Valerie Plame

Valerie Plame (born 1963) is a former American Central Intelligence Agency employee who was identified as a CIA "operative" in a newspaper column by Robert Novak on 14 July 2003. This created a political controversy and eventually led to a Justice Department investigation into possible violation of U.S. criminal law regarding exposure of covert government agents. As of April 2005 the investigation continued without apparent result.

Contents
1 Known background
2 Exposure of Plame by Novak

2.1 Possible illegality of exposure

3 Justice Department Investigation

3.1 Immediate Internet reaction

4 Novak's response
5 Timeline

5.1 February 2002
5.2 January 2003
5.3 May 2003
5.4 July 2003
5.5 August 2003
5.6 September 2003
5.7 October 2003
5.8 2004
5.9 2005

6 Reaction/response to Plame "leak"

6.1 September 30, 2003
6.2 October 2003
6.3 2004

7 See also
8 External links

8.1 Related SourceWatch articles

Known background

Plame's life history has been documented in the January 2004 Vanity Fair article *"Double Exposure." But little is known of Plame's professional career. She has described herself as an energy analyst for the private company Brewster Jennings & Associates, which was subsequently acknowledged by the CIA as a front. It has been reported that this cover was not executed very convincingly.

Plame is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson is her second husband. Plame met him at a Washington party in early 1997. She was able to reveal her CIA role to him while they were dating because he held a high-level security clearance. At the time Wilson was married to, but separated from, his second wife Jacqueline, a former French diplomat. Wilson and Plame are the parents of three-year-old twins.

Exposure of Plame by Novak

Plame was identified as a CIA "operative" in Novak's column, which read in part: "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 allegation.[1]

According to Novak, administration sources claimed that it had been at Plame's suggestion that the CIA sent her husband to Niger in 2002 to investigate the Yellowcake Forgery, documents implying that Iraq had attempted to illegally purchase uranium from that country. This appeared to contradict Wilson's claim that he was sent to Niger at the request of Vice President Cheney. Cheney has denied any knowledge of Wilson's Niger visit.

Wilson charged that his wife's CIA association had been deliberately exposed by the White House in order to destroy her career, in retaliation for his public charge that the Bush administration had lied to the American people about U.S. intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. In an article in The New York Times on 6 July 2003, Wilson denounced the Bush administration, saying that "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

Possible illegality of exposure

Under certain circumstances, the exposure of a covert government agent would violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years. The act applies itself to a person who "learns the identity 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." [2] The Novak column did describe Plame as an "operative", but did not use the description "covert". Novak has claimed that the CIA made "a very weak request" that he not name Plame publicly. WSJ.com columnist James Taranto suggests that this would indicate the absence of "affirmative measures to conceal" necessary for a violation of the law. [3] The CIA has disputed Novak's claim and indicated that he was told revealing the information could cost agents their lives.

Justice Department Investigation

The matter is currently under investigation by the Justice Department and the FBI. Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation in December 2003. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald currently heads the investigation. Because the Justice Department is a part of the executive branch, some critics of the Bush administration contend that the absence of rapid and effective action has been deliberate.

In March 2004, the independent counsel subpoenaed the telephone records from Air Force One.

On April 7, 2005 the Washington Post reported [4] that unnamed sources indicated Fitzgerald was not likely to seek an indictment for the alleged crime of knowingly exposing a covert officer (which prompted the inquiry), although he may possibly charge a government official with perjury for giving conflicting information to prosecutors during the investigation.

Immediate Internet reaction

David Corn had predicted that the investigation would die in the CIA -- that George J. Tenet would protect the Bush White House through his purported loyalty to it. Anonymous political weblog Just One Minute (JOM) writes: "Evidently not. One guess - Mr. Tenet, pondering Bush's declining poll numbers and faced with in-house annoyance, decided to do the right thing. One presumes that, with Congress back in town, Mr. Tenet checked with his supporters on both sides of the aisle before proceeding." Both Mark Kleiman and Josh Marshall have made recent comments on the matter, according to JOM.

Novak's response

Novak's initial column identified Plame as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He has since stated that he believed Plame was merely an analyst at the CIA, not a covert operative—the difference being that analysts are not undercover, so identifying them is not a crime. Critics contend that after decades as a Washington reporter Novak was well aware of the difference and would be unlikely to make such a mistake. Novak has also claimed that Plame's CIA employment was an open secret in Washington, indicating that effective "affirmative measures" to conceal her relationship to the CIA were not being taken. Several ex-CIA operatives who knew Plame have disputed this and indicated that she was at one time a NOC (nonofficial cover) covert operative.

In his October 1, 2003 article "The CIA Leak" Novak states this explanation for the two "senior administration officials" and the "CIA official" referenced in his June 14 article:

"During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.
At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission."

In other interviews Novak confirmed that his sources warned him not to use the name, advice he disregarded. His motivation is suggested by this comment in "The CIA Leak:" "I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment." Just four days before he revealed Plame's name Novak wrote, "Bush's Enemy Within." Therein Novak excoriates the Bush Administration's appointment of Frances Fragos Townsend to an important national security post explaining she could later betray Bush because two of her former superiors were liberal democrats and she had served in the US Attorney's office in Manhattan. According to Novak this office was "notoriously liberal laden."

Wilson had worked in the Clinton Administration. Novak's dismissal of his sources' warnings may have been motivated not by personal feelings about Wilson or the Iraq war but by his peculiar concern that the Bush Administration was hiring Democrats or liberals. In this scenario the interpretation by Wilson and others that the "leak" was designed to hurt Wilson or subvert Wilson's repeated denials that his wife recommended him for his trip would be erroneous. The officials who revealed Plame's name would theoretically have done so without ill intent and with the assumption their warnings would be heeded.

Although there have been many discussions about government and journalistic ethics promulgated by the Valerie Plame matter there has been little or no attention given to possible ethical breaches committed by Novak in foregoing his sources' warnings not to reveal Plame's name.

Timeline

February 2002

Wilson travels to Niger at the request of the CIA

January 2003

On January 29 President George W. Bush gives his State of the Union speech. Toward the end of the speech he says, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

May 2003

Wilson becomes a foreign policy advisor for the John Kerry for President campaign.

July 2003

"Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame's identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional."

August 2003

September 2003

October 2003

2004

2005

Reaction/response to Plame "leak"

September 30, 2003

"I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing.
"And again I repeat, you know, Washington is a town where there's all kinds of allegations. You've heard much of the allegations. And if people have got solid information, please come forward with it. And that would be people inside the information who are the so-called anonymous sources, or people outside the information -- outside the administration. And we can clarify this thing very quickly if people who have got solid evidence would come forward and speak out. And I would hope they would.
"And then we'll get to the bottom of this and move on. But I want to tell you something -- leaks of classified information are a bad thing. And we've had them -- there's too much leaking in Washington. That's just the way it is. And we've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them and I want to know who the leakers are."

October 2003

  • "Regardless of whether or not a special prosecutor is selected, I believe that Ambassador Wilson and his wife -- like the DNC official once did -- should file a civil lawsuit, both to address the harm inflicted on them, and, equally important, to obtain the necessary tools (subpoena power and sworn testimony) to get to the bottom of this matter. This will not only enable them to make sure they don't merely become yesterday's news; it will give them some control over the situation."[5]

2004

See also

External links

Related SourceWatch articles

See also: Valerie Plame, 14 July, 15 February, 1963, 1 October, 2003, 2005, 22 July, 6 July, Air Force One