Decision ‘08

Fitz Splits, But The Plame Remains The Same

Sorry, Fitz fans, but Patrick has declined to appear before Congress. Never fear, though: shrinking violet Valerie Plame took a break from the Vanity Fair cocktail circuit to explain how her life has just been ruined, ruined, I say:

Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose outing triggered a federal investigation, appeared before the committee and said administration officials “should have been diligent” in protecting her identity.

“The harm that is done when a CIA cover is blown is great,” she said.

Yes, yes, yes…say, haven’t we been over all this before? In the words of Yogi Berra - it’s deja vu all over again…

38 Responses to “Fitz Splits, But The Plame Remains The Same”

1 Paul Dirks Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
This is what I like to refer to as a reality problem. Right-wingers have been insisting to anyone who will listen that she wasn’t covert, but she just testified under oath that she was.

That her identity and role was revealed as part of a coordinated pushback against her husband orchestrated by Mr Cheney is clear to everyone whose been paying attention but remains strangely non-existent in RW circles.

The sad thing is that NO amount of conversation is going to break the impasse.

It’s actually quite fascinating.
2 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Yes, she makes an assertion, one that will no doubt help in her muliti-million dollar civil lawsuit, and it’s prima facie true. You’re right, it is fascinating how no one one on the left questions her veracity on this…
3 peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
There is nothing in her statement which is subject to even the smallest amount of doubt. She was a covert agent working in the counter proliferation division of the CIA. Her identity was a classified state secret. The administration should have protected her covert status, but instead they divulged it in an effort to attack a political enemy. There is great harm done when a covert agent’s identity is revealed. To do so is treasonous. In this particular case, she could no longer pursue the CIA work she was trained for; the cover of the front company she worked for was revealed; and the identities of other covert agents or CIA sources may also have been compromised. What part of this is even arguable?
4 Aaron Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 6:53 pm
Then why wasn’t the leaker, Armitage, prosecuted even after he confessed?
5 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Peter, how come every time we talk about this, you talk as if her covert status were a settled question?

When, in fact, as we’ve discussed in tedious detail, it is anything but?
6 peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
One possible answer regarding Armitage is that he cooperated with the special prosecutor and Libby lied to him. However, that is not the best answer to your question.

By any reasonable definition of the word (to use dictionary.com: “concealed; secret; disguised”) she was a covert agent.

There is a legal definition of covert status which involved length of residency overseas, among other criteria. It is unclear whether Valerie Plame’s status met that legal definition. However, this is a distinction without a difference. Rove, Libby, and others clearly knew that she was a secret agent.

Is your contention that it is fine and dandy for an administration to reveal the identities of CIA operatives provided there may be a legal technicality which makes prosecution difficult? Don’t you think that is a rather low standard?
7 peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
The answer to post five is a paraphrase of Sam Ervin from the Watergate trial: because I speak English. It’s my mother tongue.
8 peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Or a different, less snarky answer: the right will claim all manner of things to create fog and false controversy. We continually hear that everybody who was anybody knew that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. If this is true, why can’t they come up with anyone outside the government who is willing to state that they knew that Valerie Plame was covert before the Novak piece was published?
9 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Peter, you’re being intentionally obtuse. It’s not a partisan assertion that Plame’s covert status is very much unsettled. It’s one of the questions at the heart of Fitzgerald’s investigation - and it’s a point he intentionally laid off of, when it became clear it’s not settled.

Do you understand there is a difference between a CIA agent whose identity is classified and one who is covert?

If you don’t, then you’re not prepared to discuss this issue…
10 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
And Peter, the ‘legal’ definition of covert is the ONLY definition that has any relevance in a legal proceeding.

It’s always back to square one on this issue with you - it’s as if all the posts and comments that came before didn’t exist…
11 peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
I think we are repeating ourselves. Valerie Plame’s identity was both classified and covert. Whether it met the legal definition of covert is unsettled but unimportant. She was a secret agent. The administration revealed her identity in a partisan vendetta. What more do you need to know?
12 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Oh, I see - who cares about legal niceties? You’re not trying to get a job with Alberto Gonzales, are you?…
13 peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:13 pm
OK, the statement that “the ‘legal’ definition of covert is the ONLY definition that has any relevance in a legal proceeding” is the heart of the matter.

Your contention is that because revealing her identity was possibly not illegal, then no harm and no foul.

My contention is that there are many things which may not be illegal but nonetheless are shocking, shameful, and treasonous (in the conventional sense if not the legal sense).

To repeat post six: your contention is that because it is not certain that a statute was violated, therefore gratuitously revealing the identity of a secret agent is hunky dory? Don’t you think this sets a rather low standard for senior government officials?
14 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
And please - the leak came from Armitage! There is at least as much evidence that there was no agenda to reveal her identity as there is that there was, and I’m being generous.

You’re reverting to talking points here…
15 peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Armitage leaked to Woodward and Libby leaked to Miller and others. Both leaks were before the publication of Novak’s article.

Armitage was contrite, cooperated with the prosecutor, and offered to resign. Libby was unyielding, lied to the prosecutor, and got convicted on four counts.

See a difference?
16 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
No, here’s what I see - Armitage knew he was the leaker, and so did Fitzgerald, but they pressed on with an investigation when they knew there was no underlying crime, and now Libby is convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Armitage is no hero - he’s a jackal…
17 Aaron Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Yeah, I can see why Armitage not lying to Fitzgerald would get him off the hook for obstruction of justice or perjury. I don’t see how that would get him off the hook for revealing her, as you assert, covert identity?

Heck, if it were that easy, why didn’t OJ just call up the LA DA and say, “Hey just killed my ex-wife and her boyfriend.” That would have been a lot cheaper than hiring Johnny Cochran.
18 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
All Armitage had to do was go on Meet the Press, say “I’m the leaker, I’m sorry, it was a mistake”, and the whole thing would have been over…
19 peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
You’re bobbing and weaving. The issue is not Armitage’s conduct. The issue is your assertion in the header that there is something false — or at least unverifiable — in Plame’s sworn testimony today. Your assertion is based on the claim that there may not be legal exposure because of arcana regarding the legal definition of a covert agent. My response is that in order to believe this, one must also believe that regardless of how shameful or treasonous an act may be, if it is not technically illegal it’s no harm and no foul. My question again: is this the bar which you feel ought to be set for senior government officials?
20 Aaron Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Yeah! Exposing dishonesty and nepotism at the CIA, that’s such a shameful and treasonous act!
21 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 7:36 pm
Peter, I don’t buy your assertions, that’s all…you paint a very partisan picture of what happened, and much of what you assert is just that - assertions. The Bush Administration was out to discredit Wilson, that was their target. His wife worked at the CIA, and was (it is asserted, though she denies it) heavily involved in the decision to send him to Niger. Joe Wilson made many, many demonstrably false assertions, and the Administration went on the counteroffensive. They were not out to ‘out’ Plame - they were out to discredit her husband (which, by the way, is perfectly legal and ethical when the person you are attempting to discredit is, in fact, lying through his teeth).

Now, it turns out the wife not only worked for the CIA, but had been covert at one time, and her identity was still classified. The person who first put her name in play was Richard Armitage.

Not Dick Cheney, not Karl Rove, not Scooter Libby. What happens next is very much a game of he said, she said…and it’s well past its relevant point

What was accomplished today? What did Plame assert that she hasn’t asserted before? What light was shed?

It was a partisan hearing, aimed at embarrassing the administration. There was no goal beyond that.

And that’s shameful in its own right…
22 Fargus Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070316104030-43341.pdf

But General Hayden and the CIA have cleared these following comments for today’s
hearing.
During her employment at the CIA, Ms. Wilson was under cover.
Her employn’rent status with the CIA was classified information prohibited from disclosure
under Executive Order 12958.
At the time of the publication of Robert Novak’s column on July 14,2003, Ms. Wilson’s
CIA employment status was covert.
This was classified information.
23 Peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
There is nothing here which is partisan or even arguable.

1) “The Bush Administration was out to discredit Wilson:” do you dispute that?

2) She denied under oath today that she was “heavily involved in the decision to send him to Niger.” Nobody has testified under oath that she was involved, nor that she had the authority to send him, nor that she was in the part of the CIA which asked him to go to Niger. But let’s suppose that she pulled a Libby and lied under oath. What possible relevance does this have to the central question of the entire affair: why did the President say the sixteen words in the SOTU which were known to be false?

Let’s review: the President said that the British government learned that Iraq “recently sought” uranium from Niger. However, this is patently false. The purported meeting where Iraq “recently” tried to obtain uranium was four years before the SOTU speech, and uranium was not discussed. Do you dispute this?

Wilson knew that was false, and he said so. I have no idea what the “many, many demonstrably false assertions” Wilson purportedly made were. The Senate committee referred to some ambiguities and possible inconsistencies in things which Wilson said regarding matters which were tangential to the central issue. Let’s review again: the President addressed the nation and made a claim which was demonstrably false. Wilson wrote an op-ed piece which was demonstrably true. Who is lying here?

3) Your contention is that it is “perfectly legal and ethical” to reveal state secrets to discredit your critics?

4) As noted above, both Armitage and Libby revealed Plame’s identity before it was publicly known. What relevance does this have?

5) It’s not a case of he said, she said. It’s a case of one man who was convicted of four counts versus six people who directly contradicted him under oath.
24 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 10:24 pm
Peter, that Senate Committee also concluded there was no evidence of a concentrated effort to unmask Plame…to give you just one of Joe Wilson’s whoppers, here’s a taste:

The Senate’s report on intelligence failures would appear to confirm that Valerie Plame did recommend her husband Joseph Wilson for the mission to Niger. In a memo written to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, she asserted that Wilson had “good relations with both the Prime Minister and the former Minister of Mines [of Niger], not to mention lots of French contacts.” This makes a poor fit with Wilson’s claim, in a recent book, that “Valerie had nothing to do with the matter. She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip.” (It incidentally seems that she was able to recommend him for the trip because of the contacts he’d made on an earlier trip, for which she had also proposed him.)Wilson’s earlier claim to the Washington Post that, in the CIA reports and documents on the Niger case, “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong,” was also false, according to the Senate report. The relevant papers were not in CIA hands until eight months after he made his trip. Wilson now lamely says he may have “misspoken” on this.

(Look up Hitchens Joe Wilson on Google if you want more), But I tire of all this…Patrick Fitzgerald examined all of this, and he brought no charges. You guys can keep coming up with all these explanations for why he didn’t, but the simplest explanation is this: he brought no charges because the crime was not committed…
25 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Peter, you know damn well I didn’t say anything about revealing state secrets - please give me the courtesy of avoiding the ‘gotcha’ game.

Fargus, let’s let the redoubtable Minute Man respond to the Waxman statement:

First, I want a special counsel to indict Waxman for perjury - the relevant Executive Order is 13292, which amended and supplanted 12958 in March 2003, and which was effective immediately (except for section 1.6, related to markings - what are the odds the violation to which he refers is there? Groan. I want a lawyer…).But before we take Mr. Waxman away in chains, let’s talk about his statement. The magic words we are all listening for are “Ms. Plame had covert status under the law as defined by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.” His failure to speak those words speaks volumes - I have no doubt he will gull the NY Times (Mission Accomplished - see below), but folks in the know will see this for the smokescreen it is.

Please - don’t tell me that there would have been vast national security implications if he had said “CIA lawyers who have studied her file have assured me that Ms. Plame had covert status under the IIPA”. There would have been no national security implications to his saying it, it would have strengthened his presentation to say it, yet he did not say it - what reasonable conclusion might one draw?

Telling us that the CIA considered her to be covert as per their employment practices is smoke - the WaPo understood this point this morning (but the Times never will).
26 Mark Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
And now, I leave this issue, because I’m not going to continue to beat my head against a brick wall.

Give Valerie Plame her million dollar book deal and the Martyr of the Century - just please, God, let me hear no more of her or her cheeseball husband!…
27 Peter Says:
March 16th, 2007 at 11:50 pm
Mark, it’s your site and if you want to drop it, that’s certainly fine by me. However, I can’t let posts 24 and 25 go by without the following remarks:

1) Hitchen’s first meme is not only a non sequitor (the fact that she said that Wilson has contacts does not mean that she proposed that the CIA send him — anyone in the world could have proposed sending him, all she did was state a fact) but was disputed in her sworn testimony today. Another CIA person suggested that Wilson go to Niger; he asked Plame who Wilson knew there; at his request, Plame responded to his question in an email detailing those contacts. Nobody has ever testified to the contrary, or given any evidence to support the claim that Plame proposed that Wilson go to Niger. However, this meme lives on, although there is not a shred of evidence to support it — and despite the fact that Wilson gave a perfectly logical explanation in sworn testimony today.

2) The fact that Wilson got the date wrong by eight months is a “whopper?” If so, how would you categorize the sixteen words?

3) The Director of Central Intelligence has confirmed that Wilson is covert. (What more proof could one ask for?) The covert status of a CIA agent is a state secret. Reread your post 21. Am I missing something?

4) The Minute Man also dodges the question asked in posts 6, 13, and 19: let’s suppose for the sake of argument that Plame is not covert under the IIPA because of the arcane requirements of that act. Nonetheless, the administration exposed a covert agent, ended her work, blew the cover from the front organization, and (according to her sworn testimony today) interfered or ended the work of other agents. This was done to discredit her husband, who wrote an op-ed piece whose facts have never been disputed, in an effort to avoid blame for false statements which the President made in the State of the Union speech. Let’s suppose this is not technically illegal. Is this an acceptable standard of conduct for senior government officials?
28 Mark Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 12:27 am
Peter, the reason I have to leave this subject is because you continually make assertions that have not been proven as if they were as plain as the nose on your face. In this, you remind me very much of Frank Rich, so I’m not surprised you’re such a fan of the Times.

I always enjoy your comments, but there usually comes a point on any argument where one side or the other just stubbornly puts down their foot (usually both sides), and we long, long ago reached that on the subject of Valerie Plame.

A case in point is your point number 4, which is a true piece of work - you say let’s suppose Plame is not covert, she’s nevertheless covert, and Joe Wilson’s facts have never been disputed, despite the evidence I just showed you that Hitchens, among others (see Novak, Robert, for one) disputed them. Then you got Plame’s testimony to back up the assertions of…Plame, in a nice bit of circular logic that seems to go right over your head.

Now, in the face of that, what more can I say? You’re capable of contortions that would make Plastic Man proud.

Nevertheless, rebut away, if you wish, that’s why I have open comments, and as I’ve often said, I prefer to have people challenging my viewpoint rather than enforcing some sort of Kos-like clamp on any dissenting view…in other words, nothing personal, I just can’t see what’s to be gained from trodding over the same piece of dirt endlessly…
29 Peter Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 9:40 am
One could insist until the cows come home that the moon is made of green cheese, but that doesn’t mean that there is a Green Cheese Controversy and the next full moon I see will be a blob of fromage verte. Similarly, the fact that Hitchens can challenge Wilson’s assertions does not cast any doubt on them unless there is some validity in what he says. Hitchens is demonstrably wrong. Let’s look at the context and the facts.

1) The context: Valerie Plame spent her professional life as a highly trained CIA operative in a position which placed her at personal risk and sacrifice, both here and overseas. If she had a parking ticket three years ago it would show up in the Drudge Report, but nobody has accused her of doing anything wrong. When someone like that gives testimony under oath, I tend to believe it. So when she gave a perfectly logical explanation of her involvement — she was asked by someone else at the CIA to send him an email listing who her husband know who could be of value — I see no reason at all to doubt what she says.

On the other side: nothing. Nobody has come forward and said that she did in fact send her husband to Niger (and who wants to go to Niger anyway?). No evidence has been presented to suggest this. She did not have the authority to do it and she was not in the part of the CIA which handled Cheney’s request. In fact, not even Hitchens claims this: the phrase he uses is “would appear to confirm,” which is a weaselly way to make an insinuation you can’t prove.

So let’s say I was on a jury and I had to make a determination whose standard of proof is beyond a reasonable doubt. Faced with the sworn testimony of a career government employee which makes perfect sense versus fevered speculation with no evidence to support it, I would say that it is beyond a reasonable doubt that Valerie Plame is telling the truth, and that Joe Wilson was telling the truth when he said that his wife did not send him to Niger.

2) The only fact Hitchens offers is that Wilson got a date wrong. This really isn’t much to hang your hat on. However, it’s a familiar tactic: seize on something trivial, blow it out of proportion, and create a false controversy. The real issue is why the sixteen words were wrong and why Plame was outed, not Wilson’s ability to recall dates.

Re point four: use Plame’s testimony to support Plame? As noted above, if there was someone with knowledge of the situation who was willing to contradict her, then things would be different. I call them as I see them: when someone who has served the government selflessly for years testifies something under oath, and nobody takes the other side, then I think it is entirely reasonable to take her testimony as accurate and complete.
30 Mark Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 9:46 am
He didn’t get a date wrong - he claimed to disprove a document on his Niger trip that he never saw, as it didn’t come into the CIA’s possession until 8 months after his trip.

That’s not a mistake - it’s a lie…
31 Bob from Ohio Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Mark, you can’t convince religious zealots like Peter with facts or logic. Plame was covert is part of the catechism now.

Peter, please spare us this born again respect for the CIA by the left. People like you hated the CIA for 40 years. Once it was to your political advantage. now it is a terrific agency filled with super super patriots like Plame. In the 1970s, Phillip Agee, to the cheers of people like you, went around the world exposing CIA agents to actual harm, not Vanity Fair covers and movie contracts. That is why we had the statute in the first place.
32 Peter Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 3:56 pm
Post 31 is an excellent illustration of what Paul says in the first post. Patrick Fitzgerald has stated that Valerie Plame is covert. The Director of Central Intelligence has confirmed that she is covert. Valerie Plame has testified under oath that she was covert. The CIA is withholding publication of her book to vet the parts which refer to her covert activity. She worked for a CIA front operation which is now defunct as a result of her exposure. Guess what: she was covert. That’s not cataechism: it is an indisputable and incontrovertible fact. And yet the nitwit from Ohio is happy to lecture others on facts and logic. Sort of like getting a lecture on sobriety and responsibility from Britney Spears.
33 Mark Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Peter, in this very thread, you were willing to admit that Valerie Plame didn’t meet the legal definition of being covert, but still, in some way that you and only you could gleam, she was nevertheless covert. Now, as so often happens with you, we’re back at square one, and you’re arguing that it’s indisputable.

You’re about to break your neck from the whiplash.

This is a legal matter, Peter, in case you didn’t notice Libby in court. The only definition of covert that counts is the legal one.

Get over it…
34 Peter Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
I have answered this repeatedly, but neither you nor anyone else has responded. This is my last shot at this and then that is all I have to say.

1) Under any reasonable definition of the word, Valerie Plame was covert. Her identity was a state secret.
2) There is a legal definition of covert status specific to the law regarding the exposure of a spy. It is unclear if Valerie Plame meets this defnition, which hinges on foreign residency.
3) Reread post 13 and answer the last two questions.
35 Mark Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
And I’ve answered repeatedly that I’m not buying your premises…see, I should’ve stuck with my vow to leave the subject behind.

Clearly, we’re not going to see eye-to-eye on this one.

But - if it makes you feel better - I agree Richard Armitage should have never leaked Valerie Plame’s identity. I wonder how you feel about Valerie Plame’s testimony that she attended breakfast with her husband and Nick Kristof of the Times, and didn’t report the contact as required? Not acting much like she’s protecting a state secret, is she? To wit:

Ms. Plame does just flit about - we like this from her testimony yesterday (now available at Raw Story and Flares Into Darkness. She is discussing her presence at an ealry May 2003 breakfast meeting between her husband and Joe Wilson where Joe spilled details about his classified trip to Niger, thereby inspiring this May 6 Kristof column:

REP. DAVIS: Let me just ask, try to put some — some of the press speculation to rest and give you an opportunity to answer. In January 2004, Vanity Fair published an article — not always known for great accuracy — touching on your role in the Niger uranium affair. It said — this was what they said — “In early May, Wilson and Plame attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee at which Wilson spoke about Iraq. One of the other panelists was New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. Over breakfast the next morning with Kristof and his wife, Wilson told about his trip to Niger and said Kristof could write about it but not name him.” Is that account accurate?

MS. PLAME WILSON: I think it is. I had nothing — I was not speaking to Mr. Kristof. And I think my husband did say that he had undertaken this trip, but not to be named as a source.

REP. DAVIS: Okay.Just to be clear, when your — the article says that — says your husband “met for breakfast with Kristof and his wife.” Just to be clear, were you at the breakfast?

MS. PLAME WILSON: Briefly, yes, Congressman.

Well, it was brief. CIA officers are meant to report contacts with the press, as well as unauthorized disclosures of classified information, but since she was only there “briefly”, I guess it is OK. And yes, someone had forgotten to ask Joe to sign a non-disclosure agreement, but that does not mean his trip was de-classified - he may not have been breaking his contract with the CIA, but she was ignoring the rules of her employment.

In any event, I’m sure you view me as being nonresponsive, but it’s a bit like asking me when I stopped beating my beagle (well, I don’t have a wife!) - I can’t answer the question because I don’t accept the basic premise. Now I really must get back to basketball and quit talking about Valerie Freakin’ Plame!…
36 Bob from Ohio Says:
March 17th, 2007 at 11:08 pm
Nice pop culture reference.

Try using Lindsey Lohan in your next post, show how with-it you are.

No response to the Agee point I see. Fact is that liberals attacked the CIA from Bay of Pigs on until they could use it to score points against President Bush. Then, a total change of direction. Now everything the CIA says is gospel. A slam dunk as it were.
37 Peter Says:
March 18th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Uh, that would be Lindsay Lohan, with an a.

I didn’t respond to the CIA bit because a) I don’t consider myself to be a liberal (or anything else, for that matter), b) I never had a problem with the CIA (or the Army, or the Pentagon), and c) I don’t respond to any sentence that starts with “People like you.”
38 Mark Says:
March 18th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
You know, considering how messed up Lohan and Spears are, Paris Hilton is the very model of - well, not exactly sobriety…