Posted on 10/18/2005 12:13:44 PM PDT by CT
Rush says there is a rumor on the street that the CIA leak case is about to produce some indictments. He also said it was just a rumor, and did not assign probabilities.
I am suggesting we use this thread to get a single post that establishes key facts around this entire matter. For instance:
1. It is widely believed that Joe Wilson's testimony to the select Senate Committee upon his return from Niger is in conflict with his NYT editorial some months later. If so, it would mean Wilson was lying to either the Senate or American public through his editorial.
Please provide news links that establish Wilson's duplicity.
2. Media has variously reported Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent. However facts established when the case first broke had Plame as a regular staff CIA employee working at Langley for the 5 years prior to allegedly being 'outed.' If so, it would mean the law prohibiting naming covert agents does not apply.
Within the last few weeks the usual media outlets have now started reporting Plame as a covert, Division of Operations employee, with no mention of Plame's most current role, and widely known identity as CIA staff.
Please provide news and other links that establish Plame's less-than-covert identity; also how media has 'airbrushed' key facts in this invetsigation that would put the entire case in doubt.
3. There are a number of circumstances, facts, and related information that makes this a very strange case. One common element, however, is how poorly the liberal media has covered it. In particular, how reporters have used inuendo and a new phenomenon - projection - to write stories with little or no basis in fact. Karl Rove is therefore only the latest example.
Please provide any and all links that establish examples of how poorly the media has performed, as well as key examples of media bias.
If there is anything else worth including, please do. It will be most useful if we can get any and all relevant data linked here.
What 9/11 info did he coverup??
I am going to go out on a limb and make a prediction. The prediction is that the WH is not a target, but people within the CIA are. Not household names, but people acting in the role of (liberal activist) rogues within the CIA, whose goal was to politicize the WMD issue.
Joe Wilson should have reason to be nervous tonight as well.
And the original source of the leak is Mr. Richard Clarke.
What crackpots!! That they would believe that VP Richard Cheney would commit a felony crime against his country shows how sick and blinded by their hatred they are.
Source?
I believe Novak identified them originally in his pertinent article as "in the administration, but not political gunslingers." Ever see Rove or Libby without their holsters firmly in place? LOL
Can't give you one. I thought I saw something to that effect one or two weeks ago here on FR. I checked my email to see if I mailed it to my dear liberal friends but it wasn't in any of my emails. I may have been mistaken in thinking Wilson was recently before the GJ.
Tonight NBC Hardball has decided that indictments will be for a conspiracy that amounts to vindication of the allegation that Bush lied to take us to war. Both David Gergen and Howard Feinstein are hoping for this outcome.
I think it is more likely and desirable that we find the traitors in the CIA. Wilson is such a greedy sleaze, it cracks me up they are pointing fingers at Dick Cheney.
Seems it would be hard to be a covert agent and at the same time married to a former ambassador. How does that work? What foreign national would trust her?
Wait now. The Special Prosecutor has been investigating this for two years! Surely we can assume that the law applies????!!!
"After all, the entire case got started because Joe Wilson WROTE ABOUT HIS TRIP IN THE NY TIMES ! Which means, he broadcast classified info to the whole world !"
You hit the nail on the head as far as I'm concerned. Also, I might add that since the info he was going to verify was probably gleaned through HUMINT, it was very highly classified. Had he been in the military and done this he would be put away for a very long time IMHO.
Question for you Andy. Ms Plame attended DNC fundraisers and had her name published on various websites containing Wilson's biography. Would it be prudent for a person living such a life to behave in such a way?
Seems like "low profile" would be the way to go.
Actually, I have no idea what he's investigating...he was given the freedom to go wherever the facts led. I would think it might be a little bit interesting to Fitzgerald that one of the lead actors (Wilson) is on record referring to documents that didn't exist at the time of his trip, claimed he was sent by Cheney and provided a report that he said he knew went directly to Cheney.
If Wilson was off feeding his story, first anonymously and then in full view, using information from his wife to spice up his story and maybe her name as well to establish his credibility, then again, I think Fitzgerald might find that important.
Just to put this in some perspective and why I care, my brother was a covert agent and we had no idea what he did for a living. He disappeared and for ten years we had no idea what happened to him or even if he was alive. Then one day he reappeared. I know nothing about those days except that he was in North Korea at least once. That's it.
To answer your questions:
1. Valerie Wilson Plame was a Brewster Energy employee - she can pose for whatever magazine covers she wants. Agents sometimes live showy lives. One of my brother's friends is an MI6 agent who was a lead actor on a very popular British television show. Didn't slow him down. I know it seems counter-intuitive but I also know it's true.
2. As I said, all CIA employment is classified, and once someone has been covert, their employment status is ALWAYS classified. That's an entirely seperate issue as to whether they are still covert - that's where you're getting tripped up. Just because she's no longer covert, doesn't mean her employment is no longer classified - it still is. And plenty of covert agents drive to work every day at Langley for years on end.
3. Valerie Plame was apparently considered a real "looker" - someone in the administration called her that. She's not my cup of tea, but in the mid-east tall American blondes are probably a pretty hot item. The CIA probably gave her a very well paid job in the mid-east, and she was expected to date lots of wealthy, well connected men. Because of that, her marrying a former diplomat probably wasn't surprising to the contacts she developed. I have no way of knowing this as fact - it's simply a reflection of what i've learned over the years about how the agency operates.
4. While I don't know this for a fact, the fact that Joe Wilson was given the post he was given in Iraq by Bush Sr, suggests he had high level security clearance. If that's true, it would be legal for Plame to tell him what she did. However, lots of husbands, wives and parents of covert agents have no idea what their loved one does.
So, yes, the last two items are speculation but they are very well informed speculation.
Anyway, I hope that helps. This is a very confusing story, and it's going to take some real work to sort out. I just hope you remember that being an undercover agent is a very dangerous job, and we shouldn't take for granted the sacrifices they make.
It's clear someone somewhere at sometime revealed classified info. What we don't know is whether it was someone in this administration (which there is NO evidence of) or was it someone else? We're waiting to hear what Fitzgerald has to say.
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As I said, all CIA employment is classified, and once someone has been covert, their employment status is ALWAYS classified
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Which leads to two question....
1) If Joe Wilson were so concerned with security, why would he broadcast to the whole world, a trip which his wife was involved in and which should also be classified ( heck, it should be, if not, then his being a "spy" for the USA in Niger would not have been known ).
2) Why isn't Bob Novak, who PUBLISHED the fact of Plame's working as a CIA operative IN A NATIONAL PAPER, in jail ?
Obviously, what Bob Novak did should be a crime if what you said is true. Yet, here he is, free as a bird. Something does not compute.
The trip wasn't classified, so he's free to talk about it. Joe Wilson is publicly known as a member of the State Department, so him doing this job for the US isn't surprising. Because Valerie is known as a Brewster Energy employee, he can talk about whatever he does. That's the thing people keep getting confused about - no one knows she's with the CIA. Her family is on record as saying even they had no idea, and I can tell you from abundant personal experience that the families of NOCs not knowing is the rule, not the exception. Even when you're no longer classified as covert, you never reveal what you used to do.
As for Novak, I suspect he's not in jail because Fitzgerald is far more interested in who gave him the info - that's the person who revealed classified info. I'm not a lawyer so I have no way of knowing if what he did was even illegal.
I'm not terribly worried about anyone having violated that 1982 law Toensing is always going on about. I haven't seen anything to suggest anyone broke the law. But somebody, somewhere at somepoint revealed classified info to Novak and that's the question on the table - who did that?
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no one knows she's with the CIA.
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I highly doubt that.
Even a cursory reading of the Weekly Standard, the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal tells us that her neighbors and friends who know her socially KNOW that she was working with the CIA and going to work everyday at LANGLEY.
WHAT THE NATURE OF HER WORK WAS MIGHT BE CLASSIFIED, but the fact of her being a CIA employee was KNOWN.
I don't think her working with the CIA is a secret, or even revealing this fact is a criminal offense.
And anyone else on this thread should be able to clarify this for us.
The problem with Independent Councels is they tend to MORPH from their original mission into something different and people are indicted not for breaking the actual law in question, but for something else --- perjury, obstruction of justice, lying under oath.
Take Martha Stewart for instance, her crime was NOT that she did Insider Trading ( this was never proven and she was not jailed for this ). Her crime was for the offence of obstruction of justice, which the prosecutor pursued to get at a high profile celebrity.
Hence, this case could well be the same --- a missed statement here, a non-corroborative statement there, something you said that did not jibe with evidence, heck -- even a misplaced memory or a slip of the tongue and VOILA !! you're indicted.
And because of the indictment --- the stigma that goes with it and the fact that you have to leave office because of it becomes a prosecutional victory.
Only one person has gone on record as knowing first hand that her status was an open secret. A lot of people have claimed that, but no one has said that they personally knew before hand except for one former supervisor of hers at the CIA. He was the guy who appeared on Hannity but he later admitted he hadn't been around her in fifteen years. So, I don't know what that's worth. At the time he worked with her, she was covert. He doesn't travel in her social circle so I don't know how he would know.
If it was genuinely an open secret, a lot of people would be coming forward and Fitzgerald's case would have proceeded in a different fashion.
And you're absolutely right about all the other stuff - I was just trying to clear up some of the questions and statements that were completely wrongheaded. Obviously, revealing classified info can be a criminal offense, but we still have no idea where Novak got his info. It's that simple and until we do, it's all pretty meaningless.
Since the writer of the Act says that it does not apply in this case I think I'll go with her.
Yes, that's my point, exactly. Thank you for making it again.
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