Posted on 07/16/2005 9:37:20 AM PDT by Checkers
An interesting post by Cliff May:
"This morning, I have a piece up elsewhere on NRO showing that The Nation’s David Corn--not syndicated columnist Bob Novak--was the first to reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover operative. It further suggests that David did so based on information provided to him by none other than Joseph C. Wilson IV.
While working on that piece, I had an exchange with David and, with his permission, I thought I’d share that with you. Dear David:
I have a question--one you may not be willing to answer but I’m curious so let me try:
Novak’s column said that Plame was an “Agency operative.” Novak claims he didn’t know--and didn’t mean to imply--that she was a covert agent.
Your piece, a few days later, says quite explicitly that Plame was “a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to nationally security.”
How did you know that?
- Cliff David responded:
Come on, Cliff. I'm disappointed in you--especially as a former NY Times reporter. Here's what I wrote:
Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?
You will note that this is a question, not a statement of fact. David then quotes extensively from his piece, which I had already read several times and which you can find here.
I then sent him this message: Dear David,
You’re too loyal to acknowledge that Wilson was your source.
You’re also too honest to deny it.
Allbest,
Cliff David replied: You wrote:
You’re too loyal to acknowledge that Wilson was your source.
You’re also too honest to deny it.
All I can say again is, nice try. When I spoke to Joe Wilson after the Novak leak, he would not tell me whether or not his wife worked at the CIA. He spoke only in hypotheticals. He said, imagine if she did, what would this leak mean, AND imagine if she did not, what would this leak mean. So I do deny that he told me because he did not. That's the truth, the absolute truth. No spin. No parsing. No stonewalling. If you find any wiggle room in this response, let me know and I will unwiggle it. And you can believe it or not.
David
PS Mind if I write about our correspondence?
My final message to him: Dear David,
You’re a good reporter. You know when a hypothetical is really a confirmation.
When Wilson told you: “So, hypothetically, here’s what it what it would mean if my wife were a top-secret agent--which I’m not saying she was; and here’s what it would mean if she had been on undercover on dangerous missions tracking WMD purchases abroad--which, of course, I’m not saying ever happened; and here’s what the consequence would be for her extensive network of sources if she were exposed, though I’m still not confirming anything…”--you knew exactly what he was telling you with a wink and a nudge.
Bob Novak did not know that Plame was or had ever been an undercover agent. His sources didn’t tell him that. He did not write that she was an undercover agent. If he had known she was a secret agent of any sort he says he would never have published her name.
Novak has maintained all that consistently. I’ve disagreed with Bob Novak on many issues and on many occasions. I’ve debated him publicly--on the war in Iraq, among other things, where he probably is more in agreement with Wilson than with me.
But one thing about Bob Novak: He’s been around this town about 50 years. He’s a patriot. He would not knowingly burn a spy. And he doesn’t lie. You don’t stay a major media figure for half a century if you’re a liar.
Let me say this clearly: Novak did not know and did not reveal that Plame had been an undercover operative.
You were the first to reveal that.
You did that hypothetically, of course. You were just asking a question, of course. You didn’t know whether she was or was not what you called “a top-secret operative”--but you thought it sure would be interesting if you raised that possibility.
And how much more interesting if you accused the Bush administration of purposely leaking that information as a way to punish Wilson--which has been Wilson’s allegation all along-- since he claimed (falsely it turns out) Cheney’s office sent him to Niger.
You and I know that he shared all this with you and more--hypothetically, of course.
You got this snowball rolling, David. And it produced the avalanche you and Wilson expected it would. I give you full credit for that.
You certainly may write about our correspondence.
I may do that, too.
Allbest,
Cliff"
Perhaps he did not need to tell you since it may have already been common knowledge in some social circles.
Tell it to Dan Rather.
I think that Plame should have fired long ago for telling Joe Wilson that she was CIA "agent" on their third date...
IF she was at all supposed to be someone she wasn't---her ex-boss says that she was posing as a student or something in Europe at the time, but WAS NOT deep undercover---shouldn't she have been a little more discreet about her position?
Another relevant article:
.
Lawyer: Identity act may not apply in CIA leak case ("must read")
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1443330/posts
SANFORD: No, I think it's pretty clear that what Karl Rove said to Time magazine's Matthew Cooper doesn't even come close to the kind of knowing violation that is required by the act. Really, the act really requires an intent to harm national security, and that certainly can't be said in these circumstances, I think.
I think a covert agent under the act has to be someone who has deep cover, who is working abroad. Not just traveling abroad, but is stationed and working abroad sometime within the last five years.
And USA Today reported that Joe Wilson's book has even made -- if you do the timeline, the Wilsons were married in 1998. There's some question whether she was even abroad during the last five years.
She really had a desk job at [CIA headquarters in] Langley [Virginia] and was driving in and out of the CIA every day. That's not exactly deep cover.
SANFORD: Well, ... it is worth remembering that when Robert Novak, the columnist, disclosed her identity in his column, he had called the CIA to tell them he was going to do that, and they didn't stop him.
That would be politically incorrect. /s
The DNC will honor them for their obstructionist foreplay to divert attention.
they tried to set up Rove and the WH???
Naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ... they would never try that .. / HUGE sarcasum >
Even worse, Valerie Plame exposed the name of a CIA front company - "Brewster-Jennings & Associates" - in her donation to Al Gore in 2000. She was the only person in the CIA to use that company name for personal political activities.
Valerie Plame is an idiot who should have been fired from the CIA years ago.
I want to see Joe Wilson frog marched from the headquarters of CNN or wherever he holes up...
CIA guy (retired) who worked with Plame said it was a dummy company and existed solely as an extra telephone line on her desk. This guy said she was under "light cover", which probably means the agency considered her too risky to be a real covert agent, because of her husband's big blabbery mouth.
The weird case of the alleged CIA "leak" This is a summary of my notes concerning this completely twisted tale of politics vs. US national security. I'm beginning to wonder if Plame is a mole and should be investigated. I already believe that Wilson himself outted his wife, who's job as an anyalist - NOT A CULVERT AGENT - at the CIA was no secret.
Novak's original statement, from Mission to Niger, originally published July 14:
"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. 'I will not answer any question about my wife,' Wilson told me."
**This paragraph does not say two senior administration officials said Plame was a CIA operative. It says they told him SHE pushed to have her husband sent to Niger.**
Original article: Mission to Niger
July 16, David Corn writes in The Nation:
"Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?"
Later in the article, Corn states "wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer."
**David Corn appears to get the prize for first reporter to claim Plame is a culvert operative rather than a paper pusher. Novak certainly never made the claims Corn does.**
Corn's article in which the analyst suddenly becomes a culvert agent
Wilson says in an interview: . "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words."
He doesn't appear to be IMPLICATING Rove. Perhaps he's just honestly telling the world part of his democrat agenda.
Questions which need to be answered:
1: Obviously, who leaked Plame's occupation?
A: WHICH occupation was "leaked" by the CIA?
a1: Plame's WIDLEY KNOWN occupation as a non-covert analyst OR
a2: Her secondary occupation as a covert op?
(*these questions are the most important, IMO, because if the CIA confirmed Plame as a paper pusher of no particular import, than WILSON HIMSELF is the most likely source of the leak that she was also a covert operative*)
2: Why did this story stay totally under the radar for two whole months before breaking like a wave of someone else's sewerage on a foreign shore?
3: Is Wilson's Middle East Institute one and the same as Clark's weirdly fragmanted and utterly goofly claim that it was a "Mideast think tank" that called him to tell him to link 9/11 with Saddam?
Clark to Tim Russert, NBC's meet the press:
CLARK: "There was a concerted effort during the fall of 2001, starting immediately after 9/11, to pin 9/11 and the terrorism problem on Saddam Hussein."
RUSSERT: "By who? Who did that?"
CLARK: "Well, it came from the White House, it came from people around the White House. It came from all over. I got a call on 9/11. I was on CNN, and I got a call at my home saying, 'You got to say this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein.' I said, 'But--I'm willing to say it, but what's your evidence?' And I never got any evidence." ---
Clark retraction to the New York Times, whare the think tank makes it's appearance:
"I would like to correct any possible misunderstanding of my remarks on 'Meet the Press' quoted in Paul Krugman's July 15 column, about 'people around the White House' seeking to link Sept. 11 to Saddam Hussein," Clark wrote to the Times.
"I received a call from a Middle East think tank outside the country, asking me to link 9/11 to Saddam Hussein. No one from the White House asked me to link Saddam Hussein to Sept. 11. Subsequently, I learned that there was much discussion inside the administration in the days immediately after Sept. 11 trying to use 9/11 to go after Saddam Hussein.
Statement By George J. Tenet Director Of Central Intelligence, 7/11/03: "There was fragmentary intelligence gathered in late 2001 and early 2002 on the allegations of Saddam’s efforts to obtain additional raw uranium from Africa, beyond the 550 metric tons already in Iraq. In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA’s counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region [Joe Wilson] to make a visit to see what he could learn. He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerian officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office. The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."
This is not what Wilson is telling us on his dozen or so daily appearances on TV a day.
9/09 Novak: Administration didn't 'call me to leak this'
"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this," Novak said on CNN's "Crossfire," of which he is a co-host. "There is no great crime here."
"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 operative and not in charge of undercover operators."
Novak's CNN denial of Wilson's leak charge
Also from September 9th, Wilson himself backpedals pretty hard in an interview on Good Morning America: "In one speech I gave out in Seattle not too long ago, I mentioned the name Karl Rove. I think I was probably carried away by the spirit of the moment."
"I don't have any knowledge that Karl Rove himself was either the leaker or the authorizer of the leak."
(Wilson lie number one: first it was Rove and now it isn't.)
Then, like a little kid who just HAS to justify being naughty, Wilson adds: "I have great confidence that, at a minimum, [Rove] condoned it and certainly did nothing to shut it down."
ABC News article (buried way down at the bottom of the hype)
Newsmax (better written article)
"But most investigations of leaks in Washington never succeed: Who leaked the name of the CIA's Tel Aviv director to the New Republic in 1998? Who leaked Anita Hill's story to the press in 1991? Who leaked the investigation of former U.S. Rep. William Gray to the press in 1989?"
"The CIA reports classified intelligence leaks to the Justice Department weekly."
Wilson lie number two, and it's a whopper:
(July 22) Wilson said yesterday that journalists for the three major broadcast networks told him they had been contacted by someone in the White House. He named only one, Andrea Mitchell, NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent, who interviewed Wilson and reported on July 22 that he said the administration was "leaking his wife's covert job at the CIA to reporters." Mitchell could not be reached for comment yesterday.
(July 22) Wilson said yesterday that journalists for the three major broadcast networks told him they had been contacted by someone in the White House. He named only one, Andrea Mitchell, NBC's chief foreign affairs correspondent, who interviewed Wilson and reported on July 22 that he said the administration was "leaking his wife's covert job at the CIA to reporters." Mitchell could not be reached for comment yesterday.
TOM BROKAW: NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell has been identified by some as one of the recipients of a leak about the undercover agent. But tonight, Mitchell said that was not the case, that her first discussion with an administration official about the matter was after the Robert Novak column was published. And that discussion, she said, was off the record.
Plamer is not an undercover operative, her name and job with the CIA are common knowledge, Wilson is the only source of this whole "leak" story, he lied about Rove being behind the leask and he lied about Andrea Mitchell having been one of the journalists allegedly contacted when Novak was allegedly contacted. < a href="http://www.townhall.com/columnists/GuestColumns/May20030717.shtml">Background info on Iraq and uranuim from Cliff May
Interesting info on Wilson's antics, including his stated belief that Iraq did have chem weapons "like Mr. Bush" before the Iraq war, AND his plans for a MOVIE about this affair.
** Mr. Wilson told The Washington Post he and his wife are already discussing who will play them in a movie
Novak revealed on October 2nd that Plame worked for a possibly fictitious CIA front company. The company existed on paper, but it's not known if it actually existed. Novak revealed the name of the company because Plame listed herself as an employee of it when she donated $2,000 to Al Gore's 2000 campain, which is $1000 over the legal limit. The donation was altered to look like one $1000 dollar donation apeice from Wilson and his wife. Wilson also donated $1000 to the Bush campaign.
Wilson and Plame have hired a lwyer to sue anyone arrested for leaking...but they want to sue for defamation of character. Not endangerment. Defamation of character.
I think they mean Novak!
When Wilson confesses..I'll pay attention to what he says..
Corn is just covering...
Corn needs to stock up on "Cornhuskers Lotion".
Sounds like he is going to need it where should go.
In it, I exposed the outline of what appears to have been an attempt to set up the Bush administration about the Iraq-Niger-yellowcake matter. To this day, key details of the case that continue to emerge only fill in gaps in what I, and other FReepers who've paid attention to this case since the 10/2/03 thread, have known all along. It's great that people like Cliff May are finally digging into the Corn angle. Now if only they would work it out further.
Cliff May's articles the last couple of days both confirm what I had figured out on my own in 2003, and they add some important, heretofore missing detail. In 2003, this is part of what I wrote about the David Corn role...
Hungry for a Bush scandal, the Left leaps
The first charge that the Bush administration "outed" Wilson's wife in order to "punish" him comes in a piece by David Corn in The Nation on July 16—a scant two days after Novak's piece appeared. Titled, "A White House Smear," the piece begins with a suitably inflammatory Leftist spin:
"Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security-and break the law-in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?...It sure looks that way, if conservative journalist Bob Novak can be trusted."
Of course, Novak neither said nor implied any such thing, but pointing that out wouldn't suit Corn's purpose. Instead, without a shred of evidence, Corn claims, "Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer." Corn then takes the Wilson statement about it "not being about me," and turns it into, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech." In quotes, no less. So was this a new quote directly from Wilson to Corn, or did Corn deliberately rephrase the original quote in Novak's piece to make it stronger from Corn's point of view? In other words, is Wilson embellishing his tale, or is Corn lying?
In a presumed attempt to write sympathetically of Mrs. Plame-Wilson, Corn then goes on to add insult to a presumed injury by bringing the couple's children into the story: "So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife—who is the mother of three-year-old twins—works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it."
(How does Corn know they have three-year-old twins, by the way?)
Hypothetically lets' say that Plame got Mr. Wilson the gig to Africa, then she went undercover and joined him for drinks in the bar and a little undercover work at the hotel. Hypothetically she could then write whatever she wanted in HIS report just to make itlooklike he'd done something ....... Hypothetically, it would make a nice second honeymoon/vacation at tax payers expense. SO I wonder which name she used.....What we need is access to the flight registrar and hotel guests.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.