THE ROVE RED HERRING
Why is special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursuing so zealously the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, since it is all but impossible to prove that the leaker or leakers committed a crime?
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act requires that the leaker have learned the identity of a "covert agent" from authorized sources. And it requires that the leak be deliberate. The law defines a "covert agent" as someone working undercover overseas, or who has done so in the last five years. Plame has been manning a desk at CIA headquarters since 1997.
So why is Fitzgerald acting like Inspector Jauvert in Les Miserables? The answer may lie in a sentence Walter Pincus of the Washington Post wrote on June 12th, 2003. First, some background:
At Plame’s suggestion, the CIA sent her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, to Niger in February, 2002, to investigate a report by British intelligence that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium. In his report to the CIA, Wilson said Iraqis had approached Nigerien officials, but no deal had been made.
In September, 2002, the British government published a white paper in which it made public British Intelligence’s belief Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Africa. A month later, the CIA received from an Italian source documents purporting to show that Niger and Iraq had done a deal. These turned out to be forgeries.
President Bush mentioned the British findings in his state of the union address in January, 2003. In his leaks to Pincus, and earlier to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Wilson claimed Bush knew this was false.
The key sentence in Pincus’ story is this:
"Among the envoy’s conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because ‘the dates were wrong and the names were wrong,’ the former U.S. government official (Wilson) said."
Wilson’s official role ended when he returned from Niger in March 2002. The CIA didn’t get the Italian forgeries until October 2002. Wilson had no access to them. He either was making up what he told Kristof and Pincus, or he had received an unauthorized leak of classified information.
Wilson outed himself in an op-ed in the New York Times July 6th, 2003. Columnist Robert Novak wondered why Wilson, who had no intelligence background and strong anti-Bush views, had been selected for the Niger mission. "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report," he said in his column July 14th.
That set off the Plame name game. Journalists lost interest when in July, 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Wilson was lying, and the Butler Commission concluded reports Saddam was trying to buy uranium were "well founded."
But by then the special prosecutor the media sought had been appointed, and Fitzgerald was demanding testimony from two reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote a story about Plame, and Judith Miller of the New York Times, who didn’t.
Journalistic interest revived when Cooper revealed his source was Bush political guru Karl Rove. Novak (the journalist who outed Plame) hasn’t revealed his sources. But a fawning profile of Wilson and Plame in Vanity Fair in January, 2004, offers a clue:
"Wilson was caught off guard when around July 9 he received a phone call from Robert Novak who, according to Wilson, said he’d been told by a CIA source that Wilson’s wife worked for the agency."
Cooper is a free man because Rove gave him explicit permission to talk about their conversation. Miller is in jail because her source didn’t, indicating he or she is someone other than Rove.
Liberals want Rove’s scalp. But the nature of the Cooper-Rove conversation (Cooper called him; Rove told him not to publish the information, which Cooper did anyway) makes it plain prosecution under the Identities Act has scant hope of success.
Maybe Rove — or someone else — lied to the grand jury. Or maybe Fitzgerald is investigating a different crime.
What if someone in the CIA was leaking classified information to influence the 2004 election? Uncovering that crime would be worthy of Inspector Jauvert’s doggedness.
I suspect the biggest shoe in this case has yet to drop, and liberal journalists won’t like it when it does. Because the CIA leaker just may prove to be Valerie Plame herself.