"Too Complicated" Posted by: Jon Henke
on Friday, July 22, 2005
Two years ago—and again a few days ago—Glenn Reynolds took a lot of abuse for calling the Plame Affair "'too complicated' for me to feel I really understand it". More recently, Duncan "Atrios" Black took rather less abuse (none) for expressing confusion about the matter.
Today, I'm throwing in my hat, too. There's plenty of room for speculation, but there's also plenty of room for uncertainty. I'm happy to wait for the Fitzgerald Report, and I'd imagine I'll accept his conclusions with little problem. I've no particular love for any White House official, and I've little interest in protecting established wrongdoing.
My criteria have been as follows:
If a White House official 1) consciously knew that Valerie Plame was a covert agent 2) whose identity ought to have been protected, and 3) that White House official initiated a leak of her name to the press 4) in order to disclose her identity, then he ought to be removed from his position and prosecuted.
He shouldn't be allowed to resign, nor should he be allowed to disappear from the public eye. If the aforementioned requirements obtain, he should be fired and prosecuted. However, there are still many possibilities that exclude one or more of the above requirements.
If the leak was 1) initiated outside of the White House (CIA, perhaps?) and merely discussed ex post facto by White House officials, 2) disclosed by an official who was not aware of Plame's covert position, but had merely heard "water cooler talk" about Wilson's wife, or 3) an accidental allusion which did not reveal her identity, but did lead a reporter to the identity...
...then I'd be far less inclined to assign blame. At this point, though, I think both Instapundit's and Atrios' confusion is perfectly understandable. Consider some of these posts from elsewhere...
I believe there may be a substantial, ongoing press cover-up in the Plame leak investigation. Various White House staffers claim to have heard about Ms. Plame from reporters, but not many reporters seem to have been subpoenaed - for example, in their recent coverage Adam Liptak of the Times only noted Matt Cooper of TIME, Judy Miller of the NY Times, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler of the WaPo, and Tim Russert of NBC News, in addition to the shadowy Robert Novak.
Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.
Keil's report relies on an anonymous source, so it should be viewed with a health dose of skepticism, but assuming the source is accurate we now have a possible reason why Fitzgerald fought so hard for testimony from Time report Matt Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller. The differing account of Russert, Novak, Libby, and Rove would be hard to make a case for perjury with, as they amount to he said/he said accounts of phone conversations. If Fitzgerald could show a pattern of differing accounts from either Rove or Libby, then perhaps he'd have a case.
Our topic again is that classified State Department memo, the one that contained a brief mention of Valerie Plame's relationship to Joe Wilson and which may have been the conduit through which White House officials learned about the connection.
A couple days ago the Journal published an article that revealed that the memo made clear that the information contained in it was sensitive and should not be divulged.
In tomorrow's Post, Walter Pincus provides the specifics.
A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.
A few days ago a former high-level administration official who was on Air Force One going to Africa with the president (and think for a moment how many now-former administration officials were on that flight in a position to vouch for this fact) told Bloomberg News that he saw Ari Fleischer "perusing the State Department memo on Wilson and his wife."
So Perhaps Libby and Rove found out about Plame from Fleischer, who would have been calling back to the White House. Or perhaps they got it from their research and authorship of the Tenet mea culpa. It seems quite conceiveable that they got it from both directions. Remember, Libby would have had no shortage of access to former CIA officers and CIA personnel on loan to the administration who could have given him more backstory on Plame. The two channels might even help explain the two versions of her name that were in circulation.
In any case, there was no shortage of channels through which they might have gotten the information. But each, it seems, in his grand jury testimony, has claimed he learned the information from journalists—even though the journalists disagree.
Speculation is fun, but I think the best plan is to buy plenty of popcorn and wait for the Fitzgerald Report.
UPDATE: Reader Keith Indy's comment is worth repeating and endorsing:
Leaking classified information is serious business, and should be investigated. And it should be investigated by serious proffessionals, not drawn out like some soap opera digest across the public info highway...
If it was someone in the CIA who did this on purpose, they deserve the same punishment as if it were someone in the White House, Executive Branch or Congress.
Yep. Meanwhile, though it's taken a backseat to the scandal du jour, important stuff is still going on in the world. We're covering that at the Neolibertarian Network blog. (including a kind word for Paul Krugman!)
What I’ve been saying all along. This who-done-it is not solvable by clues in the public sphere.
So I hope this will be the last post on this blog until there is a report and either indictments, or exoneration.
Leaking classified information is serious business, and should be investigated. And it should be investigated by serious proffessionals, not drawn out like some soap opera digest across the public info highway...
If it was someone in the CIA who did this on purpose, they deserve the same punishment as if it were someone in the White House, Executive Branch or Congress.
Holy Toledo! You are right about Krugman’s column; it is very good. I remember the last one that I thought that about. It was Christmastime and his column was very jolly. Well, that is twice a year.
I think it’s all a lot easier to understand if you realize it’s just one more example of the constant war waged by the WASPy Washington insider elite that populates State, CIA etc. with hacks, against whichever hick from whichever flyover state has been temporarily sent to Washington by the yokels, and thinks that this gives him some right to boss the Establishment around and set direction for foreign policy. Beyond that, you don’t really need the details.
Do we know for certain he will issue a report? In the absence of the Independent Counsel statute, he can just fold up shop and say nothing, can’t he? In fact - and correct me if I’m wrong here - without the statutory requirement of a report, where would Fitzgerald find legal authority to reveal grand jury testimony? Unless he has some authorization, his only choices may be indict or clam up.
Mike G, I’ll stand by myspeculation and invoke Occam’s Razor by saying the most likely original source for the Plame information is either Plame herself or her husband. People like to talk about themselves too much, especially when it casts them in a positive or exotic light.
The simple test should be if anyone in the administration misused classified information then they should be fired whether or not it was criminal. On the other hand if they merely passed on gossip, or information that they recieved from non-secure channels then they should be in the clear.
Subman has a point. Judging by Plame and Wilson’s public utterances, it’s all about them. More to the point, as far as as I can track this (I hired a boyscout to help out), the only thing Rove said was, "Yeah, I heard that too." re Plame. Remember when you were a kid? Someone would come up to you and say, ’Joey’s mean, I don’t like him.’ If you agreed, the kid would run to ’Joey’ and tell him you said Joey was mean and you said you didn’t like him. I really think that’s the whole story in a nutshell.
You’re a liar or an idiot. Atrios has expressed none of the confusion you claim he has over the Plame Affair.
What he said was "Uh, I can’t decipher the narrative or the tangled sourcing in this article. Anyone want to try?" What he was doing was criticizing one poorly written, unclear article.
Either you knew this and you’re a liar. Or you couldn’t see the obvious and you’re an idiot.
Before you ban me and delete this posting, which is it?
Pretty good analysis. I’m surprised how much confusion there has been about basic points.
The confusion mostly seems to stem from whether Rove can be said to have "leaked" the information if he heard it from the media, as he claims. As Jon’s post points out, this is not a trivial distinction.
So unless it turns out Rove lied, I don’t see that this amounts to much. This isn’t like Watergate, or Iran-Contra, or Whitewater and the FBI files appearing on Hillary’s desk and Monica and... oh, let’s not start down that long road.
(Is it just me, are there fewer people from the right like Jerry? Maybe I just visit the wrong sites, but right-wing lunatics either have less access to computers or are better medicated.)
