You’ll recall what Larry Johnson wrote yesterday about Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kansas):
I guess Senator Pat Roberts believes that if he repeats a lie long enough it eventually becomes true. While it is one thing for a political bag carrier like Ken Mehlman to be woefully ignorant about CIA practices and procedures, it is downright alarming that Senator Roberts can be so misinformed. Today, while appearing on CNN’s Late Edition, Roberts repeated the specious claim that Valerie Plame could not be undercover because she went to work everyday at CIA Headquarters.
Now comes word via Boston.com that:
Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas intends to preside over hearings on the intelligence community’s use of covert protections for CIA agents and others involved in secret activities.
[T]he Senate Select Committee on Intelligence [chairman] could hold hearings on the use of espionage cover soon after [Congress’s] August recess …
[T]he Senate committee would also review the probe of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the Plame case for nearly two years.
Come on. This hearing is an attack on “covert protections,” not an investigation into leaks. There’s more below on the NYT‘s take on the hearing, Johnson, and CIA covers.
The July 25 NYT story mentions Roberts’ appearance on CNN Sunday and quotes Johnson:
[…..]
The chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said on the CNN program “Late Edition” that the committee was “going to go into quite a series of hearings in regard to cover.” The practice of intelligence cover has come under scrutiny during the investigation of the disclosure of the C.I.A. employment of Valerie Wilson, who had worked under cover for the agency for 18 years before being publicly identified as a C.I.A. operative in 2003.
“You cannot be in the business of outing somebody” working under cover, Mr. Roberts said. He said, however, there were questions about the depth of Ms. Wilson’s cover, because she had been based at the Virginia headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency at least since 1997.
“I must say from a common-sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the C.I.A. headquarters, I don’t know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert,” Mr. Roberts said. “But generically speaking, it is a very serious matter.”
[…….]
In a letter to Congressional leaders last week, 11 former intelligence officers said that even if the law was not violated, “we believe it is appropriate for the president to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame’s status.” The letter added, “Such an act by the president would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated.”
Larry C. Johnson, a former C.I.A. analyst who organized the letter, said in an interview that “there are lives on the line” in the leak of an operative’s identity, because foreigners known to have met with the operative may come under suspicion.
The NYT also reports that:
Another former C.I.A. officer, Reuel Marc Gerecht, called Ms. Wilson’s cover “very, very soft” and said cover “is the Achilles’ heel of the agency.” He said cover is too often easily penetrated by foreign intelligence agencies.