Posted on 11/04/2005 10:28:25 AM PST by MikeA
Ms. Plame's identification as a CIA employee was not a crime because she was not a covert agent -- a readily ascertainable fact that should have concluded Special Counsel Fitzgerald's investigation almost as soon as it got underway.
The law at issue here is the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), which makes it a federal crime, in certain circumstances, to reveal the identity of a covert agent.
The law was not designed to shield the CIA or its employees from all public scrutiny or criticism, since it criminalizes only those disclosures which "clearly represent a conscious and pernicious effort to identify and expose agents with the intent to impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States."
Congress did not, as a result, forbid the identification of anyone serving in a "classified" status. Genuinely covert agents alone were to be protected -- "only those identities which it has determined to be absolutely necessary to protect for reasons of imminent danger to life or significant interference with vital intelligence activities." Thus, under the act, criminal sanctions can be imposed only if the identity revealed is (1) of someone whose status is classified and who is serving, or has served within five years, outside the U.S.; and (2) where the alleged leaker knows that the U.S. is "taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States."
Ms. Plame simply did not meet the IIPA's demanding test. She was not undercover overseas, and had not evidently been posted abroad since at least 1997. She was living under her own name and working a desk job at headquarters. To the extent that her job status was "not common knowledge outside the intelligence community" as asserted by Mr. Fitzgerald, this is irrelevant.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I wish everyone had a subscription to the Online Wall Street Journal so you could read this piece above which is only a snippet and Victoria Toensing's great piece on the CIA needing to be investigated for its role in the Plame outting from yesterday's edition.
This great piece above puts the lie to Joe Wilson's smarmy claim on 60 Liberal Minutes on Sunday that Plame's career had suffered irrevocable damage. She wasn't a covert agent Joe! Can you EVER stop lying? Loser...
Have you seen the recent stories about Presidential directives that might be active in the case even if the law wasn't broken? I wonder if there is any truth to them. Supposedly Clinton's executive order doesn't require intent, only disclosure and thus the article claimed it might effect Rove.
Well, i'm not a subscriber, so the online WSJ can go take a crap.
But does a presidential directive, or executive order carry the force of law? I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted for disobeying a directive.
Good article. I just wish there was talk like this while the investigation was going on a year ago. If this was so "readily obtainable", why didn't the WSJ (or anyone else for that matter) talk about this then?
Or talk about the fact that she was already "outed" before all this?
It's times like this where I have to think two things: Either I'm incredibly dense, and missing something basic, or the entire world is just stupid.
"But does a presidential directive, or executive order carry the force of law? I've never heard of anyone being prosecuted for disobeying a directive."
I'm not sure - the article said it put Roves' security clearence at risk - but it was also clearly biased against the administration so who knows...
I have a minor disagreement with this line of argument. The CIA asserted that classified information was leaked. They didn't specifically assert a claim under this one statute.
Fitzgerald determined pretty quickly that Plame's name WAS in fact classified, by the CIA. He then had to determine if anybody who provided her name was guilty of an illegal disclosure of classified information.
He has concluded they weren't. But, in order to know that, he had to determine every person who disclosed her name, and why and how they did it. That meant he had to talk to administration officials.
When Libby supposedly told him that he hadn't given her name, but instead had heard her name from the reporters, that would mean Libby didn't violate the law by disclosling classified information.
However, Fitzgerald then received information from others in the administration that suggested Libby was not telling the truth when he said he first heard her name from reporters. So he got the reporters to testify under oath to find out what was really said.
That took a year to get through, because of legal fights.
While I disagree with Fitzgerald's final actions, it is hard to see why or how he could have stopped the investigation while this issue was under investigation.
I think this is what Fitzgerald meant when he said he wished this could have ended a year ago, and his stupid Baseball analogy. What he was saying that if Libby had said he heard the name in meetings, rather than not, then Libby's statements would have not raised a flag, Fitz wouldn't have had any reason to disbelieve Libby's claims from the media, probably wouldn't have had to get the media side, and this all could have been over last year without "anybody going to jail".
I don't know why Libby seemed to claim he hadn't learned her name in meetings, it could have been simple forgetfulness, but that forgetfulness could very well have cost us a year of investigation.
The problem here is that you are trying to rebut Dhimmicrats using facts, logic and law.
They don't believe in any of those three unless they can twist it to their advantage.
The only way to stop this mess is to find an intelligent, Republican prosecutor who will bring charges against some of these people.
Its time to do a Martha on Wilson -- some where at some time he lied to some govt person.
Ditto for whoever at the CIA did the referal. They knew the law (and if not it is no excuse) and knew that Plame was not covert. Whoever sent a memo to the Justice Dept lied to a govt official.
"Good article. I just wish there was talk like this while the investigation was going on a year ago. If this was so "readily obtainable", why didn't the WSJ (or anyone else for that matter) talk about this then?"
The Journal actually had a piece about a year ago that I wish I still had possession of which was written by one of the former Senate staffers, a Democrat, who helped draft the Identities Act and he said much the same as this article did that the law was never intended to be used this way, and really dressed down Fitzgerald for keeping this stink bomb of an investigation going. He also made the point that if the law was always applied the way Fitzgerald is interpreting it, a friend, family member or neighbor could be jailed just for noting the employment of a friend or family member working for the CIA.
As this writer pointed out, the law was actually drafted in the 70s in response to leftist journalists (ironic that the media now loves this law when it was targetted at them) who were intentionally outting CIA agents to undermine CIA operations, thus the intent of the law focusing on INTENTIONAL efforts to undermine CIA ops, not just mentioning the name of a pencil pusher at Langley which is all Plame was. But the media has hypocritically forgotten or neglected to mention that this law was directed at their own misdeeds in the 70s to address the efforts of so many of them in an energized, anti-government, anti-military, anti-US media culture to undermine US national security.
There's an FR thread posted today in which Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely indicates that Joe Wilson exposed Val's CIA employment to him in 2002 when they were both appearing on the same TV program.
Don't worry, Chris Matthews will set the record straight on Hardball tonite.
Interesting, I didn't know the origins of the law.
Should have been shut down early on because she was not a covert operative as defined by the statute.
The investigation does not specifically exist to indict anyone under that statute or any other particular statute. They could probably indict the leaker on theft of government property.
Roosevelt's Executive Order stripping US Citizens the right to own gold carried a 10 year and $10,000 penalty. I don't know if anyone actually went to prison over it.
So when the president drafts his order or directive, he includes the penalty as part of it?
How in hell did we get to a place like this in our country? It would be SAD if it weren't so very, VERY dangerous!!
Excellent! The case is building that the Washington elite knew who Plame was all along. Therefore, Libby was NOT lying when he said he had first learned of it from journalists! He may have misremembered WHICH journalists he heard it from, but that does not rise to the level of a crime. The defense team needs to start following up on these leads, so that Ted Wells can put a string of such witnesses on the stand.
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