Outing
CIA Agent - Keep It Simple
By Evelyn Pringle
21 April, 2006
Countercurrents.org
For
all intent and purposes, the special prosecutor’s duty in the
CIA leak case is straightforward. How the investigation ever got so
complicated is beyond me. Mr Fitzgerald needs to keep it simple.
Valerie Plame was a CIA agent
in July 2003, and the fact that she was a CIA officer was classified.
The responsibilities of some CIA employees require that their association
with the agency be kept secret, because disclosure has the potential
to damage national security in ways that range from preventing the future
use of the agents, to compromising intelligence-gathering methods, to
endangering the safety of CIA employees, and people who they may be
associated with.
Valerie's status was not
widely known. The special prosecutor verified that her friends, neighbors,
and college classmates had no idea she had another life.
Her cover was blown in July 2003. The first public outing was when Robert
Novak published a story about Valerie and her husband Joe Wilson on
July 14, 2003, noting her status as a CIA agent, and quoting senior
administration officials as his sources.
The investigation really
only required the answers to 3 basic questions: (1) which senior officials
knew about Valerie's employment with the CIA? (2) did the officials
know the CIA was protecting her identity? And (3) who leaked her name
and status to the press?
We now know that just as
many people suspected, Karl Rove was one of the sources for Novak. However,
he may have published the first outing, but Novak was not the first
reporter to learn that Joe's wife worked at the CIA. Several other reporters
were told earlier.
Because, also just as was
suspected, Scooter Libby was the other leaker, and he was the first
official to leak Valerie’s name and status to the media when he
told Judy Miller in June of 2003, after Dick Cheney leaked the information
to him, with Bush’s full approval and knowledge.
As a condition for working
with classified information, on January 23, 2001, Libby signed a “Classified
Information Nondisclosure Agreement,” which states in part: “I
understand and accept that by being granted access to classified information,
special confidence and trust shall be placed in me by the United States
Government.”
In signing the Agreement
Libby goes on to state: “I have been advised that the unauthorized
disclosure, unauthorized retention, or negligent handling of classified
information by me could cause damage or irreparable injury to the United
States or could be used to advantage by a foreign nation.”
Scooter clearly violated
this oath.
To begin with, it obvious
that the White House did not follow the proper procedures for safeguarding
Valerie’s identity. Under EO 12958, the White House should have
ensured that only those with a "need to know" had access to
her covert identity.
It's a no-brainer, that as
Bush’s political advisor, Rove, should not have had access to
the information. What compelling "need to know" would justify
revealing her identity to him?
This little problem is probably
what led to Rove’s “promotion” a while back, just
as his up-coming arrest is probably what led to his “demotion“
yesterday.
As far as responding to the
leak itself, under EO 12958, the White House should have taken prompt
action to determine (1) whether nondisclosure agreements were violated;
(2) whether individuals without security clearance obtained classified
information; and (3) whether national security information was compromised.
But then no investigation
was necessary because the Bush White House knew the answers to those
questions before the first leak occurred.
By intentionally publicizing
the fact that Valerie worked at the CIA, the administration not only
destroyed her career, they compromised whatever operations she may have
worked on, and whatever networks she may have established over her lengthily
career with the agency and the tax dollars spent on the above went right
down the sewer.
Early on in the investigation,
the FBI interviewed Scooter. In addition to being Cheney's Chief of
Staff at the time, he was also an Assistant to the President and Assistant
to the Vice President for national security affairs.
According to filings in the
criminal case, the focus of the FBI interview was on what Libby knew
about Valerie, what he said to people about her, why he said it, and
how he learned of the information.
He told the FBI that he was
at the end of a long chain of phone calls. He spoke to reporter, Tim
Russert, on July 10, 2003, and during the call, Russert said, hey, do
you know that all the reporters know that Wilson's wife works at the
CIA.
Scooter said that he learned this information as if it was new, and
that is why it “struck him.” Then, according to Scooter,
he took the information from Russert and passed it on to Matt Cooper
of Time Magazine, and New York Times reporter Judy Miller.
He told the FBI that on July
12, 2003, two days before Novak's column appeared in the press, that
he passed the information on with the understanding that this was information
he had received from a reporter, and that he didn't even know if it
was true.
However, six months later in March 2004, when he testified before the
grand jury on two occasions, Scooter added a new twist to his original
tale.
To the grand jury, Libby
said that he had learned about Valerie from Cheney earlier in June 2003,
but he had forgotten all about it; and so when he had learned the information
from Russert, he'd learned it as if it were new.
Then Scooter said, he passed
the information on to Cooper and Miller, later in the week.
However, we now know that Scooter discussed the fact that Valerie worked
for the CIA, at least 6 times before the call with Russert ever took
place, not to mention the fact that according to Tim, they never discussed
Valerie at all during that call.
The bottom line is that Scooter
did not learn about Valerie from Tim Russert.
In the Libby indictment,
Fitzgerald says that on June 12, 2003, Cheney informed Libby that Valerie
worked at the CIA's Counter-proliferation Division. The CPD is part
of the operations directorate, the CIA's clandestine services.
In fact, the indictment says
that Scooter learned of the information about Valeria from other administration
officials as well in June of 2003. On June 11, he learned about her
from an Under Secretary of State and sometime prior to July 8, Scooter
learned the information from someone else in Cheney's office.
On June 14, 2003, he discussed
the matter with a CIA briefer and was complaining that the CIA was leaking
information or making critical comments about the administration and
brought up Joe and Valerie to the briefer.
He also discussed the her
at lunch with White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, on Monday,
July 7, 2003, which means that we have Scooter telling Ari something
on Monday that he claims to not have learned from Russert until Thursday.
There was also a discussion
the next day on July 8, in which Scooter asked the Counsel for the Vice
President what paperwork the CIA would have if an employee had a spouse
going on a trip.
In the end, Scooter had 7 discussions with government officials prior
to the day when he claims he learned the information as if it were new
from Russert.
In addition, the story he
gave to the FBI and grand jury was that he told reporters Cooper and
Miller on July 12. However, according to filings in the case, Scooter
discussed Valerie at least 4 times with these reporters prior to July
14, 2003; three times with Miller, and once with Cooper.
The first discussion with
Miller was on June 23; within days after an article was published online
by The New Republic, quoting some critical comments from Wilson.
He spoke about Valerie with
Miller again on July 8, in a discussion that was in background as a
“senior administration official,” after which he instructed
Miller to change the attribution to a “former Hill staffer.”
During that conversation,
Scooter said that Valerie was working for the CIA, and he discussed
her employment status again with Miller on July 12.
In his conversations with
Miller, Scooter never said this is what other reporters told me. He
never said I don't know if it's true, or I don't even know if Wilson
has a wife, according to Miller.
So, Rove and Scooter were
the 2 administration officials who leaked the information to the press
and the top officials in the Bush administration knew it from day one
and allowed a charade of an investigation to stretch on for years on
the tax payer‘s dime.
However, another cat is said
to be ready to leap out of the bag and Rove’s “demotion“
yesterday is probably the least of his worries.
According to an article published
today by investigative reporter, Jason Leopold, for Truthout.org, Fitzgerald
is said to have presented more evidence alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators
and the grand jury when he was asked about how he found out that Valerie
worked for the CIA and whether he gave that information to the media.
“Fitzgerald told the
grand jury,” Leopold said, “that Rove lied to investigators
and the prosecutor eight out of the nine times he was questioned about
the leak and also tried to cover-up his role in disseminating Plame
Wilson's CIA status to at least two reporters.”
Mr Fitzgerald needs to keep
it simple, wrap up the investigation, and reserve a row of prison cells
in Cuba.
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