Other Than That, Great Story

I've been writing that a lot lately so maybe we should rename the blog.

Plame Says Administration 'Recklessly' Revealed Her by Amy Goldstein is running on A1 today. Goldstein writes that Plame calmly but firmly knocked down longstanding claims by administration allies that the disclosure was not criminal because she had not worked in a covert capacity. Calm she may have been, but knocking down conveys a final judgment not supported by the facts.

Based on that story, here is what Goldstein and her editors do not know, or do not think you need to know, about this and related issues:

1. Valerie Plame admitted that she was unaware whether she was covered under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

2. She acknowledged no one at the CIA ever informed her that she was

3. Senate Intelligence Committee vice-chairman Christopher Bond has already challenged Plame's testimony that she had no influence over the selection of Joe Wilson for the Niger trip. Plame's role was a key finding of the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. The Post reported this, seemingly once. Its memory lives on only in scattered remnant tribes on the editorial page.

That's as much work as I'm going to do on a Saturday, so check recovering Instapundit pirate blogger Tom Maguire at Just One Minute for more. Here's one entry and here's another for Plamaniacs. I leave you with a link to the transcript of the Plame hearing, from Raw Story, and an entertaining non-reported excerpt that fills in the blanks left by Goldstein's brief, vague citation of ranking Republican Tom Davis saying This looks to me more like a CIA problem than a White House problem:

REP. DAVIS: But you don't -- I mean, I think one of the issues here was not that you worked for the CIA, because that was obviously why they'd know you in the administration, but for the crime to have been committed, I understand they had to have known that you were covert. And you don't have any direct linkage that they knew that you were covert at that point.

MS. PLAME WILSON: Again, Congressman, I'm not a lawyer, but as I said at my --

REP. DAVIS: You don't have any direct knowledge that --

MS. PLAME WILSON: No.

REP. DAVIS: Okay.

MS. PLAME WILSON: But as I said in my opening comments, the fact that they knew that I worked for the CIA, that alone should have increased their level of diligence....

REP. DAVIS: I mean, it looked -- they're supposed to -- the CIA is supposed to report to Congress each year on the steps taken to protect this highly sensitive information. And I'm told few, if any, reports are even filed. So, I think there's a responsibility from the CIA. And I think what's missing, and I think -- at least from a criminal perspective -- not from a policy, but from a criminal perspective -- that the special prosecutor in this case looked at that and found that the people who may have been saying this didn't know that you were covert. And you don't have any evidence to the contrary.

MS. PLAME WILSON: That, I think, is a question better put to the special prosecutor, Congressman. [PostWatch note: After a 2 1/2-year fishing expedition, I think Patrick Fitzgerald has answered that question]

REP. DAVIS: Shouldn't the CIA have made sure that anyone who knew your name and your work be told of your status? Would that have been helpful in this case? That would have made it very clear if anybody leaked it at that point they were violating the law, at least.

MS. PLAME WILSON: The CIA does go to great lengths to create and protect all kinds of covers for its officers. There's a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of energy that goes into that. And the onus also, the burden, falls on the officer himself or herself to live that cover, but it's not a perfect world.

REP. DAVIS: The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a crime to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert agent, which has a specific definition under the act. Did anyone ever tell you that you were so designated?

MS. PLAME WILSON: I'm not a lawyer.

REP. DAVIS: That's why I asked if they told you. I'm not asking for your interpretation.

MS. PLAME WILSON: No, no. But I was covert. I did travel overseas on secret missions within the last five years.

REP. DAVIS: I'm not arguing with that. What I'm asking is, for purposes of the act -- and maybe this just never occurred to you or anybody else at the time -- but did anybody say that you were so designated under the act? Or was this just after it came to fact?

MS. PLAME WILSON: No, no one told me that. And that --

REP. DAVIS: How about after the disclosure?

MS. PLAME WILSON: Pardon me?

REP. DAVIS: How about after the disclosure, did anyone then say gee, you were designated under the act, this should not have happened? Did anybody in the CIA tell you at that point?

MS. PLAME WILSON: No.

Nobody told Plame. And nobody at the Post told us nobody told Plame.

 

Comments

[Red Wing 875]

So cute! I already like you on FB and also get your posts on Google Reader. :)