Tom Maguire has all the highlights from the Plame / Waxman show hearings—including a bit on the media coverage, a predictable portion of which has been contemptuously misleading.
A few things to take away, for those of you too lazy to click over: 1) Plame refers to herself as “covert,” though she admits she doesn’t know her own legal status—remarkable three years on, particularly when viewed in the context of a self-styled victim who, by way of her outraged husband, certainly claimed to know her status at one time, if only by implication. Else how to explain the charges that she was a covert agent “outed” by a vindictive Administration a putative ally in the State Department looking to punish her husband for his brave whistleblowing attention seeking and completely misleading NYT op-ed?
From the AP’s Matt Apuzzo:
Plame said she wasn’t a lawyer and didn’t know what her legal status was but said it shouldn’t have mattered to the officials who learned her identity.
“They all knew that I worked with the CIA,” Plame said. “They might not have known what my status was but that alone – the fact that I worked for the CIA – should have put up a red flag.”
Perhaps. But as no charges have been filed against the actual leaker, Richard Armitage, it is reasonable to assume that Plame was not covert under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Which was the entire basis for Joe Wilson’s claim that his wife had been “outed”—and is the entire reason for Plame’s (overt) celebrity.
Second: Despite court testimony (and memorandum evidence) presented to the contrary, Plame denied that she recommended her husband for the Niger trip:
“I did not recommend him. I did not suggest him. There was no nepotism involved. I did not have the authority,” she said.
That conflicts with senior officials at the CIA and State Department, who testified during Libby’s trial that Plame recommended Wilson for the trip.
See, for instance, here and here.
For those interested, a transcript of Plame’s testimony can be found here.
Yeah, the way that she said, “I did not have the authority” really was telling. It was meant somehow to buttress the idea that she didn’t suggest him or recommend him. In fact, it’s immaterial.
Two things :
1. This whole “gotcha” moment for the right hinges on whether the IIPA actually applies to the Plame outing. What evidence is offered to show this? Nothing but assumptions. If Fitz already knew that the IIPA didn’t apply and he was simply trying to trap admin officials with bogus perjury charges, why is he still a USA? Those are serious accusations and we’ve already shown that the WH can fire any USA it chooses for any reason whatsoever. Illegal filings surely rise to that standard.
2. What does it matter if the IIPA applies to the Plame outing? Is it not enough that WH and State officials revealed, in the words of the CIA itself, the name of a “covert” and “under cover” CIA employee who “worked on the prevention of the development and use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States”?
It’s interesting to ponder how this drama would have played out if instead of being a critic of the Bush Administration, Joe Wilson had written an editorial for the NYT that contained damning information about, say, Bill Clinton’s lack of interest in capturing Bin Laden during his tenure as POTUS, and was later proven to have lied by a bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee review of his allegations. Further assume that his wife, a CIA employee was “outed” by one of the many Clinton synchophants in the media.
Would there even bee a Senate hearing about his wife’s identity being revealed? Would Joe and Valerie be the toast of the DC cocktail circuit with book deals in hand? Or would Joe be getting the Linda Tripp/Ken Starr treatment from the mainstream media? To what great lengths would the NYT and major networks go to define and clarify his every lie and misrepresentation? And how snarky would the coverage be of his too-pretty wife and her absurd allegations of her own self-importance within the CIA?
This whole thing just reeks of media bias and lies by ommission.
Sorta like the phony “outrage” over the firing of eight Federal Attorney’s, or the lack of any outrage (or media focus on) Sandy Berger’s document thefts, William “Cold-Cash” Jefferson’s bribe money or the fact that the Nancy Pelosi’s hand-picked Democrat Chairman of House Intelligence Committee doesn’t know a Shiite from Shinola.
The idea that she doesn’t know her own status is a real howler. Clearly, she has spent a lot of time with attorneys – enough to decide that she should file suit against her supposed aggressors. Would she have us believe that she never asked those attorneys about the legality of her situation?
Hahahahaha! Don’t throw me into that briar patch.
Sure, what does it matter if the legal definition is applied. We’re after bigger trooths.
You forgot to add, what does it matter whether the CIA had approved the Wilson mission to Niger on Valerie Plame’s suggestion prior to any information request from the VP’s office?
If you are referring to her status under the IIPA, why should she care? It was up to Fitz to determine if the law was broken under IIPA and he couldn’t. She knows her status under the CIA’s internal scheme and the CIA affirmed this.
What is the basis for her lawsuit?
From the firedoglake link:
emphasis added
Considering the circumstance of this transcript, I want to laugh but am too dumbfounded.
The IIPA isn’t the only law the protected them.
She’s right when she said that she was outed by the State Department, though.
All of the furor and the outrage being expressed over Valerie Plame’s “outing” and her “ruined career” and the “damage to national security” and the “endangering of other individuals‗all of it would be much more credible if ANY of it was directed toward the two individuals who were actually responsible for the initial leak that lead to Bob Novak’s column. And who were the two individuals that did all this damage and created all of this harm?
1) Richard Armitage, who admits to leaking Plame’s name and employment to both Bob Novak and Bob Woodward, and
2) The man who was Armitage’s source, the man who told Armitage who Valerie Plame was and what she did for a living—Joe Wilson.
According to Armitage, “everyone†knew who Valerie Plame was because her husband, Joe Wilson was “calling everybody†and telling them. Armitage says Wilson was pissed off because he was being portrayes as just a “low level guyâ€Â, so he was trying to boost his credibility by pointing out that his CIA-employed wife, who worked on WMD proliferation, had recommended him for the trip.
You can read the transcript of Armitage’s conversation with Bob Woodward here: http://sweetness-light.com/archive/hear-armitage-tell-woodward-about-valerie-plame
According to Woodword , this conversation took place nearly a month before Novak’s column came out. Now, Armitage may be lying in this conversation, but I haven’t heard any denials about this from Wilson or anyone else.
So how come liberals are not upset with these two characters? If “outing†Plame was such an egregious blow to her and to national security, how come these two guys get none of the blame? Why weren’t they called to testify and explain their actions?
If there are other laws involved, why didn’t Richard Armitage get his day in the dock like Libby?
Oooh. The victim card. Funny how the victim in this case, Mrs. Wilsom doesn’t ever seem to bring up the actual victimizer… I guess we are supposed to believe that a career CIA agent & civil servant, who’s also the wife of a former US Ambassador, doesn’t know whether she’s covert or what her actual status was for the CIA. I have never met anyone involved in Government work that doesn’t know what their clearance, status & ranking is ever, because all relate directly to their pay. At best she’s a blatant partisan liar & worse a bumbling incompetent so clueless she doesn’t blame the person who supposedly “outed†her or her position that was “outed.†But given her reported job at the CIA, I guess we can rule the worst & brand her a partisan liar.
Second paragraph, last sentence: strike through “punish”, replace with “discredit”. Yet another change in the original storyline.
Ignore heet – he/she’s just grasping for straws and laws that don’t actually exist, while trying to ignore the one that obviously does and has not bee violated.
It is hilarious to try to watch the Democrat smear machine and mainstream press try to create “crimes” where there are none.
Meanwhile, admitted thief Berger, Cold Cash Jefferson, Abscam Murtha, etc. get nary a second glance.
Liberalsim – rules for thee, not for me.
Haha – libealsim.
“Liberalism.”
I love the bleating about the meaning of ‘covert’
It’s all about statutes. If it isn’t prosecutable as a crime, it’s OK. So much for doing the ‘right’
thing.
One good point about Toensing. It’s quite possible she was consulted on her ‘opinion’ of the
covertness of Plame. I would love to hear her called back to ask that question.
Oh, and Goldbrick, as your good ‘bud Cheney
once squeaked, “Go fuck yourself”.
Fine. Prosecute Armitage and Wilson be done with it then.
Ok, so now we have the accusation that Plame lied to Congress. About something that is easily verifiable. That would be exceedingly stupid. I’m sure she’ll be charged quite soon.
Apparently, semanticleo, doing the right thing, such as giving a truthful account of your mission to Niger doesn’t matter at all, as long as it’s prejudicial to Bush (and you’re working for Kerry). Take a look at the link to Sweetness and Light.
Go forth and fuck thyself, too. It’s a little early to be drunk, even for Paddy’s.
Have a problem with the statute? It was Schumer and his buddies back in the ‘80s that opposed it tooth and nail. Back then, they considered it fun and games to reveal operative identities. And if they died a horrible death in the Soviet Union? Not their problem.
Funny how, when an obviously non-covert person who happens to agree with them politically, they’re all about “protecting national security.” Of course, to them, “national security” = “Democrats in power.”
And outing the undercover CIA wife is the proper response to this perceived slight. Utter bullshit.
Reverse everything. You think your guys would have held back if a CIA worker had recommended her husband to go on a mission that he later wrote extensively about, saying it provided good evidence of Saddam doing bad things?
Sure. Right. That one would have been “speaking truth to power.”
?
Outright politically motivated lie.
?
If there is no statutory definition, there is no definition. Ought the CIA, perhaps, advised the administration if it were a matter of internal concern? Should they have advised State?
I’m afraid that I think the truth matters. The truth is, Joe Wilson outed Plame.
“Go forth and fuck thyself, too.”
Collins. Speaking before you have the facts?
Goldbrick banned my email, so I did an endrun.
Why was I banned? Probably due to the friendly
exchange between myself and BRD.
By the way, Armitage is the guy with the mouth. Why so little anger at him in your circles? Mr. Plame raged again and again about Rove, who had nothing to do with it.
Someone blocks your email, so you come to his comments and tell him to fuck himself?
Heet,
Funny I don’t recall Armitage stating he did it as revenge, especially since good ole Mr. Wilson was his source. You may be better served saving your righteous indignation for those that have actually earned, like Valerie’s lying husband. What’s more telling, the Plames’ refusal to disavow or discredit Arbitrage’s reasoning, or your insistence to maintain a patently false meme in order to exact revenge against the Bush Administration? What other explanation can you offer, since they have never refuted Armitage, Armitage admitted to releasing the information after Valerie’s husband gave it to him & no one has been prosecuted for committing the crimes you are so convinced, evidence aside, was committed? Don’t worry, answering questions or following logic generally is your side’s strong suit, conjecture, moral outrage & lack accountability you have in spades.
…the trolls go silent, at the logic bombs do their work…
If there was a crime, Richard Armitage would be in jail, and Joe Wilson was his source.
Here, libs. Simplify:
Joe Wilson (outed wife) -> Richard Armitage (leaker) -> Novak’s column.
Nice try, PMain. Perhaps Gonzales should prosecute Armritage. You claim he got the info from Wilson himself? Proof?
How do you know this?
Heet, did you read that link? What do you make of what Armitage says, and the variety of versions of Wilson’s statements on the WMD issue?
Ask Bob Woodward, and read the link, dammit:
The end. Joe Wilson outed Valerie Plame to Richard Armitage, and he to Novak (and Woodward, apparently).
Go play, heet.
heet, here is the link from my earlier post:
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/hear-armitage-tell-woodward-about-valerie-plame
PWN3D.
Did you read the link? He never says “Wilson told me his wife worked for the CIA.” He is spreading unsubstantiated rumors.
Besides, no matter what Armitage did, it does not mean the WH can run a coordinated campaign to out Plame.
My proof is the simple fact that the CIA has never publicly stated that Mrs. Wilson was covert & the fact that the 2 year investigation, headed by the bi-partisan supported, Special Prosecutor has not convicted, nor charged anyone w/ the crime for her “outing†much less acknowledged that a crime was even committed. In fact, Fitzgerald has all but officially closed the investigation & stated publicly that no further indictments were going to be pursued. The Plames have never discredited Armitage’s confession & have only accused the Administration, once gain w/o any proof since she could not have outed from a position she didn’t hold. Hell, Valerie, before Congress, admitted she still wasn’t even sure of her own status… Maybe before demanding proof, you should supply proof of a crime to justify your unfounded & false accusations, because otherwise you just look silly & spiteful.
To answer your question, Gonzales cannot pursue an indictment, since there was no crime to be convicted of in the first place. Since Wilson never submitted a report, his “de-briefing” & subsquent lies prevent him from be prosecuted, since his article in the NYT did not refute an offical report, nor out a covert agent in the CIA.
The following facts are public:
* The CIA sent a non-CIA employee, Joseph C. Wilson IV, on a mission to Niger to determine whether Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase “uranium yellow cake,” an ingredient for making a non-conventional weapon.
* Wilson had not served in Niger for over two decades, and, unlike his supposedly undercover wife, was not an expert in nuclear weapons.
* Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement about his mission.
* Wilson was not prevented by the CIA from writing his Op-Ed for The New York Times, an article that not only criticized the Administration, but also detailed his mission and findings.
* When columnist Novak contacted the CIA to verify that Plame worked for the agency, he says that the Agency not only verified her employment but also failed to give him a serious request not to publish her name.
* The CIA’s usual procedure when it is concerned that publishing a fact would endanger a covert agent is to have a high ranking official, usually the Director, contact the journalist and ask that information not be published.
* The CIA did not prohibit Plame from making political contributions under the name “Wilson, Valerie E.,” facts that are publicly available at the FEC
attention dittoheads –
Armitage doesn’t say where he got the information. Sorry.
Where’s the proof of THAT?
heet –
Here’s an mp3 of leaker Richard Armitage saying that Joe Wilson told everybody about Plame.
You might not have a long memory, but many others do.
Semenclit: You go fuck yourself. You are still beneath contempt.
Heet, you are a posturing ninny. Plame was never covert and cannot therefore be “outed”. Other than as another posturing ninny.
Ah, yes. The “Wilson is the TRUE criminal” nonsense. You’d think SOMEBODY in the CIA, DoJ, State, WH, wherever, would have figured out what laws he broke and have him prosecuted. Funny how that hasn’t happened yet.
Attention, heet. Armitage did say that. Listen to the MP3 OF YER DOOM to find out how wrong you are.
Give it up. You lose.
Alright, kiddos. It was fun but it’s drinking time. Alert me when Fitz is fired and Wilson is thrown in jail for these incredible crimes they have committed. I can be reached at the local bar.
Did you listen yet, heet?
tw: That’s all she wrote22.
heet said:
Where is the evidence that the White House did this? There was apparently an effort to refute Wilson’s claim that he had been sent to Niger by the Vice President, but what is the evidence that they were attempting to “out” his wife as a means of punishing him?
He can’t be a criminal if there was no crime, but he is a liar, which is out contention. Care to provide a link where he denies what Armitage has said? Thanks for playing.
That’s right. Go think. Take a hike and go get drunk.
Life is easier that way. You’re still going to be wrong when you sober up, though.
And then what?
heet loses and runs away. Typical.
Dumbasses – he did not say Wilson told him. He says “Everyone knew it” and that he was calling all around. What the fuck. That is called a rumor.
bye again
Also, no charges have been filed against anyone in the CIA Public Affairs office which also confirmed, upon Novak’s request, that Plame was employed by the CIA.
If it’s OK for the CIA itself to identify her as an employee, how can it possibly be anything less than OK for anyone else to do it?
Rove, when asked, told Novak “Yeah, I’ve heard that.” The agency, when asked, told him that is was a fact.
You wanna take this one, heet?
I’ll link this important post one more time for any other libs who are feeling saucy:
Joe Wilson, according to Richard Armitage, told everyone about Plame a month before Novak’s column even came out. That includes the following conversation (caught on mp3) between Bob Woodward and Richard Armitage.
[url=”http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/02/12/libby.mp3″ target=”_blank”]
Listen well[/url], libs. It is the sound of the factual truth shooting down your castles in the sky.
Might be an interesting thing to find out, if he can remember, how he found out, then, eh? Might also be interesting to find out who Wilson was calling around to, and how Armitage knew it. Might be interesting to know also, since Wilson was an ex-State employee.
heet said:
Heet, just what do you think the word “‘cause” means in that sentence?
It wasn’t me that farted..it was some guy that walked by my office.
And yet you take it as a given that the White House was trying to “get back” at Plame and Wilson. In one case, rumor is discounted. In another case, rumor is accepted as gospel.
The difference? One is politically inconvenient for you, the other is your dream.
Where heet can be found 24/7 apparently…
I don’t drink the stuff, ABA.
Heet does have a point…it may not have been Wilson in particular that told him. It may have been one or more of the scores of others in DC that Wilson blabbed to that did. I’m no expert in intelligence methodolgy, but this strikes me as incongruous with cloak-and-dagger procedure.
Is that a dagger under your cloak, or are you just . . .
happy to sue me?
Sorta like not knowing your own legal status, posing for Vanity Fair in your best Charade get-up and taking nonproliferation advice from some guy who walked past your office? Can’t imagine why she was only a desk analyst.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but a truly covert agent would know they were covert. Why? Because they’d be bluntly told not to tell anyone who they work for, because they’re covert.
Someone who doesn’t know if they’re covert, isn’t covert, because they don’t know they’re not supposed to tell anyone who they work for.
Robert:
I knows she was covert; I seen her photo in a covertible!
Some guy walking down the hall said she was covert.
Was she sworn in?
“Contempt of Congress”, anyone?
Anyone? Bueller?
Nope. Doublesupersecret agents are so secret they don’t even know it. It’s like how they work at CIA headquarters to throw people off about how secret they are.
That’s true taken in the most literal sense. It’s also true that Armitage’s conversation with Woodward, though not definitive, certainly suggests that whether or not Armitage was given the information by Wilson in person, Wilson was the source of the information. If Waxman’s clown show were seriously attempting to uncover anything of import, Armitage would have to expand on that. That information will never be solicited in any sort of hearing. It would be explosive to her that from Armitage’s lips. The fact that he doesn’t address the issue casts Waxman’s motives in a less than favorable light.
The odd thing is that if Plame and Wilson persist in their lawsuit, it WILL come out. No defense attorney worth his salt wouldn’t subpoena Armitage. And Plame and Wilson’s suit falls apart immediately if it’s determined that Wilson was the primary source of any information about Plame being CIA. Hard to maintain that the administration is bandying about information intended to harm you when your the one who put it on the street. If the defendants feel a little vindicative, they should push for a preliminary hearing, get that info out in the open, and watch gleefully as the Wilson’s book and movie deals tank.
All that is somewhat beside the central point to be emphasized here. heet and semanticleo are promoting a double standard of exactitude in what they accept as fact and rumor. People who can weigh all the evidence on it’s relative merit realized long ago that Wilson and Plame have been running a manipulative dog and pony show. However, they aren’t Waxman’s intended audience. He’s not playing to thoughtful analysis, he’s playing to gullibility. heet and semanticleo represent the audience Waxman is playing to and there is no thought for assessment of evidence on relative merit in that crowd. They will never let go of the meme that the WH went after Wilson for being a whistleblower. As astonishingly illogical as that position is given the mountain of verifiable information gainsaying it, it is urban legend at this point.
Probably not. In another congressional hearing that might be an issue, but not in that particular hearing – it wasn’t about getting at the truth. Plame was well coached anyway and was very careful not to say anything that could be pinned down to outright perjury in that particular venue. For example, she should have been directly challenged to provide the person’s name who walked by her desk, so that person could be called to verify her account. It might even be true, but in any other venue, verification would have been the immediate reaction to that part of her tale. It this venue, that story will not be challenged.
The hearing was about assigning blame where Waxman was predisposed to assign it. It wasn’t about truth. It was political CPR for a failing meme.
I had read that the CIA asked Novak NOT to reveal Plame’s identity. Could anyone confirm that one way or another? I read it upthread stated that they didn’t, but I could’ve SWORN I read a news article that said they did.
Yep. Pretty much every time I read the news. Oh, you were talking about charges…
Ugly, too.
I don’t think the American people care to much about all this legal hair-splitting.
We saw Bush promise to discover who leaked Plame’s name and to boot those responsible.
Turns out it was him and Dick who were the leakers.
Hello, approval rating in the 20-30% range.
Gasp! Dan Collins is Heet!?!?!?! And I thought only Gleen Grenwald had sockpuppets…
Hehe.
ABA, would you drink it?
We saw Bush say that anyone in his administration who broke the law would be held accountable.
That weasel line came a little later, Dan.
When Bush was pretending to be concerned, he already knew what happened and who did it.
Will these guys never learn?
It’s always the coverup that bring you (or your approval rating) down.
Novak said that the information person that he confirmed with stated they’d rather he didn’t, not that he mustn’t.
Alphie: Which of the two, Bush or Cheney, are you asserting is in fact named “Richard Armitage”?
Or do you still not understand that Richard Armitage was the one who leaked her name?
Or (third possibility) are you just a thick dolt?
Don’t bother answering – I already know.
General,
It’s not like the White House doen’t maintain a very nice web site that has every single press conference they ever gave.
Here is the first time the Novak/Plame matter is mentioned:
Q The Robert Novak column last week identified the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson as a CIA operative who was working on WMD issues. Novak said that identification is based on information given to him by two administration sources. That column has now given rise to accusations that the administration deliberatively blew the cover of an undercover CIA operative, and in so doing, violated a federal law that prohibits revealing the identity of undercover CIA operatives. Can you respond to that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Thank you for bringing that up. That is not the way this President or this White House operates. And there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step.
It’s been downhill from there.
Both, plus Karl Rove, to boot. Frogmarch!
Sorry alphie – I don’t see how your quoted text causes either the Pres or VP to now be named “Richard Armitage”. The fact that there were accusations of an intentional outing of Plame doesn’t change the reality that her husband blew her pretend-cover.
Do you assume that “the administration” is an alias for “the White House”? Or did you not know that the Department of State, even when it acts any goddamned way it wants, is actually part of “the administration”?
Why, I don’t think I’ve ever read a clearer admission of guilt!
Mahatma Gandhi?
Colonel Mustard in the kitchen with the candlestick.
BTW.
alpo, hav I ever told you that you’re a fucking idiot?
That would certainly explain this, wouldn’t it? It is easy to question the evidence when you won’t allow it to be introduced.
I started reading newsgroups on Usenet in the mid 90s. I’ve been a constant lurker/sporadic commenter on political boards/blogs ever since.
Alphie is the worst troll I’ve ever seen. Constant repetition of the same lies and a head in the sand approach to avoiding dealing with factual evidence provided to counter said lies.
Pathetic.
He’s not the worst troll I’ve seen, but he may be the best example of sublime stupidity masquerading as imperturbable intellectual conceit that I’ve run across.
Only if I was low on the usual Sterno…
Any bets he’s one of those irritating dorks who talks in a monotone?
You know, the sort that memorizes mother board serial numbers.
Alphie is the worst troll I’ve ever seen.
Not really. There have been worse. He does, however, take great pride in his total lack of….Oh shit. Lets just call it what it is; Stupidity. Sorry. That’s a kind as I can be.
Trolls are pretty much interchangeable, though they do have variations.
heet – angry troll
semanticleo – foulmouth troll
alphie – telephone pole
They’re all pathological liars, of course, and cowards, and they all come back after their memory disorders kick in and tell the same lies again and again.
alphie’s problem is that his memory problem sometimes kicks in on the same thread, and that’s pretty embarrassing, or would be if it wasn’t a troll.