Posted on 07/13/2005 3:28:51 PM PDT by Jean S
Please allow me to share with you some of the things I don’t know.
I don’t know what Valerie Plame’s status with the CIA was in July 2003 when Robert Novak wrote his column mentioning that she was an “agency operative” and had recommended her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger. Was Plame a covert agent then? If not, how recently had she been a covert agent?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know what’s going on with The New York Times’ Judith Miller.
Since top presidential adviser Karl Rove and top vice-presidential adviser Lewis Libby signed strongly worded waivers releasing all reporters from any pledges of confidentiality, why hasn’t Miller testified? Does that mean her source was someone else who has not signed a confidentiality waiver?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Miller is involved in all this at all, since she never wrote a story about it. Was she some sort of “carrier,” as is now being theorized, and actually helped spread word of Plame’s identity?
I don’t know.
For that matter, I don’t know what Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper was doing either. Rove’s lawyer says Rove signed the waiver about a year and a half ago and has never changed it. Why was that waiver not acceptable to Cooper for 18 months and then, on the brink of going to jail, Cooper agreed to testify?
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything about the role the other journalists caught up in the case — Tim Russert, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler — played. Apparently on the basis of waivers signed by sources, they all gave information to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. What did they say?
I don’t know.
And of course I also don’t know what is happening with Novak. Given Fitzgerald’s aggressiveness in dealing with all figures in this case, Novak must have made some sort of accommodation. Did he testify? Refuse to testify?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why many in the press, most notably The New York Times, were once so enthusiastic about the Fitzgerald investigation. On Dec. 30, 2003, the Times published an editorial headlined “The Right Thing, At Last,” which said, “After an egregiously long delay, Attorney General John Ashcroft finally did the right thing yesterday when he recused himself from the investigation into who gave the name of a CIA operative to columnist Robert Novak.” Why did the Times do that?
I don’t know.
And then, why did the Times change its position and condemn Fitzgerald who, the paper said, “can’t even say whether a crime has been committed.” Why would the Times say that, when it had once been so sure that a crime had been committed?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know about the actions of Joseph Wilson. For example, in his book, The Politics of Truth, he wrote, “The assertion that Valerie had played any substantive role in the decision to ask me to go to Niger was false on the face of it. ...Valerie could not — and would not if she could — have had anything to do with the CIA decision to ask me to travel to [Niger].” But later, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in its bipartisan report, said that “interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that [Wilson’s] wife, a CPD employee [a reference to the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division], suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife ‘offered up his name’ and a memorandum to the deputy chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from [Wilson’s] wife says, ‘my husband has good relations with both [Niger’s prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’” So why did Wilson say his wife played no “substantive role” in it?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Wilson’s defenders accuse the White House of “smearing” him. What was the smear? Was it a smear to say that Wilson got the Niger assignment, at least in part, because his wife recommended him? If so, then the Senate committee “smeared” him, too. If not, what is the smear?
I don’t know.
And finally, I don’t know about Karl Rove’s public statements on the case. Last year on CNN, he said of Plame, “I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name.” Even if he hadn’t passed on Plame’s name — just mentioned her as Wilson’s wife — why not just say nothing, especially since the whole thing is under criminal investigation?
I don’t know.
The bottom line is, some of the most critical facts in the whole Wilson/Plame/CIA matter are just not known, at least not known by anyone outside of the Fitzgerald investigation.
But don’t worry. At least we can be sure that we will someday know them, right?
I don’t know.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
E-mail: byork@thehill.com
Please remove the email address if you can. Did not catch it in time.
Thanks
Whoops, that would be in Post 178
You just have a nice way of coalescing and condensing everything when you find a story to sink your teeth into.
As has already been reported by a lefty reporter, a CIA front company was exposed because Plame used the front company name as her emplyer on a form for a donation to Al Gore's presidential campaign.
Looks like Valerie was using her married name to search some geneology stuff on her maiden name.
BTW, the page you linked to was Last updated 29 May, 2000
So Valerie Wilson is researching the Plame name and uses her real name with an email addy.
So much for covert.
I don't think he will be fired. This was just another DNC ploy in an attempt to hurt President Bush and Karl Rove.
I would fire the gump who sent wilson over to Niger on a CIA mission? I wonder which is more unqualified wilson or his wife?
Thsi reminds me of the rathergate memos and the downing street memos all forged and plotted by the DNC commies at large. NSNR
This investigation apparently ties into something bigger, that interests the Grand Jury, perhaps it ties into another Grand Jury investigation altogether. Perhaps it has to do with a reporter teetering on the verge of committing perjury to protect a group of government bureaucrats that sought to undermine the government of the US in wartime. Or perhaps it ties into earlier leaks that exposed allied agents such as the asset in the Czech republic in the Ata case, or perhaps leaks ruined ongoing investigations such as the one into the terror charities Benevolence international or the Global relief foundation. Or perhaps it ties into the Oil for Food thing. There could be any number of reasons.
Does anyone know if Wilson has any ties to the Oil For Food Scandal?
Note to all Alabama Freepers: Did you know that Byron York is the son of Tom York?
Woodward and Bernstein said on Hardball tonight that no crime was committed.
The 911 commission pointed out that Wilson did find a witness in Niger whose information lent support to the other intel that Iraq had sent a delegation to Niger to inquire about what the Nigeriens assumed was uranium.
Wilson's claims that the deal was impossible because security was too tight in Niger or because the French are all-powerful antiporliferation watchdogs is simply stupid.
Thanks--that's what I was wondering when I saw the name "Joulware". When Wilson was working for Joulwan he met Cevik Bir, who later joined him on the American-Turkish Council, so it seems like that period of his career has some overlap with his overseas investment interests. BTW Wilson left the position he was filling for Joulwan in July 1997, which was about the same time Joulwan was replaced by Wesley Clark; I've always been curious if that's just a coincidence or there's some reason for that.
Man I love this thread...you guys know some amazing stuff
" As has already been reported by a lefty reporter, a CIA front company was exposed because Plame used the front company name as her emplyer on a form for a donation to Al Gore's presidential campaign.".
...if that's true....woah the Dem's better back off
I think the theory is coming forth with our own investigation that there is more here than meets the eye and the Get Rove stuff will be small potatoes...methinks a Rathergate is coming...and there will be many players
Interesting chronological correlation. Kelly went missing on July 17, 2003 right?
I think it could get very interesting if the investigation ever links up with the Oil-for-Food investigation.
One thing I'm pretty sure of--If the suspects in question had been 'Rats, there's no way they would have signed waivers allowing their mainstream press interviewers to testify. They'd be hiding behind the pressitutes all day long.
its less about the Dems and more about the presstitutes gnashing at the fact someone dare challenge their authority, and actually jail one of their members. The RATS are just simply too stupid to ignore this and are jumping on the sinking ship.
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