Actually, the Libby indictment makes it pretty clear that Fitzgerald thinks she WAS COVERT prior to this whole episode. The judgment that he hasn't made is whether anyone violated the IIPA by discussing her with reporters - that would require him to determine that people knowingly gave up classified information, which his investigation hasn't yet determined.
GJ expired on Friday. Investigation is over. Did he en panel a new one?
AFAIK, he has only said her employment with the CIA was classified information, probably because he has the memo with the paragraph that she was a CIA employee marked secret. That doesn't mean she was covert.
I do not see that in the indictment filed. Fitzgerald did not speak about it in his press conference. Where do you get your infomration?
I just think that it should have been the first order of business and provided to the public. If Valerie Plame was NOT a covert agent, this issue would have no publicity. It is the speculation that she is covert (based on the lying Joseph Wilson) that fuels the media fire.
I think he wants to give that impression but I doubt she was Covert. I believe just about everyone at the CIA has some type of classified status even desk jockeys. So pretty much anything the CIA lies about or sets up can not really be set straight by the record and Fitzgerald is playing it for all its worth.
No. First of all, he could have found out she was not covert in one day. All he had to do was either ask her superiors at CIA and/or subpoena her employment records. Secondly, there's more to the law than whether or not she was covert. She would have had to have been overseas on a covert operation within five years of the Novak article. Didn't happen. Even Wilson admitted that didn't happen.
You are jumping to that conclusion, and I think Fitz wants the casual reader to jump to that conclusion.
But in fact, Fitz tries to distance himself from the assertion of "Plame was covert."
QUESTION: Can you say whether or not you know whether Mr. Libby knew that Valerie Wilson's identity was covert and whether or not that was pivotal at all in your inability or your decision not to charge under the Intelligence Identity Protection Act?Those are ALL of the mentions of the word "covert" from Fitz' presser on Thursday.FITZGERALD: Let me say two things. Number one, I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond this: that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward.
I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. And all I'll say is that, look, we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent. ...
QUESTION: There's a saying in Washington that it's not the crime, it's the cover up.
Can you just tell us whether if Mr. Libby had testified truthfully, would he be being charged in this crime today?
Also, how do you decide if whether or not to charge Official A?
And also, it's a little hazy I think for many of us -- you say that Valerie Plame's identity was classified, but you're making no statement as to whether she was covert.
QUESTION: Was the leaking of her identity in and of itself a crime?
FITZGERALD: OK. I think you have three questions there. I'm trying to remember them in order. I'll go backwards.
And all I'll say is that if national defense information which is involved because her affiliation with the CIA, whether or not she was covert, was classified, if that was intentionally transmitted, that would violate the statute known as Section 793, which is the Espionage Act. ...
[Comment: this statute, 18 USC 793 is VERY different from the "outing the covert agent" statute, 50 USC 421 et seq. What Fitgeral is saying here is that pulling Plame's HR file to determine wheter her status is covert, desk jockey, who she reports to, etc. might be a violation of the Espionage Act. He is saying that it is illegal to have the paperwork that determines one way or theother, Plame's status vis-a-vis "covert."]
QUESTION: Just to go back to your comments about the damage that was done by disclosing Valerie Wilson's identify, there are some critics who have suggested that she was not your traditional covert agent in harm's way, that she was working, essentially, a desk job at Langley.
Just to answer those critics, can you elaborate on, aside from the fact that some of her neighbors may now know that she was -- and the country, for that matter -- that she was a CIA officer, what jeopardy, what harm was there by disclosing her identity?
FITZGERALD: I will say this. I won't touch the specific damage assessment of what specific damage was caused by her compromise -- I won't touch that with a 10-foot pole. I'll let the CIA speak to that, if they wish or not.
I will say this: To the CIA people who are going out at a time that we need more human intelligence, I think everyone agrees with that, at a time when we need our spy agencies to have people work there, I think just the notion that someone's identity could be compromised lightly, to me compromises the ability to recruit people and say, "Come work for us, come work for the government, come be trained, come invest your time, come work anonymously here or wherever else, go do jobs for the benefit of the country for which people will not thank you, because they will not know," they need to know that we will not cast their anonymity aside lightly.
FITZGERALD: And that's damage. But I'm not going to go beyond that.
[Comment: This is all gratuitous generality, and Fitzgerald does nothing to connect the general statement to the case at hand - the casual listener is invited to make the link in his own mind.]
There is NO allegation in the indictment that Plame is, or ever was "covert." The term "covert" means, in short, that the person is not known to have ANY relationship with the CIA. By defination, a person who is known to be employed by the CIA cannot be "covert CIA."
In any practical sense, her cover was blown when he was appointed ambassador.