Valerie Plame is back in the news and drawing a downbeat Fact Check from Glenn Kessler of the WaPo.
Old times! In fact, I feel like a recovering alcoholic holding a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. But let me see if I can stop at two:
First, as CIA Acting General Counsel John Rizzo eventually claimed in his 2014 book, and as Bob Woodward, Andrea Mitchell and Dana Priest had reported years earlier, Plame's "outing" was just not that big a deal in terms of national security or personal danger. A Rizzo excerpt:
Secondly, what drove this investigation? Why did Special Counsel Fitzgerald look so hard at the White House yet ignore the obvious, easily detected, unconfessed leaking from Armitage (and probably Powell, and others) from State?
I say it was a mini-Deep State Coup. Democrats allied with moderate Republicans such as Comey in a DoJ revolt intended to pare back or eliminate Dick Cheney. Fitzgerald's team took it in when Richard Armitage of State admitted he leaked to Novak. It took the sleuths at the AP to obtain Armitage's appointment calendar for June 2003 and see a meeting with Woodward. Pretty heavy investigative work!
As a recap, Cheney's man at Doj, John Yoo, left the Office of Legal Counsel in June 2003 and was replaced by Jack Goldsmith. Goldsmith withdrew the OLC opinion backing enhanced interrogation and put the warrantless surveillance program under a microscope. By December the DoJ was in something like a revolt over Cheny's handling of that, which culminated in the famous Comey/Ashcroft/Card hospital room showdown in March 2004.
And during all this, the DoJ decides (Oct 2003) to take the Plame referral seriously and actually investigate the leak Rizzo laughed off. By December, Comey was appointing Fitzgerald as a Special Counsel. The target was Cheney, not Bush, not Rove and most assuredly not "the truth" about who leaked what.
BONUS (But I can quit anytime): Why did Armitage leak at all? Surely it wasn't to punish Wilson? No, it wasn't, and stop calling me Shirley. In the summer of 2003 a dispute raged about who had said what and when about Saddam's WMDs and nuclear aspirations. The gist of the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate had been made public. The CIA (with other intel groups) came down on the side of "Definitely maybe" as to whether Iraq was a nuclear threat. The State Department's INR had dissented, but that was lost in a footnote. Prophets without honor!
So when the dispute raged in June 2003 Armitage discussed with his old pals Novak and Woodward that tidbit about the CIA research effort - the CIA had cobbled together a trip to Niger that was never to going to be conclusive, sent off some retired ambassador (sponsored by his wife!) and come back with an inconclusive report. Did Armitage describe the CIA effort with the phrase "clown show"? We can only hope. But the mention of the wife's role was not meant as punishment; it was meant as a punchline.
JUST SAY NO: Don't get me started on the Tim Russert/Andrea Mitchell / David Gregory cover-up. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer testifed he leaked to reporters John Dickerson and David Gregory of NBC News, Tim Russert's underling. OK, it was Fleischer's last week on the job, he had a lot going on and he might have been wrong (Dickerson says he was, about him anyway) but... IF he leaked to Gregory there was time for Gregory to mention this to Russert, who might have then tried to confirm it in a call with Libby.
Since Libby was charged with lying about his chat with Russert (Libby said Russert mentioned WIlson's wife, Russert denied it), we can be sure that Relentless Truth Seeker Fitzgerald interviewed Gregory and nailed down his story, right?
Wrong. Dickerson says he was never formally questioned. As best I know, Gregory has never denied Fleischer's version. In retrospect, this transcript of a post-indictment Russert program reads like a hostage video, with everyone locking in their cover story. Here is Gregory:
GREGORY: And it is interesting--it's also interesting, I should just point out, that nobody called me at any point, which is unfortunately...
WILLIAMS: Apparently not.
GREGORY: ...not the point.
RUSSERT: Does anybody ever?
GREGORY: But I just wanted to note that.
RUSSERT: I've been meaning to talk to you about that.
Nobody called him, har de har. But of course, Fleiacher's testimony was that their chat was face to face, not a phone call.
But no follow-up, again, as best I know.
I MEAN IT NOW: I am completely confident that you have seen this idea no where else, and lucky you: the issue of Valerie Plame's "covert" status hinges on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The gist: she would need both classified status (check) and "service abroad" in the prior five years (Fog!).
So - is "service abroad" a quick trip overseas, or a formal posting? Unlitigated! However, Ms. Plame's pension benefit gets an upward adjustment for her "overseas service" spanning "six years, one month and 29 days".
So the CIA service record certainly tracks their notion of overseas service. Was the last date within five years of her outing? We don't know, in part because Special Counsel Fitzgerald chose to hide that factoid. And why would he hide it? Hard to see including a comment on her final date of overseas service as hurting either national security or his case, especially since he offered as a substitute the assurance she had flown overseas to Jordan on CIA business within the past five years.
It makes me think that the final overseas service date for which she got credit was outside the five year time frame. One more thing we won't know, unless someone wants to ask Candidate Plame. (She'll cite national security and duck it, but try anyway!)
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