I know everyone would rather talk about Fred Thompson’s annoucement that he wants to bring Law and Order to the White House, and I know that everyone is bored with the whole Valerie Plame affair, but we really can’t let this go without comment.
An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame’s employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was “covert” when her name became public in July 2003.
I know, I know, this is kind of a no-brainer. If she wasn’t covert Ashcroft never would have agreed to recuse himself and let Comey assign the Fitzster to investigate the case. But the right-wingers have been saying she wasn’t covert for four years. Take this column, written on September 29, 2003, by Clifford May:
It’s the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA?
What also might be worth asking: “Who didn’t know?”
Of course, that was about as bald-faced a lie as can be imagined…as Fitzgerald makes clear.
Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, “engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business.” The report says, “she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times.” When overseas Plame traveled undercover, “sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias — but always using cover — whether official or non-official (NOC) — with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.”
I wish I could force all the right-wing jerks that have spread disinformation about this case to put those sentences in their hats, and eat them.
