The Progressive Truth

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Three Solid Sources: Valerie Wilson Was a Covert Agent When Team Cheney Outed Her

From the Pensito Review:

1. In a court filing in May, special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald stated Wilson was covert:

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.

If Fitzgerald submitted false documents to the court, we can assume the jackals on the right would have found this out by now and his head would be on a pike.

2. Valerie Wilson’s sworn testimony before the Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives:

I worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified.

Same as above. Wilson would be facing prison right now for lying under oath, if Republicans had evidence that this statement was false.

3. The CIA has said Wilson was covert — twice:

At the Oversight hearing in March, Chairman Henry Waxman, D-West Hollywood, read a statement that had been approved by the head of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, a Bush appointee:

“During her employment at the CIA, Ms. Wilson was undercover. Her employment status with the CIA was classified information, prohibited from disclosure under Executive Order 12958. At the time of the publication of Robert Novak’s column on July 14, 2003, Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment status was covert. This was classified information. Ms. Wilson served in senior management positions at the CIA in which she oversaw the work for other CIA employees and she attained the level of GS-14 — Step Six under the federal pay scale. Ms. Wilson worked on some of the most sensitive and highly secretive matters handled by the CIA. Ms. Wilson served at various times overseas for the CIA.”

Two months after she was outed, the CIA described Wilson as being an “undercover operative” in a letter to the Dept. of Justice:

On September 16, 2003 the CIA sent a letter to the US Department of Justice, asserting that Plame’s status as a CIA undercover operative was classified information and requesting a federal investigation. Knowingly leaking the identity of a covert agent is a criminal violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), and the CIA is required by law to report any such possible criminal violation.

Leaving IIPA aside, the Bush officials who publicized Wilson’s name clearly violated the terms of their high level security clearances, the penalties for which include losing the clearance. But both Armitage and Libby kept their clearances until they resigned. Rove still has his.