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2005 by Rodney G. Graves, all rights reserved. The
Plame Kerfuffle
Be very careful in what you wish for
[Originally submitted as a blog
entry on Bayosphere] 2003 03 07 Director General Mohamed ElBaradei
(IAEA) reports to the UN Security Council on UNSC 1441.
2003 07 06 Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, "What I Didn't Find in Africa" on the basis of a trip he undertook for the CIA disputes the President's State of the Union Address.
Comment:
Furor in a bottle. President Bush "Lied to us!!!!" in his State of the Union Address.
2003 07 11 At the end of a phone conversation Karl Rove gives Matt Cooper of Newsweek “’big warning’ not to ‘get too far out on Wilson.’” Rove describes the source of Wilson's appointment for the "Mission to Niger" as "wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on
wmd"
2003 07 11 Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) George Tenet rebuts Wilson.
Comment:
Except he didn't.
2003 07 13 UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw weighs in,
Analysis:
Which paraphrases nicely as "We had our own sources and they hold that Iraq was indeed attempting to procure yellowcake from Niger."
2003 07 14 Robert Novak published his now infamous column Mission to Niger which includes the following:
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
2003 07 16 David Corn critiques Novak's column as "A White House Smear"
He opens with:
Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?
But the real news is here [emphasis added]:
Novak tells me that he was indeed tipped off by government officials about Wilson's wife and had no reluctance about naming her. "I figured if they gave it to me," he says. "They'd give it to others....I'm a reporter. Somebody gives me information and it's accurate. I generally use it." And Wilson says Novak told him that his sources were
administration officials.
As JustOneMinute blog
[The starting point for this timeline, and must read materiel] points out:
The distinction between "administration" and "government" officials haunts this story. TIME clearly makes a distinction (see below, July 17/22), and so does Mr. Corn here. My impression is that "Administration" means what it says; "government" is non-White House executive branch. In this story, the CIA would be "government", and White House officials would be "Administration".
2003 07 17 TIME Magazine joins the fray with "A War on Wilson" Note both that this is the article for which TIME now has a $1,000/Day contempt charge looming over its sources, and that it has been revised since initial publication.
2003 07 17 (Revised and corrected by the author on 2003 07 20) A blogger (Mark A. R. Kleiman,
A Fair and Balanced Weblog is first to the legal heart of the
matter.
2003 07 18 Howard Dean adds more political gasoline to the fire by making the Plame affair Question 4 of his
16 Questions for the President concerning the State of the Union Address.
Mr. President, we urgently need an explanation about the very serious charge that senior officials in your Administration may have retaliated against Ambassador Joseph Wilson by illegally disclosing that his wife is an undercover CIA officer.
2003 07 22 Paul Krugman climbs on.
2003 07 22 Newsday finds officials willing to raise the stakes. Intelligence Officials...
[NOTE, this has aged off and is now a paid link to the "library" resources]
2003 07 22 Joe Wilson tours the talk show circuit. Today Show via transcript on
JustOneMinuteBio.
2003 07 23 Newsday stirs the pot some more, but again one must pay to use the wayback machine.
2003 07 23 Kleiman returns with another good analysis and round up. Very good work, but we'll see later that Newsday's sources played them.
2003 07 23 David Corn returns to beat the same drum.
2003 07 24 Charles Schumer demands an FBI investigation.
2003 07 29 Speaking of the Law... Mark Kleinman again.
Analysis Break
Accusations are now flying that "Administration Officials" have leaked the identity of a CIA operative. This could indeed be a violation of Federal Law if:
1) Valerie Plame is (as of July 2003) a "Covert" asset of the CIA or
2) Valerie Plame has been a "Covert" asset of the CIA within the last five years
If, and only if, 1 or 2 pertain
3) The person who informed Robert Novak is subject to the National Security Act of 1948 (as in Read In)
AND
4) The person who informed Robert Novak was aware of 1 or 2.
Note that there are now official calls for an official criminal investigation.
Things get quieter in DC as the story makes its way around the country. The thundering silence is (accurately I think) attributed to official Washington realizing that there are some very real and very serious legal implications for talking about this situation.
2003 08 15 More on the applicable laws from John Dean, and David Corn
comments as to process.
2003 08 26 Mark Kleiman again advances the story, this time reporting Joe Wilson's assertion that the leak came from Karl Rove.
2003 09 17 Mark Kleiman again moves the story along based on a story from
Slate.
2003 09 26 Mark Kleiman yet again. This time beating the WaPo to the story.
2003 09 28 WaPo Page A01 "Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry; CIA Agent's Identity Was Leaked to Media"
2003 09 29 WaPo Page A01 "Bush Aides Say They'll Cooperate With Probe Into Intelligence Leak."
2003 09 29 Clifford D. May in the National Review Online "Spy Games; Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA?" Wherein Mr. May says:
On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie
Plame, as a CIA operative.
That wasn't news to me. I had been told that but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of. I chose not to include it (I wrote a second NRO piece on this issue on July 18) because it didn't seem particularly relevant to the question of whether or not Mr. Wilson should be regarded as a disinterested professional who had done a thorough investigation into Saddam's alleged attempts to purchase uranium in Africa.
Analysis Break
This assertion really removes Novak from danger of prosecution, as long as he does NOT obstruct subsequent investigation, if it is indeed true.
2003 09 30 Another A01 from the WaPo: "Bush Vows Action if Aides Had Role in Leak; Democrats' Demand for Special Counsel Rejected"
2003 09 30 Justice Department's 11 Questions to CIA in order to open a criminal investigation.
2003 10 01 Novak Responds.
The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.
2003 10 01 Yet another A01 from WaPo: "Justice Dept. Launches Criminal Probe of Leak" [Note, this link may have died]
2003 10 02 James Taranto, Best of the Web Today
questions both the newsworthiness and the wisdom of the investigation.
2003 10 04 David Corn defies the space/time continuum to comment on the Newsweak article below.
2003 10 06 Newsweak chimes in with "Secrets and Leaks;
Pssst ... You might think this Washington leak investigation will peter out like most others, with no culprits and no penalties. But here’s why this one may be different" Which doesn't really provide any new information.
2003 10 06 James Taranto again, Best of the Web Today again suggests that the media is setting itself up for a fall.
2003 10 04 David Corn defies the space/time continuum to comment on the Newsweak article below.
2003 10 06 Newsweak chimes in with "Secrets and Leaks;
Pssst ... You might think this Washington leak investigation will peter out like most others, with no culprits and no penalties. But here’s why this one may be
different" Which doesn't really provide any new information.
2003 10 06 James Taranto, Best of the Web Today again suggests that the media is setting itself up for a fall, under Reliable Sources?:
This is even more striking in the Plame kerfuffle, which is all about leaks to reporters, and which has prompted considerable navel-gazing from media pooh-bahs about Washington journalists' habitual reliance on anonymous sources. Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, tells the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz that "the 'underbelly of leaking' is not pretty"
and
If the investigators had all this information, they would have a pretty good idea of whether a crime occurred, and if so, who did it. Of course, this is unlikely to happen, because reporters generally do not reveal confidential sources. As Eugene Volokh notes, there is little legal basis for reporters to refuse to reveal their sources; some states have "shield" laws protecting journalistic sources, but there is no such protection in federal investigations. (There are Justice Department guidelines that counsel caution in issuing subpoenas to reporters and require authorization from the attorney general himself before such subpoenas may be issued.)
2003 10 08 Newsweak digs in deeper.
Analysis Break
This is rapidly turning into the Washington DC version of "Inside Baseball." The problem is that the press demanded, and got, the Justice Department involved. Note how they revel now, believing that the "Administration" is in for a thorough drubbing. Those following the facts up to this point realize that they don't really support the media's case.
2003 10 11 (reprinted in this following link on 10 14) Nicholas Kristof
"CIA scandal tars everybody" brings some interesting facts to the table.
2003 10 12 Yet another WaPo A01, "Probe Focuses on Month Before Leak to Reporters; FBI Agents Tracing Linkage of Envoy to CIA Operative" This one bears close attention, as it actually deals with the meat of the case and Joe Wilson's role in consistently moving it along.
2003 10 27 Time begins to walk back [Full story requires subscription]
2003 10 17 David S. Cloud in the Wall Street Journal "Memo May Aid Leak Probe" Also worthy of a click and a complete read.
2004 07 29 James Taranto yet again, Best of the Web Today
2005 02 28 James Taranto, Best of the Web Today
Since then, the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has subpoenaed several reporters, two of whom, Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time, have refused to testify before a grand jury and are now threatened with jail. Fitzgerald also demanded that Miller and another Times reporter, Philip Shenon, turn over their phone records, but last week a federal judge quashed that request, which prompted a Times editorial Saturday that contained a stunning turnabout:
Meanwhile, an even more basic issue has been raised in recent articles in The Washington Post and elsewhere: the real possibility that the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity, while an abuse of power, may not have violated any law. Before any reporters are jailed, searching court review is needed to determine whether the facts indeed support a criminal prosecution under existing provisions of the law protecting the identities of covert operatives.
The "disclosure" may not have been a crime? Wow, that's a shocker! Well, actually, it's not a shocker to anyone who's been reading this column. In a pair of items in 2003, on Oct. 2 and Oct. 6, we laid out extensive evidence--based on information that was publicly available at the time and on the text of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act--that there almost certainly was no crime at the center of the Plame kerfuffle. The Times' editorialists and columnists, however, were singing quite a different tune, and it's worth reviewing their record of pronouncements on the subject.
2005 06 27 Supreme Court denies certification in Miller v. United States, 04-1507, and Cooper v. United States, 04-1508 "Supreme Court Won't Hear CIA Leak Case". Appeals for the reporters refusing to testify before the Grand Jury convened by 'special counsel' Patrick Fitzgerald are now exhausted. The two must now either testify or be held in contempt of court (up to 18 months in jail).
2005 06 30 Time Inc. announces intention to turn over reporters notes to Grand Jury.
"Time Magazine to Cooperate in Plame Case Probe; New York Times Publisher Is 'Deeply Disappointed' by
Decision"
The announcement came three days after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by Cooper and Judith Miller of the New York Times and one day after a federal court judge repeated a threat to jail the two journalists for contempt for refusing to disclose their sources. The reporters told the judge yesterday they were prepared to spend four months in jail rather than answer questions about their confidential government sources.
In an interview with CNN, Pearlstine said he believes the documents will "obviate the need" for any testimony from Cooper. That seemed to imply that Cooper's notes will either include the name of his source or somehow point obviously to the source's identity.
Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, issued a statement saying the newspaper was "deeply disappointed by Time Inc.'s decision to deliver the subpoenaed records." He noted that one of its reporters served 40 days in jail in 1978 in a similar dispute.
2005 06 30 MSNBC Analyst Lawrence O'Donnell asserts Karl Rove is source of Plame leak on McLaughlin Group.
2005 07 01 "MSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case " refers to O'Donnell's assertion and subsequent extensions on the Huffington Post.
2005 07 02 In the 11 July Edition, "The Rove Factor?; Time magazine talked to Bush's guru for Plame story."
Newsweak's Isikoff can't bring himself to either damn or absolve Rove.
2005 07 03 WaPo hits the brakes, "Lawyer Says Rove Talked to Reporter, Did Not Leak
Name". This is interesting because Rove's Lawyer, as an officer of the court, has serious legal problems if he distorts the testimony of his client to the Grand Jury or the comments of the 'special counsel.'
Rove's lawyer said Rove never identified Plame to Cooper in those conversations. More significantly, Robert Luskin said, Fitzgerald assured him in October and again last week that Rove is not a target of his investigation.
"Karl did nothing wrong. Karl didn't disclose Valerie Plame's identity to Mr. Cooper or anybody else," Luskin said. Luskin said the question remains unanswered: "Who outed this woman? . . . It wasn't Karl."
2005 07 09 Newsweek's Isikoff Matt Cooper's Source; What Karl Rove told Time magazine's
reporter. See entry above for 2003 07 11, and my follow up blog
entry on Bayosphere.
2005 07 11 WaPo follows Newsweeks article with Questions Remain on the Leaker and the Law; Rove's Talks With Time Writer May Be a Focus which gives more background than the Isikoff piece.
2005 07 11 Drudgereport headlines pending Gray Lady assault on Rove as villain in chief. Wrap Up
The Plame affair, even more than the Newsweak "Koran Abuse" incident, is an illustration of the dangers of protected source reporting. The difference is that in the Plame affair the journalists are being held to account.
Why is this a bad thing?
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