Posted on 07/13/2005 7:06:10 AM PDT by stocksthatgoup
Once again, the Liberal media is trying to ramp up hysteria over the "outing" of Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame. The problem with their frenzy is that there's no substance to the charge, once all the angry flailing and faux outrage are done with.....
In his 2004 book, Wilson revealed that "It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as 'Baghdad Bob,' who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade -- an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium." ................
....Apparently, Valerie Plame ceased to be a covert agent when her cover was blown years earlier. The CIA believed that Aldrich Ames evealed her role, along with many other operatives, to the KGB before his arrest in 1994...............
...What no one talks about is the reason Wilson was picked to go to Niger...... Plame wanted Wilson to investigate the British claim because of his vocal antipathy to President Bush and his staunch opposition to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. He was sent not to gather evidence and form a conclusion, but because his conclusion was foreordained. Whoever sent him was attempting to exert an undue influence over America's foreign policy by sending someone who would ignore evidence contrary to his opinion.
Do we really want former secret agents playing political games to determine the outcomes of investigations before they're even begun? Investigations the outcomes of which may determine the nation's course in wartime?
Once again, Liberals and their pet Democrats have chosen the wrong hill to die on. While ignoring the real problem we narrowly avoided, they try to whip us into an attack on someone who, even if their accusations are true, commited no crime.
Joe Mariani
(Excerpt) Read more at mensnewsdaily.com ...
exactly. no liberal is gonna do jail time for republican in this administration. she is obviously protecting one of their own.
exactly. no liberal is gonna do jail time for republican in this administration. she is obviously protecting one of their own.
exactly. no liberal is gonna do jail time for republican in this administration. she is obviously protecting one of their own.
exactly. no liberal is gonna do jail time for republican in this administration. she is obviously protecting one of their own.
You can say that again, LOL!
"Since we know (or are at least fairly certain) that Plame was not working undercover at the CIA and had not been for quite some time, the MSM ranting about "outing a CIA undercover agent" is just so much baloney"
Duh...
1. The CIA asked DOJ to open a criminal investigation.
2. If Plame was not undercover, no crime was committed.
3. Presumably, the CIA would know if one of their employees was undercover.
4. Ergo, Plame was still undercover. QED
"In CIA-talk "operative" could infer that she was employed by the "Operations" branch and those are the real spy-guys at the Agency."
Except Lexis demonstrates that Novak has ONLY used the word "operative" when he is describing people he KNOWS are intelligence agents. He has NEVER used the phrase "political operative." He knew exactly who and what Plame was.
There's a reason that at least five other journalists contacted by Rove (or whoever) all DECLINED to publish the information: because publication was legally, morally, and ethically WRONG. But Novak published...
Novak burned a NOC. He also exposed her cover firm as a front - endangering any other agents who ever used that cover.
Damn traitor.
Ergo Pergo
Except for one thing - Plame was not undercover. There are now reliable sources that have reported that including Bill Gertz of the Washington Times. You will have to do better than some very loose logic based on the CIA asking DOJ to open a criminal investigation. You don't know what their motives might have been nor what orders they had received from the White House.
Then why didn't they tell him that when he called the CIA before printing the article? And why isn't he in jail?
I had to laugh last night on the news (cBS) in ploy to get people to feel sorry for her, added at the end of the segment that she was having to sleep on the floor on a cot becuase the jail was overcrowded and they didnt have a cell for her yet. LOL~ pooooor thing shes being treated like an average inmate!! THE HUMANITY!!!! of course they didnt mention that there were prolly a dozen other inmates in the same situation. Its common place.
"And why isn't he in jail?"
Because Novak was not cleared to know about Plame's status, and so is not liable. In this case, the leakee is not the criminal, although publishing was an ethical lapse of stomach-churning proportions. The leakers, on the other hand...
Traitors.
"Except for one thing - Plame was not undercover."
From Mr. Gertz in today's Wash Times:
"Mrs. Plame was a "nonofficial covert" CIA officer, although U.S. intelligence officials say her identity was compromised twice before columnist Robert Novak identified her in a piece about Mr. Wilson."
Again - if her identity was no long secret, why was she still considered a NOC? Burning her cover was WRONG.
Traitors.
You can't burn ashes. Her cover was long gone. If she was a NOC then she was a NOC in name only. Her association with the CIA was known to Castro, the Russians and, apparently half of Washington DC.
Whether fact, guesswork, misdirection or otherwise, it's been discussed for at least a couple years.
The terms probably have some formal definitions that aren't commonly adhered to. The general point is that CIA spooks don't work out of CIA HQ in Langley. People who drive in and out of that compound are known to be CIA employees, no way or reason to keep that fact covert.
She was removed from covert status due to those compromises and was assigned as an analyst at the DC office. Therefore, even if Rove had leaked her name, which he didn't, she was not a covert agent and is therefore not covered under the 1982 law.
I will refer you back to another article for confirmation that she was not considered to be covered under that law by the individual who drafted the law itself, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing:
Said Toensing: "The Novak column and the surrounding facts do not support evidence of criminal conduct."
For Plame's outing to have been illegal, the one-time deputy AG explained, "her status as undercover must be classified." Also, Plame "must have been assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years."
Since in neither case does Plame meet those criteria, Toensing argued: "There is a serious legal question as to whether she qualifies as 'covert.'"
The law also requires that the celebrated non-spy's outing take place by someone who knew the government had taken "affirmative measures to conceal [the agent's] relationship" to the U.S.
Toensing said that's unlikely.
Correction: George Tenet asked the DOJ to open a criminal investigation. Tenet was a Clinton hold-over. Then Democratic leaders in Congress demanded the appointment of the special counsel to take over the investigation from the Justice Department.
Just Google "50 USC 426". This is the legal definition of "covert agent." "Operative" really has no meaning legally.
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