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."
This bureaucratic mediocrity cannot even count to one.
A couple of other things about the portion of the press conference you posted:
1) Fitz says: "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. ..."
But it is more than just knowingly transmitting, the Act also requires that "the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation..." Does Fitz also have proof that Libby believed that by mentioning Wilson's wife that harm could come to the US? Fitz also says Valerie's job was classified, but he does not claim in the indictment that Libby knew it was classified. Sure, people can say 'well Fitz should have known that it could have been classified'. And maybe that is fair, but that is a long way from knowingly releasing classified info that could harm the U.S.
2) When Fitz refers to CIA damage, he basically says he has no idea if real damage was done. He says there could have been damage and he says "..compromises the ability to recruit people." Is that the best he can come up with? There was a posting the other day that said the CIA has not even done an official damage assessment. If that is true, then how important could the CIA think Vla's identity is. And on CNN this week Bob Woodard mentions a damage assessment that shows no real harm (i.e. no agents in danger, no agents pulled out of assignments). It would be hard to Fitz to prove the "harm to the U.S." in the Espionage act when there appears to be no actual harm.
I beleive that Fitz did not bring the Intel Identities Act or Espionage Act charges not because Libby "threw sand in the umpires face" but because Fitz knows he could not come close to meeting the burden of proof.
This may have been the most troubling and insightful comment Fitzgerald made. The Wilson trip to Niger, from how he was chosen, to his lack of qualifications, to the Pincus article in June, 2003 which said the results were not provided to the White House, to Wilson's ultimate political use...how could Fitzgerald show any reverence or treat Plame as an innocent patriot serving her country?
I think you're right - that Fitz just wants people to ASSUME that she was covert. Re-reading the indictment, he never uses the word covert, but in paragraph 1D, it states "the responsibilities of certain CIA employees required that their association with the CIA be kept secret; as a result, the fact that these individuals were employed by the CIA was classified" and then says that the disclosure of information about these "certain CIA employees" could endanger the safety of CIA employees, etc.. It then goes on to say that Plame's "employment status was classified" and was "not common knowledge outside the intelligence community."
He's wanting people to fall for this fallacious argument:
---If A then B {If (a CIA employee is covert and the disclosure of their identity could breach national security) then (their status is classified)}
---B {(Plame's status was classified)}
---Therefore A {Therefore (Plame was covert and the disclosure of her identity could breach national security)}