Mar 05 2007
Imagining a Covert Agent
As the trial of Scooter Libby nears its end, the pundits on each side of the case have been fighting about one fundamental issue: was Plame a covert agent when Novak published her CIA credentials? Larry Johnson says yes, Victoria Toensig says no. I’ll admit up front that I am biased against Mr. Johnson, and would tend to believe anyone other than him. His many attempts to intimidate me, his (hollow) legal threats, and his (flamboyant) ad hominem attacks, all are signs to me that this man has a hard time dealing with the truth. Unfortunately for Mr. Johnson, it is not my personal bias towards him that drives my doubt as to whether Plame was covert, per legal definition; it is a collection of facts that seem to indicate that he is not being honest.
At the outset we must ask ourselves why this has become an issue at all. The answer to that is very simple and perhaps not all that surprising. Two days after Novak’s article was written, David Corn, after interviewing Mr. Wilson, indicated that Mrs. Wilson was a covert agent and that the disclosure of her affiliation with the CIA would possibly constitute a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. David Corn was the first person to disclose publicly that Plame “apparently has worked under what’s known as “nonofficial cover”†and in the same article insinuated that Plame was “a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national securityâ€. He then related the possible violation of law, not simply disclosing classified information but:
Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent.
Corn noted that it had been a whole two days, two days, without any public outcry or investigation. After Corn claimed, for the first time, that Plame may have been a covert agent protected by a specific statute, it became a hot issue. No one would have ever known whether Plame had “nonofficial cover†or that she was any kind of covert agent had it not been for David Corn writing this article, and we must assume he got this information directly from Mr. Wilson. If not, who else would have told Corn that Plame had nonofficial cover or that she was a covert agent? Enter Larry Johnson.
Larry Johnson has operated as the PR agent for the Wilsons since this whole thing began, covering for Jason Leopold when his Wilson-friendly “scoops†went sour, and consistently spinning for the Wilsons in the media or on his blog. Mr. Johnson, aside from Corn, has been the most conspicuous contributor to the notion that Valerie Plame was a covert agent covered by the IIPA. However, this was problematic because Johnson had known Valerie since their early CIA days together, why would anyone believe simply him or a journalist like Corn? That’s where Johnson’s group, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), stepped in. Johnson recently tried to defend his position against that of Mrs. Toensig by arguing that there were a lot of CIA folks who backed him up:
Ask Tyler Drumheller, Chief of the European Division ofthe CIA Directorate of Operations. Ask Robert Grenier. Ask me. Ask Jim Marcinkowski.Ask Mike Grimaldi. Ask Brent Cavan. Ask Gary Berntsen. Ask Mike Gorbel. instead of talking to CIA officers who know firsthand, you rely on Victoria Toensing, who has ZERO experience as a CIA officer. Hell, ask John McLaughlin. Ask Bill Harlow(oops, I forgot, he already told your reporters she was undercover and asked them ot to report it.)
You’ll have to forgive Johnson for not being a very good typist. You’ll also have to forgive Johnson for making things up, as he has a habit of doing. I checked the record to see whether all of these people have stated that Plame was in fact covert. Tyler Drumheller has never stated such a thing. Neither has Robert Grenier. Neither has Gary Bernsten. Who the hell is Mike Gorbel, does anyone know? Google sure as hell doesn’t. John McLaughlin and Bill Harlow, make a wild guess as to whether they have ever stated that Plame was covert. Johnson tries to pretend Harlow said so, when in fact the Libby trial has shown that he simply told Novak not to publish her name (something Novak disputes), and that it would cause “embarrassment†if she were named; nothing about her being “covertâ€.
So already Johnson has tried to inflate his own claim, that Plame was covert, by putting words in the mouths of six people! None of these people have ever stated this on record, as far as a search on their comments about the case shows. If Johnson would like to provide cites of these people saying this, I’d love to see them, since he has never done so. The remaining people are Jim Marcinkowski, Mike Grimaldi, and Brent Cavan. All of these guys are associated with Johnson’s VIPS group and are thus as reliable about this matter as Johnson.
In summary, the only people fronting the view that Plame was a covert agent protected under the IIPA are David Corn and VIPS, all of whom are closely tied to Wilson and cannot be seen as independent corroboration for this issue as a factual matter. Why would Johnson have to exaggerate the number of people who stood behind his claim if it was the truth? More importantly, why haven’t the Wilsons fronted this view themselves? If it’s OK for Johnson to parade around town saying she was covert, why can’t the Wilsons just say so themselves?
In the civil suit that the Wilsons filed, Plame’s job with the CIA is always referred to as her “classified CIA employmentâ€. The word “covert†only appears once in the entire document, and is being used in the sense of her identity with the CIA not being publicly known, stating, “The disclosure of Mrs. Wilson’s covert identity…†Valerie’s job with the CIA was covert in the plain English sense, but that is not the matter at hand here, as David Corn and Johnson contend that she was a covert agent according to the law (IIPA). Should not the Wilson suit have stated “covert CIA employment†if that is in fact what it was? The Wilsons have never stated for the record what Plame’s actual status at the CIA was, aside from classified.
Something I have learned over the past few years is that those who are good at leaking information to the press know to leak information that they will most likely not be held accountable for, because whoever the information is about will be expected to deny it, whether it is true or not, and that they will not be likely to share any information that refutes it. Larry Johnson can claim that Plame is covert all he wants. He knows that the CIA is not likely to go on record with the truth in either case. Even if the CIA were to deny it, he could contend that they were simply denying it to shield the truth, because they would be expected to deny such a sensitive matter. Either way, Johnson wins. He knows this. This is exactly why it is Johnson, and not the Wilsons, who are claiming this publicly. The Wilsons play the “we can’t speak about this because it is a sensitive issue†card, while Johnson is given full freedom to claim whatever he wants.
In attempting to back up his claim, Johnson manages to contradict himself. After arguing that there are only two types of agents at the CIA, overt and covert, Johnson delivers this:
Here is the irony? If Valerie had been an overt employee or a covert employee not covered by IIPA then Scooter Libby would not have had to lie to FBI agents because there would not have been an investigation. But Valerie was a covert agent.
Back up the bus here, Johnson says here that it is possible for a covert employee to not be covered by the IIPA, and then says that Valerie was a covert agent. OK? But if a covert employee doesn’t necessarily have to be covered by the IIPA, according to Johnson, then simply stating that Plame was covert doesn’t resolve whether she was covered by the IIPA, does it? The IIPA itself states that a “covert agent†is only a person who is governed by the definitions laid out in that law. If those conditions are not met, they are not a “covert†agent. As Tom Maguire tried to relate to Johnson in the comments (to which Johnson characteristically responded that he was “thick as mule shitâ€), you are either an overt agent, a classified agent, or a covert agent. Only covert agents are covered by the IIPA.
The Wilson suit names her as having had “classified CIA employmentâ€. The CIA referral to the DoJ, as reported by Johnson himself, stated that it was about a “possible violation of criminal law concerning the unauthorized disclosure of classified informationâ€. Judge Walton, the presiding judge over the Libby trial, has stated that he has seen this referral letter, but still does not know what Plame’s exact status was at the CIA. If Plame were covert and thus covered by the IIPA, would not this referral have stated a possible violation of criminal law concerning the unauthorized disclosure of a covert agent’s identity?
So far, we have allies of Wilson being the only ones fronting the argument that Plame was covered by IIPA; Johnson trying to inflate his claim by pretending more people back him up than actually do; and the referral letter to the DoJ stating it as being a matter of classified information, not about leaking a covert agent’s identity. We have absolutely no independent evidence to suggest that what Johnson says is true. In fact, the facts that we do have, and Johnson’s behavior, seems to indicate the opposite. There is one final piece of evidence that would seem inconsistent with Plame being a super secret agent.
In last year’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, The Departed, the character played by Leonardo DiCaprio, William Costigan, is an undercover cop who infiltrates the Irish mob. He is employed by the Special Investigations Unit at the Massachusetts State Police. Matt Damon’s character, Sergeant Sullivan, works at this unit, and is a mole for the Irish mob. Now, it becomes apparent to the Irish mob that they have been infiltrated, but Sullivan cannot find out that it is Costigan for one simple reason: he was not allowed to know the identity of his own unit’s undercover cops. Costigan was handled by Captain Queenan and a sergeant played by Mark Wahlberg. No one else at the SIU was to know his identity.
With this in mind, consider the INR dossier sent to Marc Grossman, which included the meeting notes from the meeting where Valerie introduced Joe:
Meeting apparently convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of Amb. Joe Wilson … Two CIA analysts seem to be leading the charge on the issue [redacted] the other guy’s name not available.
Now, for the movie The Departed, they hired a consultant who had worked with the Massachusetts State Police for 30 years to ensure that things were as accurate as possible. Thus I would expect that it was accurate that undercover cops were only known by identity to a very limited set of people within the unit they were operating for. This is state police we are talking about, now consider the CIA. If Plame was a covert agent, why would her name, position, and spousal relationship be related to counterparts from INR? More importantly, why was one of the analysts from the CIA not identified to INR, yet Plame’s details were passed on like a blunt at a rock concert?
These are the reasons why I do not believe Mr. Johnson’s self-inflated claims that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert agent covered by the IIPA. If the Massachusetts State Police Special Investigations Unit would protect the identity of an undercover cop from people within their own unit, it would seem highly unlikely that Plame’s details would have been so carelessly disclosed to people from an entirely different intelligence agency if she was in fact a covert agent.
If there was anyone at that meeting between INR and the CIA that was covert, it was the unidentified second analyst, not Mrs. Wilson. Larry Johnson can come up with as many imaginary friends on this issue as he wants, but he cannot erase the evidence that seems to prove him wrong.
That’s right. Even if Libby is convicted of any one of the 5 counts does not mean that Cheney leaked Plame’s identity. He never did. Fitz found nothing or he would have indicted Armitage, the original leaker, or Wilson.
There is no conspiracy within the Bush Adm.
Soothsayer,
So you see nothing odd about the CIA doling out Plame’s identity to INR in a meeting, where another CIA analyst’s identity was not given? You see nothing wrong with Bill Harlow, spokesman for the CIA, only stating that it would cause “embarrassment” if Plame was named in an article?
You asked us to prove a negative – it is your and Larry Johnson’s burden to prove that Plame was covert. So far, no proof has been offered, yet I have just provided even more evidence that it was not the case.
Boy, does sooth think Classified and Covert are the same thing? It seems so.
Sooth, if you want to be mad at this administration, try this:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZGJjZDI0ZGIzNjAzMzZjYzFhYTIxYzk0ZjU0NjI1NGU=
And Sooth, I replied to your VA rant as well!
Don’t waste your time on soothie. He is stupid. Not ignorant. Stupid. Ignorance can be corrected through education. Stupid cannot. He/she/it will remain stupid for eternity.
Michael Yon has a new dispatch from Iraq, if interested:
http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/meanwhile.htm
Mark_for_Senate ,
I hate to just give up!
But…You may have a point.
Even Judge Walton did not know her status.
Lurker, IIRC, even Fitzgerald himself admitted early on that he hadn’t bothered to determine Plame’s status. Yet another part of this whole fiasco that doesn’t pass the smell test.
Fitzgerald doesn’t have to prove anything about Plame’s identity – as he as not yet charged anyone with anything other than lying and obstruction of jusutice. The point is- the investigation is not over. And after Libby is convicted – probably tomorrow – Fitzgerald can call Libby before another Grand Jury and get down to brass tacks.
Excess Hollywood (Continued)
INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 3/5/2007
Plamegate: The jury’s still out in the Libby trial, but in Hollywood the verdict is in. A motion picture portraying Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame as victims is in the works with Libby’s incarceration as its happy ending.
No sooner had the Hollywood chapter of the Democratic National Committee, commonly known as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, crowned Al Gore as president-in-exile, presenting the man with the Godzilla-size carbon footprint an Oscar for his global warming flick, did a major studio announce another work of fiction portraying a serial liar and his spouse as innocent victims of a Bush administration vendetta.
Warner Bros. Pictures is developing a feature film on the lives of Wilson, a Bush critic and ex-minor league ambassador, and Plame, his CIA desk jockey wife. As co-producer, Jerry Zucker explains the central theme of the film is “the story of two people who spent their lives in service of their government and then were betrayed by that government.”
As we have documented extensively, Valerie Plame was not a covert CIA operative but a desk jockey at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va. And she was not “outed,” since her identity was widely known in Washington and among foreign intelligence agencies.
She and Wilson were Democratic activists. She contributed to Gore’s presidential campaign, citing her CIA cover company as her employer. Wilson went on to serve as a Kerry campaign adviser after using a CIA trip to Niger arranged by his wife to call President Bush a liar on the op-ed page of the New York Times.
But as we have also shown, Wilson was the liar, as he demonstrated at least three times before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. On July 9, 2004, the committee issued its report on the CIA’s prewar intelligence on Iraq. The report concluded that Wilson lied when he denied his wife got him the Niger assignment, stating that “interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate his wife suggested his name for the trip.”
The report also said Wilson lied when he told the Washington Post he knew the Niger intelligence had been based on forged documents. The CIA didn’t obtain the document said to be a forgery until a full eight months after Wilson’s return from Niger.
Wilson’s debriefing upon his return from Africa, according to the report, provided “some confirmation of foreign government service reporting” that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. So Wilson lied when he said Bush lied about Iraq seeking yellowcake uranium in Africa.
We have a script idea of our own for Hollywood. How about a film about an ambitious political couple that exploit the law and their official powers to enrich themselves and punish their enemies, with the husband using his various offices to seduce, and assault, women of all ages, even young interns in the Oval Office? Any resemblance to the Clintons is unintentional.
For executive producer, we’d suggest Hollywood mogul David Geffen, quoted by the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd as saying, “Everybody in politics lies, but (the Clintons) do it with such ease, it’s troubling.” But fat chance. Hollywood is so ideologically one-sided, it’s ridiculous.
Somehow it does not surprise us that Hollywood would celebrate two people who used their positions to undermine their president and their country in time of war.
Neither is it surprising that they’d do so while hoping Libby, a man whose service to his country was truly honorable, gets 30 years in prison for having a faulty memory in an investigation that shouldn’t have happened of a “crime” for which no one has been charged.
The Wilsons are not heroes. They’re political activists with an agenda who tried to sabotage their country’s foreign policy. Libby is the victim of… what’s the phrase? Ah, yes: a witch hunt.
Meanwhile, the only true liar in the Plamegate affair, Joe Wilson, is the toast of Tinseltown, and will no doubt be in the front row at next year’s Oscars.
I Love IBD!
This whole conversation exposes what a fraud this whole trail is. Nobody is being charged with breaking the law for revealing Valerie Plame’s employment status with the CIA. After years of investigation, the judge says he doesn’t even know what her status actually was and that it is not relevant. Then the judge refuses to let that issue even be discussed in the trial, yet the trail is accusing the defendant of lying to a grand jury to cover up the act of exposing her identity! That is why the jury is having a hard time putting everything together, the main piece is missing! It’s like putting together a puzzle and the large centerpart of the puzzle is missing and you’re trying to put the pieces together around the edges. The reason this is happening is that you are not supposed to see the whole picture. You’re supposed to fill in the center yourself. And this is how Fitz gets left leaning jury to convict a man based on what they imagine is in the middle. I have no doubt these assholes are just trying to justify in their own mind what they think the middle of the puzzle actually is and they will convict him.
First appeal throws everything out!
Stevevvs,
Thank for posting that IBD article! It is awesome and there has not been written a more truthful article regarding this BS Plame Affair.
Valerie and Joe someday will be held accountable for their actions when these two pieces of dung meet our creator. Their elevator will be punched to go down and righteously so.
The Wilsons used their positions to mutually advance their careers. Typical Washington story.
Then the Wilsons moved to New Mexico to help Bill Richardson. Was that a wise decision on Bill Richardson’s part?
Of every IBD article that I’ve read, I’ve enjoyed them all.
Yes, Libby is a victim of a witch hunt regardless of the outcome of the jury deliberations. This case should never have come in front of a judge at all.
Once the jury has completed its deliberations (regardless of outcome), I would like to see this investigation come to a quick end. It’s a huge waste of money spent on a case that is based on a missing crime, no motive, no intent, no materiality, no opportunity. So what if Libby lied or obstructed justice….there’s no crime at all.
NBC: Iraqis Want U.S. to Stay and Insurgents Counting on Help from War Opponents
There is no reasoning with sooth. He suffers from BDS and is actually telling us alot about his own modus operandi…and that of the liberals, especially the clintons…and even more especially hill.
Projection, thy name is sooth.
He doesn’t know the President personally nor the vice president. The pettiness he (sooth)projects onto them, belongs to him.
He does not want to know the truth. As Rush says, arguing with him just turns you into him.
Good post, Seixon.
Another Putin critic meets an unlikely death.
http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_story/0,3566,256699,00.html
Pls tuck this in AJ’s cubby for his Litvinenko file.
BikerDUH!
Wrong! Libby is accused of lying. Period. The reason he did so is only speculation.
No way in hell that happens, altho you seem to be admitting he will be convicted. Have a nice time behind bars, Mr. Libby.
Biker is correct that the trial is accusing the defendant of lying to a GJ just to cover up the act of exposing her identity. You just misquoted Biker. Go back and re-read the entire post in its entirety.
The jury may determine that Libby’s guilty of at least one count but the appeals will definitely throw everything out or Libby will be pardoned.
There is no materiality, no motive, no opportunity in Libby’s statements either.
Amazing that most of Fitz’s witnesses were outed as liars and not so credible in proving Fitz’s case against Libby. There was not enough reasonable doubt to prove that Libby had the intent, motive, materiality, opportunity, to lie. Perhaps he did lie in one or two statements but not intentionally, without motive, without materiality, without opportunity.
cbolt has a good writeup about yesterday’s note:
And or question?
And Judge Walton may be on the verge of a ghastly error pending decision on yesterday’s note:
Ghastly error?
It’s no wonder Wells had been smiling more and more as these jury notes come out. It’s no wonder Fitz had been looking pressured at the same time.
Read part of count 3:
2. On or about October 14 and November 26, 2003, in the District of Columbia,
I. LEWIS LIBBY, also known as “SCOOTER LIBBY,”
defendant herein, did knowingly and willfully make a materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statement and representation in a matter within the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation…