Novak Tells (Almost) All:
This morning's Robert Novak column begins:
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed my attorneys that, after 2-1/2 years, his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded. That frees me to reveal my role in the federal inquiry that, at the request of Fitzgerald, I have kept secret.With that, Novak proceeds to explain his role in the Wilson-Plame affair, including the identities of two of his three sources (Karl Rove and Bill Harlow). Novak does not reveal the identity of his "primary source," however, though he says Fitzgerald knows who it is.
The Washington Post covers Novak's disclosures here. For more, Novak will discuss these issues in further detail tonight on FoxNews "Special Report" at 6pm.
UPDATE: Tom Maguire has more, including a back check.
I don't understand what Novak's column adds to what has already been said. He continues to withhold the name of his primary source, and instead tells his readers to take his word that the man is not a "political gunslinger," whatever that means.
And the basic question remains: why was the administration so concerned about Ambassador Wilson's (a hero, remember, during the first Gulf War) report that they would choose to question him rather than answer his report with facts and arguments. The answer is simply that this administration, in the face of intelligence they do not like, consistantly chooses to attack the the messenger rather than learn from and act on the basis of that intelligence.
Here's hoping that the current turmoil in Italy's spook service yields some glimmer of insight into the murk of Plamegate.
Because that is a big part of how he got the trip to Niger. Apparently, part of the background to this is that Wilson's NYT article implied that Cheney's office sent him to Niger. This apparently incensed Cheney, esp. after it turned out that Wilson was an enemy of the Administration. So, this whole thing was to set the record straight on how Wilson got the junket to Niger, countering Wilson's story. Disclosing that Plame was CIA was just a byproduct of this, as that is where she worked, and that is the agency that sent him, after she made the suggestion that he be sent.
Think about it, how else should they have rebutted Wilson's implication that Cheney's office sent him to Niger? Should they have let the false implication remain unrebutted for national security reasons? BTW, there is some evidence that they didn't realize that Plame had been covert, and Novak has repeatedly stated that his implying that she was one was inadvertant, that he only meant to say that she was a CIA employee.
Oh and for the substance of your comment.
1. Valerie Plame was not undercover. No evidence has ever been presented that she was. (Apart from Mr. Wilson's assertions) If she were undercover, Fitzgerald would be prosecuting Libby for a substantive crime in addition to perjury. (I'm not letting Libby off the hook - if he perjured himself, it's a crime).
2. There's no evidence that "exposing" Valerie Plame as a CIA employee did any damage to national security. In Jan 2006, in a response to a request for such an assessment, Fitzgerald responded "A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson's status as a CIA employee, and thus we possess no such document. We would not view an assessment of the damaged caused by the disclosure as relevant to the issue of whether or not Mr. Libby intentionally lied when he made the statements and gave the grand jury testimony that the grand jury alleged was false." So, if the "exposure" of Valerie Plame was so damaging to national security, why wouldn't the special prosecutor look into it? Hmm.. Maybe because Plame wasn't even covert.
3. Libby's lawyers have offered to provide 5 witnesses to testify that Wilson told them that his wife worked for the CIA. Libby's lawyer, Wells, has told the judge, "I've got five witnesses who will say under oath that Mr. Wilson told them his wife worked for the CIA." So either these five are willing to perjure themselves for Libby, or..... Maybe Plame wasn't covert.
One disturbing point is that Plame's role at the CIA was absolutely irrelevant, in a news sense, to Novak's column. Novak's overall point was that Wilson's mission was approved at a low level within the CIA; he could have made that point without revealing the identity of the individuals involved. There is, I believe, a right-wing storyline that goes something like "Plame was part of a faction within the CIA that wanted to undermine the administration's case for war, and the public had the right to know that Wilson was sent at the behest of that faction." However, no hint of this storyline can be found in Novak's column, which makes the claim irrelevant to the issue of whether Novak exercised smart judgment. He simply had no reason that I know of to out Plame.
What's amazing, but not surprising, to me is that the same people who believe the New York Times harms national security with every story they print apply no such presumption in this case. Valerie Plame was a covert operative working on WMD issues? Oh, come on, she was a desk jockey, she drove to Langley every day, her neighbor knew her job, blah blah blah. It's a GIVEN to some people that national security was not harmed by her outing, the same way it's a GIVEN that the NYT harmed national security by telling the terrorists that we sometimes eavesdrop on them without a warrant. Maybe the answer is unknowable, but I still can't see what justification Bob Novak had to reveal the name of a covert operative to make absolutely no point whatsoever.
If you think a trip to Niger is a "junket," you are smoking crack and/or too ready to believe just about anything. I have had family there, and, believe me, visiting Niger is a hardship, not a pleasure.
In all fairness to Bruce, I'm sure it's the latter.
Actually plenty of evidence has been presented that she was, if you still choose to ignore it then likely nothign I say will convince you. But Plame served overseas with Non Offical Cover, ie the same designation as James Bond.
The reason Fitzgerald isn't prosecuting anyone for revealing this is for it to be a crime the person has to know that the person is covert. Fitzgerald can't prove that anyone knew Plame was covert, thus he can't prosecute.
Maybe naming Plame was unnecessary, but the fact that the the "approv[al] at a low level with the CIA" came from his wife is, at least aguably, not trivial. So maybe he should have said, "Wilson's wife" and not "Valerie Plame." But as you said, finding out the name of Wilson's wife was a trivial excersize.
I hope that Fitzgerald has a sense of humor and uses the anonymous term "Political Non-Gunslinger" if he refers to this unnamed party at Libby's trial.
Yes, which should have shut this farce down very long ago.
Except that Scooter committed perjury while trying to hide from the farce, which was enough to attack another political figure (can't remember who) not all that long ago.
True. But Libby may also be a sufficiently important person that the alleged crime shouldn't rise to the level of indictment.
The question today is now that Rove has been publicly outed by Novak as one of the leakers (much to Scott McClellan's shame), will Bush fire Rove?
To answer this question, we just need to remind ourselves of a few other of the Bush administration's promises:
1.Has he refrained from having our military engage in "nation-building" because that is a failed policy that draws the military into performing tasks for which it is not well-suited?
2.Has he shown by our actions humility to the rest of the world in the way he conducted US foreign policy?
3. Have his tax cuts resulted in more revenue to the government than the cuts took away, enabling us to eliminate the budget deficit?
4. Have Guantanamo detainees been treated "humanely" and in the "spirit" of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention?
5. Has he always given the troop commanders "on the ground" in Afghanistan and Iraq all of the troops they needed, and never turned down a request for more troops?
I could go on, but I think you get my drift.
I've never really understood why Plame's involvement in the selection of Wilson as the guy to go to Niger is supposed to be damning, or even "arguably not trivial." It's not like it was a plum assignment. They needed someone with experiencein part of the world. Wilson had it.
Agree that the Who's Who is a red herring. Knowledge of his wife would suffice. Having said that, his wife was not covert.
nrein1 writes:
That Ms. Plame, at one point, worked under-cover did not mean that she was a cover agent at the time in question.
It is relevant that Fitzgerald both 1) will not prosecute based on outing an under-cover agent and 2) refuses to make any offer to prove that she was under-cover.
For 1), assume she were covert, and Fitzgerald could prove it. He would undoubtedly prosecute - he doesn't need a smoking gun statement from Libby "I know she's covert and here's her name," he would only need some supporting evidence of knowledge, e.g. that Libby had read intelligence reports with her name on it, etc.
For 2), part of the story of this case from the beginning is that Plame was covert, in nuclear proliferation work, and that her outing damaged national security. If Fitzgerald could prove she were covert, wouldn't that help the story just a little bit. The fact that he refuses to even address the issue now indicates that he can't prove it.
I think two points were intended to be made.
One, Cheney's office didn't send Wilson, and so it was free to ignore his report. Wilson's original NY Times piece said he was sent to Niger to investigate at the request of the Vice President's office. This was true, in that the VP's office asked the CIA to look into the Niger story some more, but not true in that the VP's office didn't, itself, ask Wilson to go there. Cheney and Libby were very mad about Wilson's article, apparently, and thought the portrayal that they had asked Wilson to go to Niger and then ignored him was unfair.
Two, Wilson is a nobody who got his job through his CIA wife, not through his qualifications, and so it was okay for the VP's office to ignore his report. It also reinforces their view that his findings were biased--part of the CIA didn't want to go to war, so this faction must have intended to send someone who is a friend of the anti-Iraq war faction who could be expected not to find any support for "raq attempts to purchase yellowcake in Niger" story.
As an aside, you would think that the nepotism charge would be a dangerous point for a George Bush II administration to make, but they don't see the irony, apparently.
the real issue is that, in hindsight, we could and should have a done a better job with iraqi intelligence (both gathering and analysis at all levels) before going off and invading. now, grenada, that was a feel good war. this is not.
As I said above, I think you can make the case that his wife's involvement matters somehow, but my point is that Novak's column makes no such case. If Novak had written "his wife sent him, and officials claim that she belongs to a secret anti-administration cabal within the CIA," or whatever, then sure. But when he just throws the fact out there, it adds nothing to his point that "the trip was approved at a low level," and thus he had no reason to out her other than just to out her.
As for the folks arguing that Plame was not covert, I have no hope of changing your minds, but wow, there sure was a ton of cloak-and-dagger stuff by the administration if she wasn't covert, wasn't there? I mean, even today, Novak's original "senior administration official" source won't reveal his identity, yet we're supposed to believe nothing was done wrong, in fact the disclosure was valuable and necessary in order to fight back against an administration opponent, yadda yadda. Why would the President promise to punish someone for disclosing the name of a non-covert employee? Think for yourself a little.
There are many reasons why the senior administration source could not want his name out there. They might involve Plame's status at the CIA. They might not.
The President vowed to fire someone for breaking the law. No one's been convicted yet. (Though if Libby is, it seems like he will have to fire him). In any event, glad to see that you still have faith in the President.
My mind on Plame's status will be changed quite easily - once Prosecutor Fitzgerald provides the evidence, if any, that she was in fact covert (not that she had been at some point in the past).
Some of you are under the impression that Wilson's trip to Niger was some kind of hardship posting? Uh, no. His own accounts of the trip have him sipping sweet mint tea in the capital, passing the time with government officials, former government officials, and others associated with the uranium business.
I'm not against mint tea, the capital, or Niger, but I doubt Wilson was enduring much in the way of hardship.
The relevant criminal statute defines covert as someone who worked as a covert agent within the last 5 years. Here is the relevant section of the statute:
(4) The term “covert agent” means—
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States (50 USC section 426(4) (emphasis added).
My advice is to look up these questions for yourself and stop relying on rightwing talking points circulating on the internet.
The reason Fitzgerald didn't indict Libby or anyone else for outing Ms. Plame is the statute's requirement that the violator actually learned of her status from a classified source, or had access to such a source that revealed the agent's covert status. (See, e.g., Sections 421(a), (b)).
That is also likely the reason why Libby, a lawyer, claimed to the grand jury that he learned of her identity only from Tim Russert and other press reporters (who deny his version of their conversations)--he was trying to say, even if I did out her, I didn't violate the statute.
Obviously, if Ms. Plame had not been a "covert agent" under the statute, the CIA and the DOJ would not have had anything to investigate, as her "outing" would have been lawful under this statute.
Here is his answer where he reiterated this promise a second time, during a press conference he held following the G8 summit, on June 10, 2004:
Q And, and, do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts.
Here is the link to the Whitehouse press release containing the transcript of this conference.
Later, when Rove apparently admitted to Bush that Rove was one of the leakers, Bush changed his tune, to firing someone who "committed a crime."
I'm sure Wilson didn't go budget class. What hotel was he put up in?
Here is his answer where he reiterated this promise a second time, during a press conference he held following the G8 summit, on June 10, 2004:
Q And, and, do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?
The thing is this was a trick question, because Bush never said he'd fire a leaker. He said he'd fire someone if a crime took place. So the reporter changed his words and caught him off guard. Does the Left really have to resort to such BS trickery to score points? A few years ago this stuff could be done all the time. But today the media's trickery can be outed!
Looks like BS trickery to me. September 2003:
Bush Vows Action if Aides Had Role in Leak
July 2005: Bush says he will fire anyone who breaks law
Maybe you can send a web link to these comments and Rove will finally be thrown into prison.
Joseph Wilson was not a "nobody". He was a senior career diplomat with experience and connections in West Africa. (Going to Niger in February is not a pleasure cruise, and drinking tea is one of the things you have to do there to insure an adequate amount of potable water gets into your body.) Moreover, as acting chief of mission to the US Embassy in Bagdad in 1990, he sheltered over 100 US citizens in the Embassy despite Saddam's demands to hand them over, demands accompanied by a threat to execute anyone sheltering foreigners. Wilson famously replied to Saddam that "if the choice is to allow American citizens to be taken hostage or to be executed, I will bring my own f---ing rope." President George H. W. Bush would later call Wilson "inspiring" and "courageous".
May I reiterate that the fundamental issue remains: why was the administration so concerned about Ambassador Wilson's report that they would choose to question him rather than answer his report with facts and arguments. The supporters of the administration in this thread have been totally silent on this point, and continue to make a case based on the distinction between Wilson's assertion that "
and the VP's viewpoint that somehow Wilson was asserting that he, specifically, was sent by the VP. Either way, the basic conclusions of Wilson's report can no longer be disputed, nor can the fact that the content of that report was inconvenient for the administration.
I'm unaware that being a person of "sufficient importance" is a valid exemption from criminal prosecution in our republic. But I'm sure all of us would love to have some theory on this point.
Fitzgerald had already obtained a waiver of confidentiality from this Unknown Government Official (UGO), who was Novak's primary source, before Novak showed up to testify. Fitzgerald has refused either to prosecute this primary source or even to reveal his identity. It looks as thaugh Fitz set up an illegal perjury trap for Libby, but even if he did not, he is derelict in his primary task, which was to reveal who leaked Plame's identity to Novak and prosecute that individual if the leak was actually a crime.
Last time I looked, Libby was not the President, and I would be very cautious in assuming that any privileges associated with the office of the President are transfered to members of his office, let alone to members of the VP's office.
In the case of the President, I believe that the practice has been not to indict while in office, but I don't know that this would always be the case. It is now clear that a sitting President is not exempt from civil claims even while in office, and may be the object of criminal investigation. A sitting Vice President has been criminally indicted, and it is hard to imagine that given a serious enough offense - let's say murder - a President would be exempt. Impeachment and trial would be conducted with the intention of removing the President from office, but that is not a prosecution for the crime itself, which would presumeably be held through the normal judicial process. Presumably Richard Nixon was pardoned in order to avoid such a trial. But I'm not a lawyer, and not an authority of any sort on this.
"Something about him is creepy."
You are falling into a discredit the messenger, not the message mode. There are lots of creepy people out there, and we may or may not agree upon who is and who is not creepy. But the question is was Wilson correct about claims of Iraq interest in purchasing uranium from Niger? The answer is yes, and has been subsequently backed-up with substantial evidence from other sources and a thorough debunking of the forged Italian papers.
Proving the necessary intent under the IIPA (is that the acronym? it's been a long day) is far from easy. Particularly when the relevant witnesses have been perjuring themselves.
Grownups should be able to distinguish between "no crime was committed" and "no prosecution is plausible."
Or else Powell, an inveterate off the record leaker, or his aide Wilkerson.
I believe that Novak said in the Hume interview that it came up incidentally during a discussion of foreign policy.
RE whether Plame was a covert agent at the time of the publication, a guy at the Chicago Tribune reported that she had been employeed at US embassies in Europe - which would seem to preclude her ever being a covert agent regardless of later pseudoemployment. Additionally, the Boston Globe looked at the alleged consulting firm, and reported that it was pathetically nonexistent as a believable cover.
Further, if, as Novak says, Fitzgerald knew who Novak's primary source and two confirming sources were in January, 2004, and the info about whether Plame was covert or not, just what the f### has he doing for the 2 1/2 years since then?
Very, very little of this whole conversation, on either side, has much to do with grownup behavior.
It's high school preening pushed to the national political stage.
So, where've you been?
Thanks for the advice. Two points.
1. My statement stands as correct in light of the statutory definition of "covert agent." Under the statute, a covert agent includes an individual with covert status within the prior 5 years. So the statement:
is a correct statement, using "covert agent" as defined under statute.
2. Your objection is not substantive. I assert that Ms. Plam e did not qualify as a covert agent at the time in question. You point out that this includes the five years prior to the outing. Ok. So? I assert that Ms. Plame was neither actively undercover at the time nor had been so for the prior five years.
Let's do some bullet points as to why we can infer that Ms. Plame was not covert.
* Fitzgerald refuses to make an offer of such proof. Even if he's not going to prosecute under the statute, her status is relevant to the prosecution of the perjury case. Fitzgerald has had multiple years to investigate this case - and her status would seem to be one of the basic questions, no? Why does he persist in refusing to prove it?
* Fitzgerald could make a prosecutable case under the statue, if she were covert. He doesn't need a "smoking gun" statement to bring the case. That's what juries are for.
* Fitzgerald refuses to prosecute others, for whom the scienter requirement would be easier. CIA officer Harlow confirmed to Novak that Plame was CIA. Fitzgerald knows this and has known this. As top CIA, Harlow could be hardly deny that he didn't know her covert-status / learned it from the news.
* Wells, Libby's attorney, has represented that he has 5 witnesses to testify that Joe Wilson himself told them that his wife was CIA. Wells isn't going to lie to the judge on the existence of these witnesses. So you'd have to say that these 5 individuals are all prospective perjurers. Hmm.. Okay, but that's not terribly convincing.
I still think that intent is key. Question: does the suspect have to've known that Plame was "covert" under the statute? That is, would Rove or whoever have to've known that Plame had been overseas in a covert capacity in the last 5 years?
Also, when Fitzgerald announced Libby's indictment he did say that Valerie Plame's CIA status was classified:
FITZGERALD: "Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.
Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life.
The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security."
Fitzgerald Press Conference
One interesting thing he said is that it was "not widely known outside of the intelligence community." That would cover some indiscretion (Mr. Wilson having told somebody else), but not necessarily mean it was legal for people in the White House to knowingly blow her cover. How can Libby really use this as an excuse? Wouldn't this mean that they would have to have known that Wilson's wife was indeed covert and that Wilson had told other people before they did? Did they admit to that? Doubtful. The problem is proving that they knew her status was classified.
Novak was on a vendetta for the White House. He was careful not to name his sources, referring to "senior administration officials". Especially at Mr. Harlow's request to not print Plame's name, he could have easily referred to "low level CIA employees", as somebody else said above.
Harlow denies Novak's account of their conversation. He said he tried to talk Novak out of doing the story, and didn't confirm Ms. Plame's status as a CIA officer.
I am confident that the CIA won't have referred this matter to Justice, and Justice wouldn't have investigated, if Ms. Plame's status was not one of a "covert agent" at the time of the disclosure in the media.
50 USC 426Definitions
Release date: 2005-03-17
For the purposes of this subchapter:
(1) The term “classified information” means information or material designated and clearly marked or clearly represented, pursuant to the provisions of a statute or Executive order (or a regulation or order issued pursuant to a statute or Executive order), as requiring a specific degree of protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security.
(4) The term ''covert agent'' means -
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency - (i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and (ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and - (i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or (ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation;
Release date: 2005-03-17
(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information
Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents
Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual’s classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
(d) Imposition of consecutive sentences
A term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment.