling than what he said. He did not say he was trying to get to the bottom of the story and determine if it had any basis in fact. He did not say the president would not tolerate such activities, and was demanding to know what had happened.
Indeed, as Corn points out, McClellan's remarks "hardly covered a message from Bush to his underlings: don't you dare pull crap like this." Indeed, they could even be seen as sending a message that such crimes will be overlooked.
Frankly, I am astounded that the President of the United States - whose father was once Director of the CIA - did not see fit to have his Press Secretary address this story with hard facts. Nor has he apparently called for an investigation - or even given Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson a Secret Service detail, to let the world know they will be protected.
This is the most vicious leak I have seen in over 40 years of government-watching. Failure to act to address it will reek of a cover-up or, at minimum, approval of the leak's occurrence - and an invitation to similar revenge upon Administration critics.
Several other bloggers have some good information on the Plame situation.
Billmon notes that from the way the Washington Post story is phrased, it appears likely that the person they spoke with may well be George Tenet, and that he knows who the White House officials that leaked the information are.
Kevin Drum offers a solid recap of what has now been revealed in the last 24 hours, and there's some excellent discussion of the implications of this turn of events in his comments section.
Mark Kleiman offers some good analysis of the story, plus he has links to his excellent earlier work when the story first broke, and to several other resources as well that are worth checking out.
And, of course, Josh Marshall is on top of the story and the media reaction to it. He also has an excellent interview with Joseph Wilson (Plame's husband), whose article about his mission to Niger triggered the firestorm earlier this summer over the President's State of the Union Address, which is the incident that the outing of Plame is said to be in retalliation of.
Marshall also notes that, while some of the stories are reporting that the White House have denied the allegations that someone from the White House was responsible for the leak, the answers that were given when Scott McClellan, the Press Secretary, was asked about it, were really little more than "non-denial denials".
The Washington Post has a big, front page story today on the investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a cover agent for the CIA. In the article, they include information from a senior administration official confirming most of the basic speculation about the case - that the leak came from within the White House, that it was shopped around to other journalists before Robert Novak published it and that it was done as revenge for Joseph Wilson's article that caused the President so much embarassment.
A senior administration official said two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. That was shortly after Wilson revealed in July that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account eventually touched off a controversy over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.By the way, if you haven't already done so, Atrios suggests that we all go to the MSNBC site and rate their Plame story highly, so that they'll know people consider it an important story for them to continue following. You can find the story here, and then scroll to the bottom of the page, and click on the large number "7". The more pressure we can put on the press to keep this story in the spotlight, the harder it becomes for anyone to try and sweep it under the rug (though the Post's story certainly helps with that as well.)"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.
Sources familiar with the conversations said the leakers' allegation was that Wilson had benefited from nepotism because the Niger mission had been his wife's idea. Wilson said in an interview yesterday that a reporter had told him that the leaker said, "The real issue is Wilson and his wife."
The official would not name the leakers for the record and would not name the journalists. The official said he had no indication that Bush knew about the calls. Columnist Robert Novak published the agent's name in a July column about Wilson's mission.
It is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another. Asked about the motive for describing the leaks, the senior official said the leaks were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility."
CBS News has now picked up on the Valerie Plame story. They have an article posted tonight that offers a basic overview of the situation, including the fact that the CIA's request to the Justice Department for an investigation.
The article, titled "A Vengeful White House?", while careful not to make an direct charges or allegations, certainly treats the idea that the White House may have leaked Ms. Plame's status as an undercover operative as a way of retaliating against her husband for having caused embarrassment when he wrote that the White House has been notified well before the State of the Union Address that the claim Saddam Hussein had sought uranium from Niger was false.
It was an embarrassing mistake when White House officials admitted that there was an inaccuracy in President Bush’s State of the Union address, but now, the fallout from that mistake could lead to criminal charges, CBS News Correspondent Randall Pinkston reports.[...]
Revealing the names of CIA operatives is a felony, and the CIA has asked the Justice Department to begin a probe, Pinkston reports.
Congressional sources say there may also be calls for the appointment of an independent investigation to determine if Bush administration officials blew Plame’s cover.
Time Magazine has also picked up the story, and is noting that Justice has opened a preliminary inquiry:
CIA and Justice spokespersons declined comment, but an Administration official told TIME that the Justice is conducting a preliminary inquiry to "determine whether or not there should be an investigation" by the FBI.The story still deserves even wider coverage than this, but it's good to see it starting to get out there.
Also of interest is Mark Kleiman's assessment of what is likely to happen as a result of the CIA's request - especially given how many are skeptical that Ashcroft may try to bury the investigation in order to protect the White House.
Formally, as Josh Marshall notes [*], Ashcroft has to make a decision whether to refer the matter to the FBI for investigation. But if he tries to refuse, he will face a firestorm, internally as well as externally. Six months or a year ago, with Bush riding high, Ashcroft might have been able to get away with it. But not now.One can hope, eh?[...]
Once Ashcroft asks for an investigation, it gets carried out by career people in the FBI, people with reputations to protect. Someone will ask Rove the straight-up question whether he ever talked to Novak or anyone else about Plame, and whether he knows of anyone else having done so. When Rove answers those questions, he will know that lying to the Bureau is itself a federal crime. He will also know that the press shield laws may not apply in this case, and that reporters who refused the bait may not feel as bound to protect their sources as Novak does.
Wilson's stated ambition to "see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs" no longer seems out of reach.
It's been almost 20 hours since MSNBC and NBC News broke the story about the CIA seeking an investigation into the White House's possible involvement in blowing the cover of one of their undercover operatives. This is a serious federal crime, punishable by 10 years in prison, and before the CIA can ask Justice to investigate, they have to have already done their own investigation, indicating that there is sufficient reason to believe that a federal investigation and possible prosecution is warranted. Since they've made that request of Justice, it means they've got reason to believe that the White House is involved. This isn't just a random accusation.
One would think that the CIA essentially accusing someone in the White House of burning one of their covert operatives would be big news - yet according to Google News no other papers, magazines or other news outlets have picked up on the story yet. There's nothing at the MSNBC site to indicate that there's any problem with the story, yet there seems to be no interest in it anywhere else - even at MSNBC's partner sites, The Washington Post and Newsweek.
There's been a lot of speculation in the blogosphere about a recent report from Robert Novak in which he claimed two senior administration officials had given the name of a covert CIA operative in the context of revealing that she had recommended her husband, Joseph Wilson, go to Niger to look into the claims that Iraq was trying to buy Uranium from them. According to an interview with Novak, he "...said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.""
The speculation, however, has centered on whether the accusation of her being a covert operative is true or not. In an article published on Monday, Newsday says that it is.
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.In addition, Andrea Mitchell is reporting for NBC that:
Wilson tells NBC News the White House deliberately leaked his wife’s identity as a covert CIA operative, damaging her future career and compromising past missions after he criticized the administration on “Meet the Press” and in the New York Times.As Wilson said, this definately damages her future career. Once your cover as a covert agent has been blown, it's rather hard to use you again, except for overt activities. What's worse is that as part of her cover operations, she had contacts - and since she was dealing with issues related to weapons of mass destruction, it's likely that many of those conacts were in areas that are hostile to the US - and now those contacts are also at risk.
The White House, of course, denies that they had anything to do with this. I should hope they didn't. Whoever did, though, needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law - and there is a law against exactly this kind of behaviour.
Wilson believes that her cover was blown in order to send a message to others who might have information about the leadup to and handling of the Iraq War to keep their mouths shut, lest they face the wrath of Bushco. If that's the case, I'll be very surprised if we don't start hearing about a new Presidential "enemies list" before too much longer...
Mark Kleiman has written a very good analysis of the possibility that senior administrations officials may have outed a CIA agent, essentially as an act of revenge against her husband for embarassing the Bush administration. As I noted earlier, the accusation that the administration may have outed this agent has NOT yet been confirmed beyond the piece in The Nation that I linked to earlier, which broke the story.
It's an important story to keep an eye on, however, because if it is true, then the administration has done something truly dispicable, and, as Kleiman points out, may well have put not only her life in danger, but the lives of any contacts she made overseas in danger as well.
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