Tom McGuire is better:
Plame Mythbusters
Carol D. Leonnig of the WaPo takes it upon herself to debunk five "myths" about the Scooter Libby case. I will say she scores four out of five; however, I also see that her fifth point has caused a bit of confusion, since Big Tent Dem at TalkLeft is claiming that she supports the left, not the right. I disagree and consider her to be on my side on that one, but we will come to that in a bit.
Her first point is this:
1. Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative.
Wrong. She was.
...But a CIA "unclassified summary" of Plame's career, released in court filings before Libby's June 5 sentencing, puts this one to rest: The CIA considered her covert at the time her identity was leaked to the media. The CIA report said that Plame had worked overseas in the previous five years and that the agency had been taking "affirmative measures" to conceal her CIA employment. That echoes the language used in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime to reveal the identities of covert CIA officers.
...The CIA isn't famous for its clarity, but it's being pretty blunt on this issue: Langley says she was covert. Which other spook bureaucracy do you need to ask?
Here we go again. A subsequent
defense response clarified the Fitzgerald release (my emphasis):
The summary described above was provided to the defense along with a companion summary that defined a “covert†CIA employee as a “CIA employee whose employment is not publicly acknowledged by the CIA or the employee.â€4 It is important to bear in mind that the IIPA defines “covert agent†differently.
Or of asking the CIA is the preferred path, let's reprise happened when Congressman Peter Hoekstra of the House Intel Committee
did just that:
On March 21, Hoekstra [Ranking Republican on the House Intel Committee] again requested the CIA to define Mrs. Wilson's status. A written reply April 5 from Christopher J. Walker, the CIA's director of congressional affairs, said only that "it is taking longer than expected" to reply because of "the considerable legal complexity required for this tasking."
Look, the CIA prepared a memo to prop up Fitzgerald's case and their own criminal referral, but they have not opined on Ms. Plame's status under the IIPA.
I made the same point about the Waxman hearing.
But if Ms. Leonnig would like a trial to pursue, my
pension idea could benefit from a bit of WaPo-powered reporting. Per the Times and the Congressional Record we know that the CIA tracked Ms. Plame's service abroad for purposes of calculating her pension. So what is the most recent date for which she received credit for service abroad? Seems like an easy question, although for some reason Fitzgerald chose not to present the answer.
As to Myth Five, Ms. Leonnig wrote this:
5. The White House would fire any administration official who leaked classified information about Plame.
In each of the first four cases Ms. Leonnig presents statement she believes to be false, i.e., a "myth", and then presents her version of reality. Here is her follow-up to Myth 5:
When the investigation began, the president said he hated leaks and would hold leakers of classified information accountable. But he has not sacked anyone over the case.
Libby resigned the day he was indicted in October 2005. Two other officials who gave reporters information about Plame, former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, left government before Fitzgerald's inquiry concluded. And Rove, who first told Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about Plame's CIA identity, remains in the White House.
Big Tent's interpretation:
And Leonnig reminds us that the Bush Administration lied when it said it would fire anyone who leaked classified information...
Interesting - I would have interpreted this as Ms. Leonnig agreeing that Bush never actually said he would fire anyone, as I argued in "
Don't Play 'Gotcha' With The President".
http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2007/06/plame_mythbuste.html
