Valerie Plame Wilson - A Better Draft

I am attempting to gather the stories everyone is buzzing about.  Please don't anyone feel left out, this is a work in progress, and I welcome suggestions.

The question: Did two White House aides compromise national security or break the law by revealing the CIA connection of Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Wilson?  Ambassador Wilson came to fame as the fellow who attacked the Administration's "16 Words" about uranium, Saddam, and Africa.

Whodunnit?  The speculation has centered on Karl Rove, which WH Press Sec't McClellan has vigorously denied.  Dick Cheney's chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby, has also been mooted.

Worth noting: President Bush has not been implicated, and can still be depicted as forthright and decisive if he deals with this promptly.  Promptly?  Hasn't this been going on since July?  Well, the President has been as lax as the national media.  Possible excuse - he is waiting on the CIA damage assessment (which the WaPo says is still underway) before acting.  Well, if that is the plan, why hasn't the White House said so?  No further questions.  (But there is a possibility that they are scrambling, don't really have a plan, and are divided between a "protect Dick and Scooter" faction and a "protect the President" faction.  Guess who will win that fight?  But the front is united!).

What is Ms. Plame's CIA status, was the law broken, and was national security compromised?

Good questions, and answering one does not answer the others.  She may be "technically" covert - the law may have been broken without a compromise to national security; conversely, she may have been truly covert, with serious national security implications, but not in a way that is covered by statute.

There are two relevant statutes.  White House personnel have a security clearance, and may have a different set of obligations; however, for the rest of us, if an agent has not been posted overseas in the last five years, they are not legally protected as covert.  The law will be an imperfect guide to this, as we note here; we are running a case file on her CIA status here.  Evidence mounts that she was seriously covert [Just in - the Oct. 2 NY Times says she used "non-official cover"]; however, grounds for doubt remain (so we say [said?], anyway), and we await the CIA report.  Fascinating speculation on her job status here.  Decide for yourself, but if he is making it up, I don't want to be near him when the Brooklyn Bridge is for sale.

[UPDATE: The ice may have broken, for me at least.  "Galois" gives me this, from the Daily News:

Two former senior intelligence officials confirmed that Valerie Plame, 40, is an operations officer in the spy agency's directorate of operations - the clandestine service.

Plame "ran intelligence operations overseas," said Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism operations chief.

OK, names, background, maybe they are all phony, or maybe she was a serious agent; hard to keep a straight face and argue the former.  I think "What Happened That Week" covers this scenario.]

How is this being spun?  Well, Dems argue that this was a felonious compromise of national security for petty partisan revenge, or to intimidate whistle blowers.  Bad behavior by bad people for bad reasons.

And on the Rep side, we learn the meaning of shock and awe.  Clearly, if these guys staging the leaks knew there were national security implications, it can't be defended.  If they didn't know, and didn't trouble themselves to check first, it is less reprehensible, if you prefer "stupid" to "evil".  If they checked first and had reason to believe there were no national security implications, one must still question their judgment (Robert Novak's experience with the CIA spokesman is telling here, I think).  However, the motive may have been to undermine Wilson's credibility, which is a bit better than the motives above.

The current headlines, along the lines of "Criminal Probe of White House", tilt Dem; we look to a day when the story switches to "CIA Says, No Harm, No Foul" (not likely, as I explain eventually), or "Bush Deals Forcefully With Staff Problem".  "Cheney in Chains, Bush To Resign" remains a gleam in the eye of our friends on the left.

Let's get some links:

My original timeline.

For nostalgia buffs, a Senate leak investigation from August 2002.  Who's laughing now?

Sept 26: MSNBC - Criminal referral.  Moves this back to the front page.

Sept 28: Washington Post: the bombshell!  "Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."

My links.

Sept 29:  Washington Post: "She is a case officer in the CIA's clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction. "  But no source!

Robert Novak speaks: 

My links, mostly to Mark Kleiman.

Sept 30:  Washington Post:  "President Bush's chief spokesman said yesterday that the allegation that administration officials leaked the name of a CIA operative is "a very serious matter" and vowed that Bush would fire anybody responsible for such actions.

The WaPo also discovers TIME magazine's old story from July 17, revised to include this: "And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate reports..."

Emphasis added to the revision, which we noticed on July 22; have we noticed the grammatical lapse at the end before?  "Dispatched Niger to".  Odd.  Well, we see it now.

Jack Shafer has the overview, does not see a successful prosecution.  Since we agree, he is a genius.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey:  WOOLSEY: ...it's relatively routine thing. These leaks get investigated all the time. Occasionally somebody gets caught, but it's pretty rare. It's a lot rarer any directors of Central Intelligence would wish.

HEMMER: Listening to your answer there, it appears that you're throwing water on to this story. Are you?

WOOLSEY: No, not necessarily. It was a bad thing to identify an agent, an asset, an officer actually who is identified as a CIA officer. And whoever did it ought to be caught and punished. It's just that it rarely happens.

Was the last a specific, or general comment?

Oct. 1: Washington Post: "Congressional Leaders Clash Over Probe"

Washington Post: "Justice Dept. Launches Criminal Probe of Leak"

Washington Post: "The Leak and Its Consequences"; a guide to the scandal.  And a good one.

Robert Novak has a new column: critics see his story shift, but I won't link to them!  Yes, I will, later.

MSNBC:

Privately, however, Bush’s senior advisers were angrily accusing the CIA of leaking word of the probe last week to embarrass the White House, U.S. officials told NBC News on condition of anonymity.

We will not forget Brad Delong, who is talking up the "CIA at war with White House" angle.

Oct 2:  Speak of the devil: James Risen of the NY Times with a long piece on the "CIA at war with White House" angle.  I cheer myself with this:

For months before the Iraq war, analysts at the agency and other intelligence officials quietly complained that they felt under pressure from senior administration officials, all the way up to Mr. Cheney, to tailor intelligence reports to the administration's agenda. In particular, the analysts said White House and Pentagon officials were pressing them to accept the premise of strong connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda.

The analysts said they felt less high-level pressure over Iraq's chemical and biological weapons because the C.I.A. and other intelligence agencies did not disagree with White House descriptions of those programs.  In their reports, most analysts said Baghdad was hiding some unconventional weapons, most likely chemical munitions. Many analysts, however, were skeptical of evidence that President Saddam Hussein was operating a program to develop nuclear weapons.

Douglas Jehl and David Stout of the NY Times slam dunk the "she was a minor functionary" meme:

Valerie Plame was among the small subset of Central Intelligence Agency officers who could not disguise their profession by telling friends that they worked for the United States government.

That cover story, standard for American operatives who pretend to be diplomats or other federal employees, was not an option for Ms. Plame, people who knew her said on Wednesday. As a covert operative who specialized in nonconventional weapons and sometimes worked abroad, she passed herself off as a private energy expert, what the agency calls nonofficial cover.

Oh, boy.  Keep dropping other shoes, and we will keep tap-dancing!  Are they recycling folks like Larry Johnson?  (Check the UPDATE).  C'mon, they talked to a neighbor!  But no source for the "non-official cover" beyond "people who knew her".  Who might that be?  Deeply troubling.

The Eric Lichtblau of the NY Times on the current White House plan: "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."

Call that source back - he delivers the soundbites.  But we note the irony, the subtle call for help - clearly, this staffer wants more!  But "Capitol Hill" says he is on the Congressional side - funding unhappy campers there will be as hard as finding thirsty sailors in a bar.

Oct 2:  More Novak on CNN.  The insidery lead will be his comments about Phelps and Royce of Newsday:

NOVAK: Now, these reporters made a bad mistake. They said they came to me with the information. I never told them that. And that's not in quotes, is it?

BLITZER: They said that the sources said they -- your sources had come to you...

NOVAK: Yes, but that's not in quotes.

BLITZER: That's not in quotes.

NOVAK: So then they made that up. I never said that.

Fightin' words!  And for the rest of us, this was interesting, about the CIA request to keep quiet:

NOVAK: It was what I call a weak request. In journalism we are asked not to use things constantly. I'm sure you have been. Don't use that, Wolf.

...NOVAK:  And the editor of "The Washington Post," Fred Hyatt, said in an editorial as well that if the request had been made by the CIA not to put this information in for the fear of the safety of Mrs. Wilson or anybody else, I certainly would not have used her name. But that request was not made.

Now, why was it not made? There's one of two reasons. One possible reason is that it was a mistake by the CIA. They screwed it up. The other reason is they didn't think her life was in danger. I don't know the answer. It's one of the two though.

...NOVAK: Well, I have sources, too. I have sources that tell me that she was never an analyst -- I mean, never an operative. She was never covert. She was never covert. Put it that way. She was never covert. She was always what they call "light covert." That is, she was covered, she was working under the cover of another government agency, but she was not a covert operator. I have been told that by other sources...

Oct. 2: WaPo, Milbank and Allen:

Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe a special prosecutor should be named to investigate allegations that Bush administration officials illegally leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday.

...Bush aides began yesterday to adjust their response to the expanding probe. They reined in earlier, broad portrayals of innocence in favor of more technical arguments that it is possible the disclosure was made without knowledge that a covert operative was being exposed and therefore might not have been a crime. [Gee, my story]

... Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said that Bush "needs to get this behind him" by taking a more active role. "He has that main responsibility to see this through and see it through quickly, and that would include, if I was president, sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it," the outspoken Hagel said last night on CNBC's "Capital Report."

Oh, my - I said keep an eye on Hagel, and that the problem was on Cheney's side.  If the WaPo is running this so early in the story, is it because they suspect Cheney and/or Scooter?  Hmm.

The legal maze:

Disclosing the name of a clandestine operative -- which can jeopardize the agent's contacts -- can be a crime, but that determination depends on factors that include whether the disclosure was intentional, whether the leaker knew the person was a covert agent and whether he or she knew the government was taking steps to conceal the agent's covert status. "Was it known that information was classified information?" asked McClellan, who pointed to statements this week by Novak saying he did not know Wilson's wife had undercover status.

Oct. 2: Mr. Taranto of the WSJ weighs in with the sort of legalistic objections which annoy me.  Andrew Sullivan gets it!  "It doesn't make it any ethically or morally better, in my book. But it's still interesting."

We (gloomily) await developments.

OK, I need to add lots of links to fellow bloggers, and I want suggestions. 

My soundbites - It's not Karl, it's Scooter.  And Ain't No Bad Dude Ain't No Big Gambler.  (we say that, but they haven't posted since Sunday - we hope all is well)

- The CIA damage assessment is the Next Big Thing in this scandal - the WaPo says it is still in progress.  If some CIA careerist shocks us by concluding that his boss over-reacted in filing a criminal referral, that no harm was done, and that Ms. Wilson's covert status was a mere technicality, well, life is full of surprises.  I, however, would not embarrass my boss, so I would find damage.  At which point, the current Republican damage control (YES, that includes me!) collapses.  Well, cross that bridge...

- This should be resolved by Congress, not the courts, once that damage review is complete.  Too many technicalities can turn a clear case of poor judgment into a failed criminal case.

OK, if I make enough predictions, I may be right about something.  But that is it for now.

Comments

[Ginger]

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[Jon Henke]

Hear hear!

You've been my resource, and my links to your site have probably accounted for almost .00001% of your recent traffic! :)

Predictions? My crystal ball is still saying "Too soon, check back later".

So far, almost every piece of evidence we hear is contradicted by contrary testimony.

Most odd, though, is the completely irrational nature of the event.
WHY? Why in the world would somebody IN the White House directly leak the name of a covert operative to a journalist?
Assuming these people are moderately clever (and their opponents certainly do, although they don't mean it as a compliment), wouldn't one assume that they would have the common sense to NOT dissimenate this felony among as many journalists as possible?

It's comparable to assuming that Saddam actually admitted that he was faking the whole WMD thing, but it's ok, because he only told the media.
Nothing could *possibly* go wrong with that, right?

Just doesn't compute.

That's why I'm waiting for more information....but kinda leaning toward the assumption that the leaker just didn't know that she was a covert operative.

By the way, that would mean that, while unfortunate, no crime had been committed.

If a crime has been committed, though, I'll be among the first to call for a trial.

[Ralph Tacoma]

The amazing thing about all of the suddenly available descriptions, not officially released by the CIA, is that they also MUST represent leaks of classificd information if that are true, and yet no one is indicating the slightest amount of outrage at their being available.

Remember ALL that Novak said was that she "is a CIA operative." Eeven if that "blew her cover," it does not cause material that was not released to become public domain, so how come "people who knew her" knew so much about her "real job?" Either they are making it up, or her cover really wasn't more than a convenience, or they are leaking classified information themselves, and yet no one seems to care.

[TM]

Hey, Jon. I think you and I are drifting towards what I am calling the "Ooops" theory, for which I can find a lot of evidence.

My post is titled "What Happened That Week", and it is up above.

And I feel very good about the motive - amongst revenge, chilling other whistleblowers, or re-spin the Wilson story, I think (3) is a layup. That post is up there too.

[Jon Henke]

yeah, I think we've both been leaning towards that story for the better part of a week now.

The alternative is not an "evil felon" in the White House....the alternative is an evil, but absolutely dunder-headed, media-UNsavvy, amatuer in the White House.

Clearly, that's not something that I think either side is ready to believe.

[Erica]

Can anyone come up with people who knew that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA prior to the publication of the Novak article? It is said to have been fairly common knowledge.

[Swopa]

Erica, here's what Joshua Marshall says:

. . . after Wilson came forward, his enemies started trashing him pretty widely. Even I knew there was a big whispering campaign against him among the neo-cons. Part of that was apparently putting out word about his wife. Folks at the White House probably weren't just talking to reporters but also chatting up fellow Republican insiders and ideological allies.

[Ben]

The dunderhead may be Wilson himself.

CIA confirmed her status, but not her covertness. Novak's original source, according to Novak, said she worked at CIA on WMD's. Whether this was covert or overt, that is the question.

Because it seems possible that her covertness may have been, well covert. But her employment at CIA was not. And none of this would have been much an issue if Wilson had kept his mouth shut about his trip to Niger.

Remember that Novak was trying to answer the question, how did this dunderhead get the job of going to Africa. It looks like Novak's contact offered the fact Wilson was married to a CIA employee as a possible explaination.

I use the term dunderhead to refer to Wilson, because in Novak's opinion, based on Wilson's account of his trip, it appear that all he did was sip tea and talk to government officals. It does not sound like much of an investigation, yet this is what CIA based their analysis of MI-6's intel on.

In short, no NYT op-ed by Wilson, no question as to how he got the job, no reference to his wife would have showed up in Novak's column. No question about his wife's job period.

And it should be pointed out that all Novak said was she worked at CIA, on the WMD issue. Not that she was a secret agent, or covert, or anything else. (He did use the term operative, which he now says was not quite right.) It was the later confirmation of her covert status, as a result of this story, that led to the mess we see today.

So, I think it is possible that Novak's source did not know she was covert, but she did work at CIA. And as such, especially after CIA confirmed her employment, this was not a crime. However, all those folks who are now confirming her covertness, have blown her cover far more effectively than Novak did.

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