Posted on 10/18/2005 7:24:27 AM PDT by finnman69
WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff apparently gave New York Times reporter Judith Miller (search) inaccurate information about where Valerie Plame worked in the CIA, a mistake that could be important to the criminal investigation.
Miller's notes say I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (search) told her on July 8, 2003, that the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control unit.
Plame, Wilson's wife, never worked for WINPAC (search), which is on the overt side of the CIA. She worked on the CIA's secret side, the directorate of operations, according to three people familiar with her work for the spy agency.
The three all spoke on condition of anonymity, citing Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's ongoing grand jury investigation into the leak of Plame's identity in 2003.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Who spread the word she worked for Winpac? Even if it's incorrect, that's not an outing.
Let me guess: The "three people familiar" are Larry Johnson, Plame herself, and her boss, right?
This story has "Larry Johnson" written all over it. It seems obvious to me that LJ - right from the start - has been in cahoots with Wilson and others to bring down the administration. Very early on, LJ collared Robert Novak walking down the street and engaged him with questions about Wilson/Plame, then went straight to Wilson - his buddy - with what Novak said. Wilson has publicly bragged that he wants to bring down the admin, so that is clearly LJ's objective as well.
Joseph Wilson is the conspirator here.
Joseph Wilson claimed the VP sent him to Niger. FALSE
Joseph Wilson claimed there was no Iraqi attempt to buy uranium. FALSE
Joseph Wilson claimed Karl Rove "outed" his wife. FALSE
Joseph Wilson created this situation through his lies and should be prosecuted for at least the cost of this investigation.
The incorrect information about where Plame worked in the CIA could be a significant lead for investigators. Accurate information presumably can come from any number of sources, while inaccurate information might more easily be traceable to a single document or a particular meeting, suggested Lance Cole, former Democratic counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee and now a law professor at Pennsylvania State University's Dickinson School of Law.
The inaccurate information could suggest Libby thought Plame was not an undercover spy, and therefore didn't know her identity was classified. The incorrect piece of information could lead back to a source or sources who were engaging in a larger effort to undercut Wilson's credibility. Or, as former top FBI official Danny Coulson suggests, it could simply mean that Libby's information came from "dinner talk" involving people who were uninformed.
Presidential aides "had access to the official information and if they had used that, you would think they would have had the right stuff," said Coulson.
In her first-person account, published Sunday, recounting her meetings with Libby, Miller described her July 8, 2003, conversation with Libby and the point at which it turned to Plame.
"My notes contain a phrase inside parentheses: 'Wife works at Winpac.' Mr. Fitzgerald asked what that meant," Miller wrote.
"I told the grand jury that I believed that this was the first time I had heard that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for Winpac," she wrote. "In fact, I told the grand jury that when Mr. Libby indicated that Ms. Plame worked for Winpac, I assumed that she worked as an analyst, not as an undercover operative."
Does this get Libby off the hook? fitzgerald is trying to find out where Libby got the WINPAC info from. I'm guessing it's NOT from anywhere in the administration.
When Novak was approached on the street: THAT's the day that Novak said: "Am I getting set up? I'll make the first move and he wrote the column carefully using the word "operative" and meaning Dem Operative." I'm betting that Wilson knew that Novak knew Valerie before she married Joe...when they were an item in Washington and was "testing" Novak via his buddy.
Joe also referred to the forged Uranium documents before they were made available to him. The forgeries are connected with France. I believe I remember that Joe and Valerie flew to France at one point. I do not know if they were married at the time.
Another French connection: Wilson's ex-wife (#2) was a Frog spook.
Someone tried to screw with an election. And it wasn't Rove or Libby.
It doesn't really matter. The whole point is this exonnerates Libby, if true. At worst, he told Miller she worked in a capacity for the CIA that was overt. The whole point of this investigation is whether or not a CIA operative in covert status was "outed". Clearly, Libby didn't do that. This story confirms what those defending the White House have said all along --- that they were merely pointing out that Plame's connections landed Wilson a job for which he wasn't qualified. There was no attempt to "out" her.
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