(Cross-posted at Liberaltopia)
Congressman Tom Davis (R-VA), the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, used yesterday’s hearings into the CIA leak to try and shield the administration from any wrong-doing when they disclosed the identity and covert cover of Valarie Plame and by extension, her operation — Brewster-Jennings.
In his questioning of Plame, he started with the following question:
It’s clear that the administration officials knew you worked for the CIA, but did they know that your status was that of a covert agent?
Right away, you know where he is trying to go with this.
He is trying to say that even though the administration knew that Plame worked for the CIA, they can’t be expected to assume that she was a covert agent.
I mean, what are the odds?
If I told you that I worked for the CIA, wouldn’t you immediately assume that I was a spy? Try a little word association here:
CIA –> Spy.
CIA –> Secret Agent
CIA –> Under cover
CIA –> Classified
Duh. It’s kinda set into our psyche, what with the thousands of movies and books dealing with the CIA.
Davis goes on to set up his premise that it could only be a crime if the person divulging the information knew Plame was a covert officer:
But you don’t — I mean, I think one of the issues here was not that you worked for the CIA, because that was obviously why they’d know you in the administration, but for the crime to have been committed, I understand they had to have known that you were covert. And you don’t have any direct linkage that they knew that you were covert at that point.
Plame explains that she obviously has no idea whether they knew or not, but that she worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the Directorate of Operations and that there were many employees that were covert.
I can hear the Right wing collectively latch onto this with all of their strength, “Aha! See? No crime, they didn’t know!”
Talking-point, set, game?
Davis then tries to turn the tables to put the responsibility off wholly onto the shoulders of the CIA:
I think — look, we all agree that everybody needs to protect national security and protect the identities of undercover and covert agents. But should the CIA have done more to adequately protect people as well and say these are covert agents, shouldn’t be outed? Does the CIA have a responsibility here as well?
Okay, enough. Time for the deconstruction of a silly talking point.
Let’s just assume for a moment that while the administration knew Valarie Plame was a CIA employee, but didn’t know she was a covert officer. Don’t you think that the administration had the responsibility to find out before they spilled the beans?
If you subscribe to the defensive talking point of Tom Davis, you have to make the assumption that unless you were told otherwise, then a person who works for the CIA is NOT a covert agent. It is like saying that unless they had a name tag on their shirt that said “secret agent”, then they are just some employee like an accountant or secretary.
The rational person would automatically assume that if a person works for the CIA, then they are probably into something classified — like oh, I don’t know, maybe a covert secret agent?
It’s not like they publish job assignments or anything like that.
Secondly, I don’t buy for a moment that an admistration official wouldn’t know if a specific person working for the CIA is covert or not. If you are working for the adminstration at that level, you have access to a whole lot of information, because you have a security clearance to know these things.
The money shot:
As far as responsibility, the responsible thing to do in case of divulging sensitive information is to assume that everything is sensitive until you find out otherwise. If we buy into Tom Davis’ premise that the administration didn’t know, then there are far more serious problems with national security than just this one case of divulging a CIA operation.
Treason or incompetance. Take your pick.
March 17th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
I don’t know who pissed me off more: Congressman Tom Davis or that GOP witch, Victoria Toessing.
Valerie Plame is, IMHO, a genuine American hero and patriot, unlike George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who are neither.
March 17th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
GREAT post David! I was able to watch parts of this hearing on C-span. Your right the GOP was really trying hard to rationalize the administration out of prison with their crap. It’s like Elvis explaining he wasn’t a junkie to his “mafia” by saying that he didn’t inject and all the drugs he was taking were prescribed.
Chris, I watched that toesucking creature parsing lawyer-speak talking points like a parrot. She was getting all frustrated because the Dems were having NONE of it. THAT was the most disgusting part of the whole damn process.
March 18th, 2007 at 6:14 am
I’d be interested in knowing why Waxman’s committee even invited Victoria “GOP watercarrier” Toessing to appear Friday?
March 18th, 2007 at 7:29 am
The REAL shocker if the hearings was from James Knodell, who is director of the White House security office. He testified that the White House had neither undertaken an internal investigation into the leak nor taken disciplinary action against the leakers.
1. Even though a covert CIA agent who’s cover was so deep the CIA even denied she worked for the US government at all. Usually the CIA gets their agents cover from their being a member of the US military, or State Department Official, which gives then a US Government passport and some ability to get an agent out of trouble in a foreign country. In a special covert agents case, which Valire Plame had, the CIA doesn’t want any connection to the US government at all. Thus they work out a completely fabricated story of who the agent is and their “job” which in Ms Plames case was Brewster Jennings, and there she traveled the earth looking for intel about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction especially nuclear weapons, but with a cover which hid this fact not only from foreign governments and their officials even US Government OFFICIALS with no need to know, LIKE THE IDIOTS IN THE WHITE HOUSE. (Larisa Alexandrovna reports that while Plame was undercover she was involved in an operation identifying and tracking weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran, suggesting that her outing “significantly hampered the CIA’s ability to monitor nuclear proliferation.”){wiki} With cover like this she would be able to get into situations and talk to people where any person with a US government passport and cover would be avoided like the plague because the people would never want to be sen as cooperating with the US Government at all. This would allow her to get intel from people who would never go near anybody they thought worked for the US government.
Since her area of speciality was WMD’s especially nukes in the middle east, you would think the White House would have a few grown ups who could keep this SECRET of national importance wouldn’t you?
2. Even though the release of this top secret knowledge would compromise what EVERYBODY at Brewster Jennings was doing. Once Valire Plame was outed, then the bad guys over seas will just assume everyone at Brewster Jenning is doing what she was doing, which means they all are compromised, however since so much is secret and extremely sensitive, the CIA can neither conform nor deny much of anything. (Even Valire Plames book is being held up because far too much of what she knew and did is still SECRET). However, according to, Larisa Alexandrovna of The Raw Story three intelligence officials, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told her that
“ While Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss has not submitted a formal damage assessment to Congressional oversight committees, the CIA’s Directorate of Operations did conduct a serious and aggressive investigation. â€
According to her sources,
“
the damage assessment . . . called a “counter intelligence assessment to agency operations” was conducted on the orders of the CIA’s then-Deputy Director of the Directorate of Operations, James Pavitt. . . . [and showed] “significant damage to operational equities.”{wiki}
So with a entire operation blown open and exposed, you would think that somebody inside the White House would wanna look into this and find out why the White House personnel of all people were compromising US National security, ESPECIALLY the senior white House officials on both the president and vice president’s senior staff.
3. Given the above the fact that James Knodell, who is director of the White House security office has done absolutely NOTHING speaks volumes about the real care Bush ET AL has for the national security, well since George W Bush has made the following quotes;
“This is a serious charge, by the way. We’re talking about a criminal action.”
“If there’s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is,” Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. “If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.â€
Which would lead most reasonable people to believe Bush wanted the person responsible IN the White House to do an investigation and report back directly to him. But that has never happened at all. Instead half assed excuses, and pass the buck reigns supreme which in this administration has become the FIRST reaction to the numerous scandals they seem to be experiencing, from Plamegate, to Attorneygate, and the Walter Reed fiasco…to last years scandals, foleygate, and the selling the US ports and the numerous sandals from 2004 Abu Ghraib, not enough armor or equipment for the troops, and 2003, well I guess you get the idea………
Given this scandal centers on the VERY reason Bush ET AL wants to attack Iran you would think they might have looked into how the White House became the enemy of the American people’s security in this case, but you would be wrong.
March 18th, 2007 at 7:49 am
As far as Victoria “GOP watercarrier†Toessing goes, since she is a ” re-pubie lawyer” and plainly shows the dishonest spin some lawyers(the ones who admit affiliation with the re-pubies) use to get their side of an arguement heard……
It is no wonder why the re-pubies attack lawyers the way they do, with the re-pubies lawyers carrying to bullshit for Bush ET Al like they did for Reagan and poppy Bush, the re-pubies think ALL lawyers are as corrupt as their lawyers are……
The re-pubies expect everyone to be a since they are surrounded by so many lying, cheap, dishonest, mean spirited, gutless chicken hawk hypocrites when ever they get together.
Toensing is just the classic example of the lying, cheap, dishonest, mean spirited, gutless chicken hawk hypocrite re-pubie flavor of this week.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Toessing was involved in the hearings because she had been the one who originally put forth the assertion that Plame was NOT covert.
Unlike the Republican hearings in the previous six years, Waxman is holding a fair hearing where they examin things from all sides.
Toessing was giving her legal opinion based on nothing more than speculation. She had no way of knowing whether Plame was covert or not — she was simply making excuses and justifications as an outsider.
The important evidence comes from the CIA itself, not from the opinion of Ms. Toessing. It was the CIA that states without question that Valarie Plame was a covert officer with a cover.
It is interesting that nobody in the Administration is arguing that Plame was NOT covert now. They are holding the line that they didn’t KNOW Plame was covert, and therefore a crime wasn’t committed, only a mistake — and that is going to be their defense.
The hearing the other day is just one thread in the tapestry. The Scooter Libby trial was another thread. Eventually, the entire tapestry is going to be filled out and we all know that it will expose the entire thing for what it was: a concerted effort to smear and/or silence anyone who dared to speak out against fabricated evidence that got us involved in an unnecessary war.
March 18th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
For those who actually believe that the none of the five Bush toadies who leaked Plame’s identity to the press twelve different times (that we know of) did not know she was covert, I happen to own a wonderful bridge with one end in Manhattan, which I’m willing to sell cheap!!. :rolleyes_wp:
March 18th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
My theory — and this is off the top of my head — is that there were so many different avenues of exposure opened to make it impossible to determine who told who at what time.
There still is the ‘mystery’ person who told Rove and Cheney in the first place.
But remember, Cheney spent a lot of time over at the CIA in the lead-up to the war trying to massage the intelligence and brow-beat analysts. It is very likely that Cheney ran across Plame there himself, and that he is the one who started the whole ball rolling.
March 18th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Imagine this being a Democratic administration who outed a CIA covert agent.
These Neos and their 30% followers lack morality and deceny and honor. It is only their idealogy that leads them even if it leads the country straight to hell. A couple of days ago, bushbot wrote that Clif (I believe it was) was dishonest in his outrage about Iraq because he had “no personal stake” in the war.
Liberals and Conservatives, particularly this bunch of them, are wired differently. There’s no other explanation for the differences in our thinking.
March 18th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Dick Armitrage outed Valerie Plame; whether she was a secret op or not. Fitzgerald knew that before he ever interviewed Scooter. The whole thing was a “GOTCHA” for Scooter. Scooter should have told the truth to the GJ. Now he’s going to jail. Case closed?
March 18th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
So, just ONE dick outed Ms Plame? I think there were MANY dicks who did this irreparable damage to our intel capability in the middle east and beyond. ONE thing can’t be spun by the neo-tards. We are now BLIND in Iran and everywhere else because of BUSH, PERIOD. I’m not just outraged as a liberal, I am outraged as an American citizen. The fact that the “blight-house” doesn’t care enough to even LOOK at who did this tells me two things. They knew all along and THAT makes bush a world class liar. Second, they don’t WANT factual intel, they want to just make a bunch of shit up so they can get away with invading Iran. Just like they did with Iraq.
March 18th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Dick was apparently the “first Dick” Everyone knows we won’t attack Iran unless they blow up one of our vessels in the Straight of Hormuz. They have the capability of doing this and I predict that they will. Right after the next pres. election.
March 18th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Define “everyone”. I wouldn’t put ANYthing past these wackoids. I assume you mean by “after the next pres.election” ONLY if a Democrat wins, because we are so weak on defense. I would predict that bushcorp will attack by this June because by then, his poll ratings will be in the teens. I would also predict that WHEN a Democrat wins the White house, we will begin TALKING to the people in Iran, like they wanted to do YEARS ago, and the mullahs will be deposed and the people of Iran who LOVE western culture, will do business with us in a mutually beneficial manner. Concepts foreign to the neo-tards.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
I think Dick Armitrage is a red herring. He was just one of many who almost simultaneously started pumping her name out there.
The question is, where did Armitrage get the information? Who told him to let that information out?
The waters have been muddied so much that you can’t definatively say that Armitrage was the “first” or even the “only” person who spilled the beans.
Also, assuming that Armitrage was actually the “first” person to leak her name, no action was taken, Novak did not publish that information without first clearing it with Administration officials. It is that clearing which is what all of this whole flap is about. Novak was given the go-ahead, and the rest was history.
So you can try and spin this all you want, but the FACT remains that a covert officer was exposed for political puposes.
You might think that is alright, but most people consider that treason, and like it or not, it is YOUR people who committed a treasonous act. Imagine your attitude if it were the Clinton administration who had done this. You would have been all over it like stink on shit.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:30 am
In addition to disclosing BREWSTER JENNINGS as a CIA front company, bush LIED!!! when he feigned outrage over this treasonous act. Despite his repeated claims that the was going to find the perps and FIRE them, his intel security officer testified UNDER OATH that bushcorp did NOTHING!! THAT makes him a traitor AND a liar. GAWD, this is disgusting.
March 19th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Armatrage is a distraction. Yes, he was the initial fucknozzle that told Novak Plame worked for the CIA.
This was a whispering campaign, designed to get her name out there, and it started with Cheney, Scooter, and Rove. In the typical Rovian fashion, they weren’t going to do the dirty work themselves, but create some layers of cover and deniablitiy.
Novak, to his credit as an old journalist, wasn’t going to publish using just one source, he got verification from Rove and or Libby, who could now both say that they heard it first from a journalist.
Judith Miller and several other journalists learned this information through other sources at about the same time Novak heard it from Armatrage. Plame was “fair game” as far as the adminstration was concerned.
If they wanted to get the information out there, they knew how to do it.
You have to step back from the Right-wing echo chamber for a moment, Busboy and start looking at the bigger picture here. Armatrage is not the beginning and the ending of this story, he was just a unwitting part of it.
While you focus on the tree, you fail to see the forest around you.
March 19th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
Armitage may be the only one, if any of the five, who did it innocently, but when the higher-ups told him, that was also a crime, because he had no need to know. As for the mystery person who told Rove and Cheney, my guess is that Cheney told Rove, and that Cheney found out while at the CIA “fixing the intelligence around the policy”.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Cheney’s office put out a lot of inquiries about Plame knowing that she worked for the CIA but trying to see what would leak out into the public forum. It was a cheap and dirty trick where they didn’t have to get their hands dirty, and claim plausible denyability if and when the fingers started pointing in their direction.
From a strictly legal point, they technically didn’t break the law. But if you look at it from their intent, with the anticipated outcome, they committed treason pure and simple.
Unfortunately, none of the players in this act of treason will ever be charged with outting Valarie Plame. Fitzgerald knew this from the outset, but he felt the need to get the story out there anyways.
This act, by itself, will not bring down any of these fucknozzles, but when you add up ALL of the shit they’ve pulled over the past six years, this is just one nail in their coffin.