Probe On Leak of CIA Agent Name Widens

Twin Cities Pioneer Press via NYT ^ | 04/02/2004 | Micheal Burwell

[tcuoohjohn]

WASHINGTON — Prosecutors investigating whether someone in the Bush administration improperly disclosed the identity of a CIA officer have expanded their inquiry to examine whether White House officials lied to investigators or mishandled classified information related to the case, lawyers and government officials said.

The inquiry's original focus centered on a statute that makes it a felony to intentionally reveal the identity of an undercover intelligence officer, but prosecutors have now widened the range of conduct under scrutiny and raised the possibility of bringing charges peripheral to the leak itself.

The expanded inquiry comes as prosecutors appear to be preparing to seek additional testimony before a federal grand jury, said lawyers with clients in the case.

The probe's broadened scope is a potentially significant development that represents exactly what allies of the White House feared when Attorney General John Ashcroft removed himself from the case in December and turned it over to Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago.

Republican lawyers worried that the leak case might grow into a time-consuming and politically charged inquiry, like the sprawling independent counsel inquiries of the 1990s that distracted and damaged the Clinton administration.

Lawyers involved in the case and government officials say Fitzgerald is examining possible discrepancies between documents and statements made by current or former White House officials during a three-month preliminary investigation conducted last fall by the FBI and Justice Department.

The White House last year took the unusual step of denying any involvement in the leak on the part of several top administration officials, including Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said repeatedly that no one wants to get to the bottom of the case more than Bush.

But Bush himself has said he does not know if investigators will ever be able to determine who disclosed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to Robert Novak, who wrote in his syndicated column last July that Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA employee.

Wilson was a critic of the administration's Iraq policies. Democrats have accused the White House of leaking his wife's name out of revenge. Wilson, in a July 2003 opinion piece in the New York Times, disputed Bush's statement in his State of the Union address that January that Iraq was trying to develop a nuclear bomb and had sought to buy uranium in Africa.

Fitzgerald also is reportedly investigating whether the disclosure of Plame's identity came after someone discovered her name among classified documents circulating at the upper echelons of the White House. It could be a crime to disclose information from such a document.

[tcuoohjohn]

This thing is heating up a bit.

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Fawnn

[colorado tanker]

Translation: No one violated the CIA statute so we're gonna try to set someone up for a false statement or obstruction charge. Classic prosecution tactic when they don't have a case.

[Bob]

It's just a gut feel but my money's on Dick Clarke being the leaker.

[isthisnickcool]

Translation: No one violated the CIA statute so we're gonna try to set someone up for a false statement or obstruction charge. Classic prosecution tactic when they don't have a case.

Sounds familiar...

Signed,

Martha Stewart

[tcuoohjohn]

The statute is a federal statute under 18 USC. I don't recall The CIA having legislative power.

[keysguy]

If Clarke is the leaker you'll never hear about it on nbc.

[tcuoohjohn]

The investigation seems to be focued on the White House Communications Office. My guess would be one or two of Rove's over zealous deputies. Rove is much too savvy to do anything this dumb. At least I hope so.

Because this is a crimnal matter I doubt anyone is going to take a spear in the chest for anybody here. Getting fired the cause is one thing. Three or four years of prison SOS is another.

[colorado tanker]

Yeah, let Dicky-poo eat yellowcake.

[colorado tanker]

Nailed by the grammar police. I hate it when that happens.

[donozark]

I thought Plame was originally "outed" by Aldrich Ames?

[maestro]

?......another,......'Wag the Dog' trek?

[tcuoohjohn]

Nah...Plame was operating under State Department cover as a consular officer and wasn't in the Eastern Europe Russia Division line. She would have never come up on Ames screen. Had she done so Ames would have ratted her out. He networks remained intact the whole time. Because her networks were peripheral to Russian interests they would have been traded away very quickly. They weren't.

[tcuoohjohn]

Actually your grammar was superb and your spelling was stellar. The downside is your facts were in error. Your English teacher would be thrilled. Your history teacher however, would be appalled.

[ravingnutter]

FWIW...Rand Beers and Joseph Wilson both work on the Kerry campaign as political advisors... Clarke taught a college course with Beers. At first I thought that is how they were connected, but then I found the following article which states...

Clarke also mentions in his book "my friend Joe Wilson,"

[kcvl]

Valerie Plame, wife of Leakgate accuser Joseph Wilson, was outed as a CIA agent at least nine years before conservative columnist Robert Novak supposedly blew her cover three months ago in his column.

"The C.I.A. suspected that Aldrich Ames had given Mrs. Wilson's name (along with those of other spies) to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994," revealed the New York Times on Saturday.

In a column revealing the critical information for the first time since the Leakgate scandal exploded two weeks ago, Times columnist Nicholas Kristof explained that the Ames tip compromised Valerie Plame's undercover secrecy so thoroughly that "she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons."

At the time, he noted, Mrs. Wilson "was already in transition away from undercover work to management, and to liaison roles with other intelligence agencies. So this year, even before she was outed, she was moving away from 'noc' – which means non-official cover."

What's more, said the Times writer, Mrs. Wilson's intelligence connections became known a bit in Washington as she rose in the CIA - an assessment that stands in marked contrast to Mr. Wilson's portrayal of his wife's identity as being so secret that she was endangered when Novak revealed her name.

Concludes Kristof:

"All in all, I think the Democrats are engaging in hyperbole when they describe the White House as having put Mrs. Wilson's life in danger and destroyed her career; her days skulking along the back alleys of cities like Beirut and Algiers were already mostly over."

[gaspar]

Please re-read the story. I could have written it, and put a different slant on it. No one is named, only "lawyers" and "government" types. This is the sort of report that should never pass an editor's scrutiny and serves as another example of the execrable condition of American journalism.

[gaspar]

Please re-read the story. I could have written it, and put a different slant on it. No one is named, only "lawyers" and "government" types. This is the sort of report that should never pass an editor's scrutiny and serves as another example of the execrable condition of American journalism.

[colorado tanker]

Boy, do you have a case of the Mondays. Did it ever occur to you that I was referring to a statute about the CIA, as in not disclosing agent names, and not a statute passed by the CIA since we all know the CIA does not pass statutes??? Sheesh.

[expatpat]

That would be nice. However, I have a feeling it's more likely to be someone working as liaison with the media.