Robert Novak is like a zombie. He won’t stay dead. He just keeps spreading the bullshit about Valerie Plame Wilson. This is just unbelievable.
Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra could hardly believe what he heard on television Friday as he watched a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic committee chairman, said his statement had been approved by the CIA director, Michael Hayden. That included the assertion that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative when her identity was revealed.
As House intelligence committee chairman when Republicans controlled Congress, Hoekstra had tried repeatedly to learn Plame’s status from the CIA but got only double talk from Langley. Waxman, 67, the 17-term congressman from Beverly Hills, may be a bully and a partisan. But he is no fool who would misrepresent the director of central intelligence. Waxman was correctly quoting Hayden. But Hayden, in a conference with Hoekstra yesterday, still did not answer whether Plame was covert under the terms of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
This is the worst double-game. The Republicans have tried to hide, or muddy, the fact that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert officer for four years. It was absolutely critical for them to do this and we are to believe that Peter Hoekstra tried relentlessly to get the CIA to destroy their most potent talking point? Let’s look at more of Novak’s crap.
Waxman and Democratic colleagues did not ask these pertinent questions: Had not Plame been outed years ago by a Soviet agent? Was she not on an administrative, not operational, track at Langley? How could she be covert if, in public view, she drove to work each day at Langley? What about comments to me by then CIA spokesman Bill Harlow that Plame never would be given another foreign assignment? What about testimony to the FBI that her CIA employment was common knowledge in Washington?
Questions, questions. Let’s take ’em one at a time.
Q. Had not Plame been outed years ago by a Soviet agent?
A. There is no evidence that Valerie Wilson was outed to a Soviet agent whatsoever. A Soviet agent would presumably work for the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. Novak is referring to a 2004 piece of disinformation from Moonie Times hack Bill Gertz. What did Gertz say?
Mrs. Plame’s identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a Moscow spy, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Novak thinks there were Soviet agents in the mid-1990’s. That is because he is a useless tool. Anonymous officials in the Moonie Times don’t quite cut it from a credibility perspective.
Let’s take two of Novak’s questions together here.
Q. Was she not on an administrative, not operational, track at Langley?
Q. What about comments to me by then CIA spokesman Bill Harlow that Plame never would be given another foreign assignment?
A. Let’s do this one more time, with feeling. Here is the clause in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 that defines a covert agent. Pay attention to the bolded parts.
(4) The term “covert agent” means—
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.
Do you see a pattern there? The law doesn’t particularly care whether you are presently on an ‘administrative, not operational, track’. It doesn’t even care if you are dead. It doesn’t want recently covert agents’ to be outed because it can get people killed. Sometimes I wonder how Novak can live with himself.
Q. How could she be covert if, in public view, she drove to work each day at Langley?
A. Fantastic question. How can any of the people that are covert agents ever go to work at the CIA headquarters without blowing their cover? For example, people like former chief of the CIA covert operations in Europe, Tyler Drumheller. Imagine. He used to go to meetings at CIA headquarters all the time. He couldn’t have really been undercover I guess. Maybe Novak should write a column explaining all the precautions covert CIA officers take when going to work so our enemies will have an easier time outing them.
Q. What about testimony to the FBI that her CIA employment was common knowledge in Washington?
A. Why do we have to go over this again and again? Fitzgerald said:
“Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson’s friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life. The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well- known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us.”
I think Patrick Fitzgerald is familiar with the FBI’s investigation. Is Novak suggesting that Fitzgerald is a liar? Does he think Valerie Wilson perjured herself when she testified, “I am here to say I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency…My work was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit.”
Here’s the part I like best about Novak’s column:
Instead of posing such questions, Waxman said flatly that Plame was covert and cited Hayden as proof. Hayden’s endorsement of Waxman’s statement astounded Republicans whose queries about her had been rebuffed by the agency. That confirmed Republican suspicions that Hayden is too close to Democrats.
Right. “Hayden is too close to Democrats.” Unlike Porter Goss, he can give a simple answer to a simple question. Valerie Wilson was covert. Novak published her name. That’s makes Novak an asshole. It makes the people that gave Novak that information irresponsible and vicious at best, and criminally liable at worst.
