Posted on 07/13/2005 3:28:51 PM PDT by Jean S
Please allow me to share with you some of the things I don’t know.
I don’t know what Valerie Plame’s status with the CIA was in July 2003 when Robert Novak wrote his column mentioning that she was an “agency operative” and had recommended her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger. Was Plame a covert agent then? If not, how recently had she been a covert agent?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know what’s going on with The New York Times’ Judith Miller.
Since top presidential adviser Karl Rove and top vice-presidential adviser Lewis Libby signed strongly worded waivers releasing all reporters from any pledges of confidentiality, why hasn’t Miller testified? Does that mean her source was someone else who has not signed a confidentiality waiver?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Miller is involved in all this at all, since she never wrote a story about it. Was she some sort of “carrier,” as is now being theorized, and actually helped spread word of Plame’s identity?
I don’t know.
For that matter, I don’t know what Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper was doing either. Rove’s lawyer says Rove signed the waiver about a year and a half ago and has never changed it. Why was that waiver not acceptable to Cooper for 18 months and then, on the brink of going to jail, Cooper agreed to testify?
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything about the role the other journalists caught up in the case — Tim Russert, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler — played. Apparently on the basis of waivers signed by sources, they all gave information to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. What did they say?
I don’t know.
And of course I also don’t know what is happening with Novak. Given Fitzgerald’s aggressiveness in dealing with all figures in this case, Novak must have made some sort of accommodation. Did he testify? Refuse to testify?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why many in the press, most notably The New York Times, were once so enthusiastic about the Fitzgerald investigation. On Dec. 30, 2003, the Times published an editorial headlined “The Right Thing, At Last,” which said, “After an egregiously long delay, Attorney General John Ashcroft finally did the right thing yesterday when he recused himself from the investigation into who gave the name of a CIA operative to columnist Robert Novak.” Why did the Times do that?
I don’t know.
And then, why did the Times change its position and condemn Fitzgerald who, the paper said, “can’t even say whether a crime has been committed.” Why would the Times say that, when it had once been so sure that a crime had been committed?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know about the actions of Joseph Wilson. For example, in his book, The Politics of Truth, he wrote, “The assertion that Valerie had played any substantive role in the decision to ask me to go to Niger was false on the face of it. ...Valerie could not — and would not if she could — have had anything to do with the CIA decision to ask me to travel to [Niger].” But later, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in its bipartisan report, said that “interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that [Wilson’s] wife, a CPD employee [a reference to the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division], suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife ‘offered up his name’ and a memorandum to the deputy chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from [Wilson’s] wife says, ‘my husband has good relations with both [Niger’s prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’” So why did Wilson say his wife played no “substantive role” in it?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Wilson’s defenders accuse the White House of “smearing” him. What was the smear? Was it a smear to say that Wilson got the Niger assignment, at least in part, because his wife recommended him? If so, then the Senate committee “smeared” him, too. If not, what is the smear?
I don’t know.
And finally, I don’t know about Karl Rove’s public statements on the case. Last year on CNN, he said of Plame, “I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name.” Even if he hadn’t passed on Plame’s name — just mentioned her as Wilson’s wife — why not just say nothing, especially since the whole thing is under criminal investigation?
I don’t know.
The bottom line is, some of the most critical facts in the whole Wilson/Plame/CIA matter are just not known, at least not known by anyone outside of the Fitzgerald investigation.
But don’t worry. At least we can be sure that we will someday know them, right?
I don’t know.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
E-mail: byork@thehill.com
* Pincus, Ann & Walter : Apologize if this has been previously posted - more info on Walter and Ann Pincus: "Journalist Kenneth Timmerman said that when the congressional Cox Commission confirmed that China had committed nuclear espionage against the U.S., "the Washington Post assigned a journalist whose wife was a Clinton administration appointee to cover the story." That was Walter Pincus. Timmerman said that Pincus and his wife Ann were guests of the Clintons at Camp David. Timmerman said that after several years at the U.S. Information Agency, Ann Pincus was transferred in the late 1990s to the Office of Research and Media Reaction at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the same office that "lost" a laptop computer loaded with highly classified intelligence documents in April 2000. Timmerman noted that, in his reports for the Post, Walter Pincus consistently sought to debunk the Chinese espionage allegations. Now he’s sliming the administration for acting against the Iraqi nuclear threat. No wonder the Democratic National Committee cites his work." entire story here: http://www.aim.org/publications/media_monitor/2003/08/28.html 42 posted on 10/09/2003 3:49 PM PDT by Ben Hecks
To: piasa
And Mrs. Pincus........worked with a Greg Thielmann.......who came out against Iraq......and resigned......made a big show of it.
1,983 posted on 04/13/2004 3:43:11 PM PDT by Dog
[* My note: Greg Thielman was a State Department kook who came out against the war and against his boss Powell because of Powell's address to the UN on Feb 5, 2003. Got a book deal out of it, too, as I recall. ------ piasa]
During the Clinton years Walter Pincus was consider to a mouthpiece for NSA adviser Sandy Berger who was also a former China lobbyist. Pincus' was wife also a Clinton Administration official. On two occasions Pincus was given time off by the Washington Post to work for J. W. Fulbright. These facts certainly help explain why Pincus savaged the Cox Committee intelligence report on Chinese espionage, whose conclusions he called "unwarranted" and whose language he falsely described as "inflammatory".
This is the same Pincus who maliciously described as a "Killer Warhead" missiles designed to protect Americans against nuclear attack. . .What is particularly interesting is that Pincus is tied in with the America-hating Marxist Institute for Policy Studies which from its inception in 1963 acted as a front for the KGB, even hosting KGB officers, until the collapse of the Soviet empire.
In September 1974 Pincus attended an IPS sponsored conference during which he and others present savaged the CIA, basically accusing it of being a criminal organisation. I have no idea at the stage whether any of the IPS' KGB friends were present.
(Incidentally, Anthony Lake was also attended the conference. Readers might recall that Clinton nominated Lake for director of the CIA. The nomination faced a barrage of outraged criticism and was withdrawn. Americans have no idea what a narrow escape they had).
The America-hating Richard Barnet, one of the founders of the IPS and conference sponsor, called for the destruction of the CIA, and even demanded that it cease monitoring international terrorist groups because it violated their civil liberties. . .
So what does Pincus do at the Washington Post? He writes on national security matters. This is a man who associates with America-haters, attacks national defence, maligned an intelligence committee when it produced unfavourable findings about Chinese espionage, and who now lies about Richard Clarke's statements. Now what does that tell us about the Washington Post? ------- "Pincus and Milbank: the low-down on two Washington Post Bush-hating reporters," by Gerard Jackson, BrookesNews.Com, April 5, 2004 , posted by FR's Fedora
He said that very thing last Wednesday standing on the steps of the courthouse; even went "drama queen" on us, by saying he had already told his seven year old son good-bye because he knew he was going to prison before the phone call came as he was walking out the door.
Sweet fine!
Duh.......find!
Re#17 Sure seems that way. Rat or a presstitute. As York notes, why the change of tune at the NY Slimes. Hmmmm...
I know Plame's not been covert for 9 or more years if she ever really was - thanks for posting your snippet of info. I was just mentioning that one reporter- Pincus- claimed to know and he said it was 1999. We already know he's full of manure.
They just said on Fox that Matthew Cooper received a communique from his "source" today, right before he was going to tell the judge that he WOULDN'T testify, releasing him from his promise not to reveal the name...
IOW, the source said "go ahead and reveal my name, keep yourself out of jail"...
And
****Fox reporting that Cooper said until shortly before the hearing he was not going to cave and then he claims that in somewhat dramatic fashion he was contacted by his source and the source relieved him from confidentiality.
Oh brother
Yet today he has changed his story once again.
Quite simply, he's a liar.
""Brit Hume just said that Karl Rove heard about Valerie Plame from "a reporter.""
Does he have independent information, or is he relying on the reckless speculation of that poster Shermy again?
Nope. She was in Brussels till at least '97.
First, 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. So her undercover security was undermined at that time, and she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons.
Second, as Mrs. Wilson rose in the agency, she 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, like pretending to be a business executive. After passing as an energy analyst for Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a C.I.A. front company, she was switching to a new cover as a State Department official, affording her diplomatic protection without having "C.I.A." stamped on her forehead.
http://healthandenergy.com/outing_of_valarie_plame.htm
If you haven't figured out by now that Rove won't be fired, you're dense.
Even the NYSlimes and WashCompost signed "friend of the court" type petitions stating that there was clearly NO CRIME committed EVEN IF ROVE HAD LEAKED HER NAME - and asked that the special prosecutor close up shop.
Something's afoot for sure, but it is NOT that Rove is in trouble. It could well be Wilson, or perhaps someone even higher up in the NYSlimes or the Demodog party we don't even know of yet.
I never thought of you as reckless, pal!
It's better---don't know if the judge or prosecutor could or would do anything though.
Those Fox reports were the reports of what Cooper said *in the courtroom* when he informed the judge he would cooperate.
He then repeated it later outside at the mikes.
Excellent post outing the media/Clinton admin nexus in this Plame affair.
This situation now is as funny as the Demodogs' "filibuster" of the judicial nominees. They have lost so thoroughly. The bus left the station so long ago they can't even see it's tail lights.
Popcorn and Cold Duck for the show!
I know - Pincus is the only reporter I know who claimed he knew some other date- I'm guessing he put that out to imply that she still fell within the protection of the law to try to counter the points legal folks had made that outing a agent who's been a desk jockey for ages wasn't illegal.
Are you listening to these poll numbers Nora O'Donnell is talking about???
Something smells
Cooper was just on FNC saying that his source just gave him permission THIS MORNING to talk
THIS SMELLS
They sure are giving this all they've got.
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