Plame Game “Just one Minute”
Crossposted at Macsmind:
Hate to borrow from Tom McGuire, but this called for it.
“An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame’s employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was “covert” when her name became public in July 2003.
The summary is part of an attachment to Fitzgerald’s memorandum to the court supporting his recommendation that I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former top aide, spend 2-1/2 to 3 years in prison for obstructing the CIA leak investigation.
The nature of Plame’s CIA employment never came up in Libby’s perjury and obstruction of justice trial.
The unclassified summary of Plame’s employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, “Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.”
Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, “engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business.” The report says, “she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times.” When overseas Plame traveled undercover, “sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias — but always using cover — whether official or non-official (NOC) — with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.”
After the Novak column was published and Plame’s identity was widely reported in the media, and according to the document, “the CIA lifted Ms Wilson’s cover” and then “rolled back her cover” effective to the date of the leak.
The CIA determined, “that the public interest in allowing the criminal prosecution to proceed outweighed the damage to national security that might reasonably be expected from the official disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s employment and cover status.”
The CIA has not divulged any other details of the nature of Plame’s cover or the methods employed by the CIA to protect her cover nor the details of her classified intelligence activities. Plame resigned from the CIA in December 2005.”
Excuse me? A “Grandfathered Status” of covert. Sorry, no “apples” here. First, the fact is that “if” she held covert status it would have been revealed and protected at the time when Novak notified CIA officials of the story. “Taking measures” my ass. Either she was or wasn’t and that’s what I’ve been saying from the beginning. When Novak called Bill Harlow and Harlow had to hang up and then call back, I told you that was BS. All he had to do was punch her name up in the computer on his desk and he could have told Novak straight out she was protected.
Fact is that she wasn’t. Harlow knew who she was as she had already been stripped of duties for her little scheme sending “honey bunch” to Niger (a rather embarrassing screw up I might add). What is a fact is that having been relieved of duties from CIO a full year prior - in 2002, by June of 2003 she was working in a non-covert status in Langley.
Fact is that Plame still is the key to the real story about her and her rogue buds were trying to pull off prior to the war. This story is simply another bow-shot to keep others off the trail, especially after her false testimony earlier this month.
Oh, and this is choice drivel:
“The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, “engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business.” The report says, “she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times.” When overseas Plame traveled undercover, “sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias — but always using cover — whether official or non-official (NOC) — with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.”
What you see her is a complete broadside fabrication from the rogues and nothing more. It might fool the fools of the MSM, but for those who were there and known, it’s crap pure and simple. Fitzgerald is showing more and more the partisen that he is, a poltical hack of the first order. Fact is that if this document had any authenticity to it Fitzgerald could have charged Libby under IIPA. It didn’t and he knew it.
Byron York wrote today:
“During the CIA-leak probe, Fitzgerald looked into possible violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and the Espionage Act. He did not charge anyone with breaking either law. But in his court filing, Fitzgerald writes that the grand jury “obtained substantial evidence indicating that one or both of the…statutes may have been violated.” Therefore, Fitzgerald is asking Judge Reggie Walton to treat Libby as if it had been proven that such crimes occurred. “Because the investigation defendant was convicted of endeavoring to obstruct focused on violations of the IIPA and the Espionage Act,” Fitzgerald continues, “the court much calculate defendant’s offense level by reference to the guidelines applicable to such violations.”
If in fact the documents now produced had any such validity it would have been basically a cake walk to pin a violation of the IIPA on Libby. Hell, with that DC jury they pinned heresay on him, why not? It tells you a lot that there wasn’t any such veracity placed on the documents which translated means the fact that the were written up after the fact didn’t pass the smell test.
Relegate this to yet another fabrication in the Plame Game.
