Karl Rove, Whistleblower
He told the truth about Joe Wilson.

WSJ.com Opinion Journal
Wednesday, July 13, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an undercover agent and using information he'd obtained in an official capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.

On the "no underlying crime" point, moreover, no less than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller out of jail.

"While an investigation of the leak was justified, it is far from clear--at least on the public record--that a crime took place," the Post noted the other day. Granted the media have come a bit late to this understanding, and then only to protect their own, but the logic of their argument is that Mr. Rove did nothing wrong either.

The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.
Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.

But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.

The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.

About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know.


If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not to mention inspire a "special counsel" probe. The Bush Administration is also guilty on this count, since it went along with the appointment of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in an election year in order to punt the issue down the road. But now Mr. Fitzgerald has become an unguided missile, holding reporters in contempt for not disclosing their sources even as it becomes clearer all the time that no underlying crime was at issue.
As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth.

Quote:For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

The editor is absolutely wrong here. He's just repeating the RNC's talking points. The fact of the matter is that Ambassador Wilson, an appointee of George H.W. Bush by the way, never claimed to be sent by Vice President Cheney. That is an utter lie. Wilson said that the Vice Presdient's office did request that someone go to Niger to investigate the yellow cake. Wilson never said that Cheney asked for him in particular. Once the CIA picked up the issue, they determined that Mr. Wilson was well-qualified, based on previous work in the region including a similar 1999 visit to Niger under CIA auspices. Even if its true that Plame recommended her husband for the job, her superiors would not have signed off on it if Mr. Wilson was not well-qualified.

The Senate's bad intelligence
Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson demands that Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee set the record straight.

July 15, 2004

The Hon. Pat Roberts, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

The Hon. Jay Rockefeller, Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Dear Sen. Roberts and Sen. Rockefeller,

I read with great surprise and consternation the Niger portion of Sens. Roberts, Bond and Hatch's additional comments to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessment on Iraq. I am taking this opportunity to clarify some of the issues raised in these comments.

First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."

That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife, sent to her superiors that says, "My husband has good relations with the PM [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." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] reports officer stated that "the former ambassador's wife 'offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department intelligence and research officer stated that the "meeting was 'apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue."

In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she [Valerie] departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium-related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made. The interpretations attributed to them are not the full story. In fact, it is my understanding that the reports officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments." I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement.

It is unfortunate that the report failed to include the CIA's position on this matter. If the staff had done so it would undoubtedly have been given the same evidence as provided to Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce in July 2003. They reported on July 22 that:

"A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his [Wilson's] airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses." (Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," dated July 22, 2003).

In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip:

"'She did not propose me,' he [Wilson] said -- others at the CIA did so. A senior CIA official said that is his understanding too."

Second conclusion: "Rather than speaking publicly about his actual experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, the former ambassador seems to have included information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the information he provided."

This conclusion states that I told the committee staff that I "may have become confused about my own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that the names and dates on the documents were not correct." At the time that I was asked that question, I was not afforded the opportunity to review the articles to which the staff was referring. I have now done so.

On March 7, 2003, the director general of the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents that had been given to him were "not authentic." His deputy, Jacques Baute, was even more direct, pointing out that the forgeries were so obvious that a quick Google search would have exposed their flaws. A State Department spokesman was quoted the next day as saying about the forgeries, "We fell for it." From that time on the details surrounding the documents became public knowledge and were widely reported. I was not the source of information regarding the forensic analysis of the documents in question; the IAEA was.

The first time I spoke publicly about the Niger issue was in response to the State Department's disclaimer. On CNN a few days later, in response to a question, I replied that I believed the U.S. government knew more about the issue than the State Department spokesman had let on and that he had misspoken. I did not speak of my trip.

My first public statement was in my article of July 6 published in the New York Times, written only after it became apparent that the administration was not going to deal with the Niger question unless it was forced to. I wrote the article because I believed then, and I believe now, that it was important to correct the record on the statement in the president's State of the Union address which lent credence to the charge that Iraq was actively reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. I believed that the record should reflect the facts as the U.S. government had known them for over a year. The contents of my article do not appear in the body of the report and it is not quoted in the "additional comments." In that article, I state clearly that "as for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors -- they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government -- and were probably forged. (And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)"

The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so. My mission was to look into whether such a transaction took place or could take place. It had not and could not. By definition that makes the documents bogus.

The text of the "additional comments" also asserts that "during Mr. Wilson's media blitz, he appeared on more than thirty television shows including entertainment venues. Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the President had lied to the American people, that the Vice President had lied, and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa."

My article in the New York Times makes clear that I attributed to myself "a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs." After it became public that there were then-Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick's report and the report from a four-star Marine Corps general, Carleton Fulford, in the files of the U.S. government, I went to great lengths to point out that mine was but one of three reports on the subject. I never claimed to have "debunked" the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur. I did not speak out on the subject until several months after it became evident that what underpinned the assertion in the State of the Union address were those documents, reports of which had sparked Vice President Cheney's original question that led to my trip. The White House must have agreed. The day after my article appeared in the Times a spokesman for the president told the Washington Post that "the sixteen words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union."

I have been very careful to say that while I believe that the use of the 16 words in the State of the Union address was a deliberate attempt to deceive the Congress of the United States, I do not know what role the president may have had other than he has accepted responsibility for the words he spoke. I have also said on many occasions that I believe the president has proven to be far more protective of his senior staff than they have been to him.

The "additional comments" also assert: "The Committee found that, for most analysts, the former ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger-Iraq uranium deal." In fact, the body of the Senate report suggests the exact opposite:

In August 2002, a CIA NESA [Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis] report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities did not include the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium information. (page 48)

In September 2002, during coordination of a speech with an NSC staff member, the CIA analyst suggested the reference to Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa be removed. The CIA analyst said the NSC staff member said that would leave the British "flapping in the wind." (page 50)

The uranium text was included in the body of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] but not in the key judgments. When someone suggested that the uranium information be included as another sign of reconstitution, the INR [State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research] Iraq nuclear analyst spoke up and said the he did not agree with the uranium reporting and that INR would be including text indicating their disagreement in their footnote on nuclear reconstitution. The NIO [national intelligence officer] said he did not recall anyone really supporting including the uranium issue as part of the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, so he suggested that the uranium information did not need to be part of the key judgments. He told committee staff that he suggested, "We'll leave it in the paper for completeness. Nobody can say we didn't connect the dots. But we don't have to put that dot in the key judgments." (page 53)

On Oct. 2, 2002, the Deputy DCI [director of central intelligence] testified before the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]. Sen. Jon Kyl asked the Deputy DCI whether he had read the British White Paper and whether he disagreed with anything in the report. The Deputy DCI testified that "the one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations." (page 54)

On Oct. 4, 2002, the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs testified that "there is some information on attempts ... there's a question about those attempts because of the control of the material in those countries ... For us it's more the concern that they [Iraq] have uranium in-country now." (page 54)

On Oct. 5, 2002, the ADDI [associate deputy director for intelligence] said an Iraqi nuclear analyst -- he could not remember who -- raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq. (page 55)

Based on the analyst's comments, the ADDI faxed a memo to the deputy national security advisor that said, "Remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from this source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory." (page 56)

On Oct. 6, 2002, the DCI called the deputy national security advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. The DCI testified to the SSCI on July 16, 2003, that he told the deputy national security advisor that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue," because his analysts had told him the "reporting was weak." (page 56)

On Oct. 6, 2002, the CIA sent a second fax to the White House that said, "More on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British." (page 56)

On March 8, 2003, the intelligence report on my trip was disseminated within the U.S. government, according to the Senate report (page 43). Further, the Senate report states that "in early March, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for an update on the Niger uranium issue." That update from the CIA "also noted that the CIA would be debriefing a source who may have information related to the alleged sale on March 5." The report then states the "DO officials also said they alerted WINPAC [Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control] analysts when the report was being disseminated because they knew the high priority of the issue." The report notes that the CIA briefer did not brief the vice president on the report. (page 46)

It is clear from the body of the Senate report that the intelligence community, including the DCI himself, made several attempts to ensure that the president did not become a "fact witness" on an allegation that was so weak. A thorough reading of the report substantiates the claim made in my opinion piece in the New York Times and in subsequent interviews I have given on the subject. The 16 words should never have been in the State of the Union address, as the White House now acknowledges.

I undertook this mission at the request of my government in response to a legitimate concern that Saddam Hussein was attempting to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. This was a national security issue that has concerned me since I was the deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq before and during the first Gulf War.

At the time of my trip I was in private business and had not offered my views publicly on the policy we should adopt toward Iraq. Indeed, throughout the debate in the run-up to the war, I took the position that the U.S. be firm with Saddam Hussein on the question of weapons of mass destruction programs, including backing tough diplomacy with the credible threat of force. In that debate I never mentioned my trip to Niger. I did not share the details of my trip until May 2003, after the war was over, and then only when it became clear that the administration was not going to address the issue of the State of the Union statement.

It is essential that the errors and distortions in the additional comments be corrected for the public record. Nothing could be more important for the American people than to have an accurate picture of the events that led to the decision to bring the United States into war in Iraq. The Senate Intelligence Committee has an obligation to present to the American people the factual basis of that process. I hope that this letter is helpful in that effort. I look forward to your further "additional comments."

Sincerely,

Joseph C. Wilson IV, Washington, D.C.

Wilson shot himself in the foot. He's a partisan and tried to parlay his mission into fame and money. To try and portray himself as an apolitical person with no agenda is a stretch.

Britain still to this day stands by the report. The dems don't even stand beside Wilson on this. Kerry booted him from his campaign once it was discovered he was wrong.

I think both sides have blame on this, but Wilson more than the rest because he tried to make a name for himself and as a result got burned by it.

I heard the lady who actually helped write the law to which some think Rove broke the law. She said the even if Rove leaked the name that he didn't break the law.

In any case I think you can see by the "press conference" today that the dems know they can't get Rove on a criminal charge so they're trying to get him out politically with emotional arguments. Wilson's own statement that it didnt' matter if he was innocent of any charges he should be fired shows they know they can't fight it on the criminal front.

Personally this all makes me sick. Who gives a crap if a CIA desk jockey who works from the safety of Langley was outed. There are more important things to be dealing with.

Ninerfan1 Wrote:Personally this all makes me sick. Who gives a crap if a CIA desk jockey who works from the safety of Langley was outed. There are more important things to be dealing with.

This was about more than just a CIA desk-jockey as you claim. Valerie Plame was at the heart of the CIA's efforts to stop the proliferation of WMDs. Plame worked for a CIA front-company, Brewster, Jennings and Associates that allowed CIA operatives to gather intelligence on WMDs in countries ranging from North Korea and Iraq to former Soviet republics like Belarus. Novak's article exposed the entire operation and forced the CIA to shutdown the front company. Rove, if he did indeed leak this information, put the lives of CIA agents at risk.

MichiganTiger Wrote:This was about more than just a CIA desk-jockey as you claim. Valerie Plame was at the heart of the CIA's efforts to stop the proliferation of WMDs. Plame worked for a CIA front-company, Brewster, Jennings and Associates that allowed CIA operatives to gather intelligence on WMDs in countries ranging from North Korea and Iraq to former Soviet republics like Belarus. Novak's article exposed the entire operation and forced the CIA to shutdown the front company. Rove, if he did indeed leak this information, put the lives of CIA agents at risk.

Sorry, I don't buy it. From what I've read her identity was the worst kept secret in D.C. And if she was worried about her life so much and if she was really in danger posing for a vanity fair article was pretty moronic.

Plus I don't believe it was ever confirmed that Brewster Jennings was a real front company. The WSJ researched it back when this all came down and they weren't listed at their address and their number wasn't a working number. If it was a front it was a really bad one and it shakes my faith in our intellegence agencies.

Ninerfan1 Wrote:

MichiganTiger Wrote:This was about more than just a CIA desk-jockey as you claim.  Valerie Plame was at the heart of the CIA's efforts to stop the proliferation of WMDs.  Plame worked for a CIA front-company, Brewster, Jennings and Associates that allowed CIA operatives to gather intelligence on WMDs in countries ranging from North Korea and Iraq to former Soviet republics like Belarus.  Novak's article exposed the entire operation and forced the CIA to shutdown the front company.  Rove, if he did indeed leak this information, put the lives of CIA agents at risk.

Sorry, I don't buy it. From what I've read her identity was the worst kept secret in D.C. And if she was worried about her life so much and if she was really in danger posing for a vanity fair article was pretty moronic.

Plus I don't believe it was ever confirmed that Brewster Jennings was a real front company. The WSJ researched it back when this all came down and they weren't listed at their address and their number wasn't a working number. If it was a front it was a really bad one and it shakes my faith in our intellegence agencies.

Bad cover or not, it was a real front company for the CIA.


Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm

By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 4, 2003; Page A03

The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign.

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons.

The Justice Department began a formal criminal investigation of the leak Sept. 26.

The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.

"That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.

FEC rules require donors to list their employment. Plame used her married name, Valerie E. Wilson, and listed her employment as an "analyst" with Brewster-Jennings & Associates. The document establishes that Plame has worked undercover within the past five years. The time frame is one of the standards used in making determinations about whether a disclosure is a criminal violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

It could not be learned yesterday whether other CIA operatives were associated with Brewster-Jennings.

Also yesterday, the nearly 2,000 employees of the White House were given a Tuesday deadline to scour their files and computers for any records related to Wilson or contacts with journalists about Wilson. The broad order, in an e-mail from White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, directed them to retain records "that relate in any way to former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, his trip to Niger in February 2002, or his wife's purported relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency."

White House employees received the e-mailed directive at 12:45 p.m., with an all-capitalized subject line saying, "Important Follow-Up Message From Counsel's Office." By 5 p.m. on Tuesday, employees must turn over copies of relevant electronic records, telephone records, message slips, phone logs, computer records, memos, and diaries and calendar entries.

The directive notes that lawyers in the counsel's office are attorneys for the president in his official capacity and that they cannot provide personal legal advice to employees.

For some officials, the task is a massive one. Some White House officials said they had numerous conversations with Wilson that had nothing to do with his wife, so the directive is seen as a heavy burden at a time when many of the president's aides already feel beleaguered.

Officials at the Pentagon and State Department also have been asked to retain records related to the case. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday: "We are doing our searches. . . . I'm not sure what they will be looking for or what they wish to contact us about, but we are anxious to be of all assistance to the inquiry."

In another development, FBI agents yesterday began attempts to interview journalists who may have had conversations with government sources about Plame and Wilson. It was not clear how many journalists had been contacted. The FBI has interviewed Plame, ABC News reported.

Wilson and his wife have hired Washington lawyer Christopher Wolf to represent them in the matter.

The couple has directed him to take a preliminary look at claims they might be able to make against people they believe have impugned their character, a source said.

The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."

"There is no such firm, I'm convinced," he continued. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery."

In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates.

The phone number in the listing is not in service, and the property manager at the address listed said there is no such company at the property, although records from 2000 were not available.

Wilson was originally listed as having given $2,000 to Gore during the primary campaign in 1999, but the donation, over the legal limit of $1,000, was "reattributed" so that Wilson and Plame each gave $1,000 to Gore. Wilson also gave $1,000 to the Bush primary campaign, but there is no donation listed from his wife.

Staff writers Dana Milbank, Susan Schmidt and Dana Priest, political researcher Brian Faler and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.

The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2003

Exposed Agent's 'Employer' Leaves Few Fingerprints
By TOM HAMBURGER
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- When Valerie Plame, the intelligence agent whose exposure by unnamed administration officials is being investigated by the Justice Department, wrote a check to Al Gore's presidential campaign in 1999, she listed her occupation as "analyst" for Brewster-Jennings & Associates.

There is no record of a business by that name in the Washington area and only one mention elsewhere. Dun & Bradstreet Inc.'s business-information database lists a Boston legal services firm with the same name without the hyphen.

Ms. Plame told acquaintances she was an energy consultant, so on the face of it, there would appear to be no connection to a Boston legal outfit. But if it isn't a front for the Central Intelligence Agency, it's as elusive.

The publication of Ms. Plame's name by a syndicated columnist in July has set off the most serious controversy to beset the White House since Mr. Bush was elected. Knowingly revealing the name of a covert agent is a felony, and the Justice Department has begun interviewing White House personnel about it. While the CIA will not confirm that Ms. Plame is a CIA employee, it's known that she traveled overseas on covert assignments and worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction and terror-related cases. Some intelligence experts say that real damage may have been done to national security and intelligence networks.

Intelligence officers are often given cover through a government agency, usually posing as diplomats in embassies abroad. But "non-official cover" with private-sector firms is provided for particularly sensitive missions. The private covers can range from arranging employment for an agent with a legitimate business to establishing a front company.

D&B lists Brewster Jennings & Associates at 101 Arch St. in Boston, and provides a local telephone number. It names a partner, Victor Brewster, who is described as a "general practice attorney." There is no other record of the firm.

The address is a 21-story office building in Boston. Tenants include lawyers, insurers and consulting firms, but none by the name Brewster Jennings. Property and building managers say they have never heard of the organization and can find no record that such a firm rented there since the building opened in 1985. The phone number is not a working number.

The Massachusetts Bar Association has never licensed a Victor Brewster to practice law. Martindale Hubbell, which publishes lawyers' directories, has no record of a Victor Brewster practicing in any state.

So how did it happen that D&B posted this information in its database? D&B doesn't do verification checks when individuals call or write to provide basic information and receive a "D&B number," which is useful for doing business with government agencies around the globe.

If a credit report is requested, D&B's checking process is extensive, but anyone can offer basic information -- such as business name, address, phone number -- on the Internet or by phone without being subject to further verification. D&B first listed Brewster Jennings Associates on May 22, 1994. The data were verified again on May 31, 2000, apparently by phone.

-- Fasih Ahmed in Washington and John Hechinger in Boston contributed to this article.

Write to Tom Hamburger at tom.hamburger@wsj.com

Are you saying that the administration lied when it confirmed that Brewster, Jennings and Associates was a CIA front company?

We can post news articles back and forth all you want, it won't change anything.

Quote:Are you saying that the administration lied when it confirmed that Brewster, Jennings and Associates was a CIA front company?

No, I'm saying the WSJ wrote an article on it.

The fact of the matter is if she was in such danger then her posing for a Vanity Fair article is the height of idiocy. More than a few people knew who she was and the person who helped write the law for which the dems want to prosecute Rove for says Plame's case doesn't apply because she doesn't meet the criteria.

A few more things.

This is from Novak's column in October of 2003. I've bolded the portions of interest.

Quote:At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry. Clearly Wilson was so worried about her he posted her name in his bio.

A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

This is much ado about nothing. The dems want a scalp on their wall and Rove's would be third only to Bush and Cheney's.

Plame security breach? It just ain't so, Joe

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES
July 17, 2005

BY MARK STEYN

Karl Rove? Please. I couldn't care less. This week finds me thousands of miles from the Beltway in what I believe the ABC World News Tonight map designates as the Rest Of The Planet, an obscure beat the media can't seem to spare a correspondent for. But even if I was with the rest of the navel-gazers inside the Beltway I wouldn't be interested in who ''leaked'' the name of CIA employee Valerie Plame to the press. As her weirdly self-obsesssed husband Joseph C. Wilson IV conceded on CNN the other day, she wasn't a ''clandestine officer'' and, indeed, hadn't been one for six years. So one can only ''leak'' her name in the sense that one can ''leak'' the name of the checkout clerk at Home Depot.

Back when Woodrow Wilson was running for president, he had a campaign song called ''Wilson, That's All.'' If only. With Joe Wilson, it's never all. He keeps coming back like a song. But in the real world there's only one scandal in this whole wretched business -- that the CIA, as part of its institutional obstruction of the administration, set up a pathetic ''fact-finding mission'' that would be considered a joke by any serious intelligence agency and compounded it by sending, at the behest of his wife, a shrill politically motivated poseur who, for the sake of 15 minutes' celebrity on the cable gabfest circuit, misled the nation about what he found.

This controversy began, you'll recall, because Wilson objected to a line in the president's State of the Union speech that British intelligence had discovered that Iraq had been trying to acquire ''yellowcake'' -- i.e., weaponized uranium -- from Africa. This assertion made Bush, in Wilson's incisive analysis, a ''liar'' and Cheney a ''lying sonofabitch.''

In fact, the only lying sonafabitch turned out to be Yellowcake Joe. Just about everybody on the face of the earth except Wilson, the White House press corps and the moveon.org crowd accepts that Saddam was indeed trying to acquire uranium from Africa. Don't take my word for it; it's the conclusion of the Senate intelligence report, Lord Butler's report in the United Kingdom, MI6, French intelligence, other European services -- and, come to that, the original CIA report based on Joe Wilson's own briefing to them. Why Yellowcake Joe then wrote an article for the New York Times misrepresenting what he'd been told by senior figures from Major Wanke's regime in Niger is known only to him.

As I wrote in this space a year ago, an ambassador, in Sir Henry Wootton's famous dictum, is a good man sent abroad to lie for his country; this ambassador came home to lie to his. What we have here is, in effect, the old standby plot of lame Hollywood conspiracy thrillers: rogue elements within the CIA attempting to destabilize the elected government. If the left's view of the world is now so insanely upside-down that that's the side they want to be on, good for them. But ''leaking'' the name of Wilson's wife and promoter within the CIA didn't ''endanger her life'' or ''compromise her mission.'' Au contraire, exposing the nature of this fraudulent, compromised mission might conceivably prevent the American people having their lives endangered.

Here's the thing: They're still pulling body parts from London's Tube tunnels. Too far away for you? No local angle? OK, how about this? Magdy el-Nashar. He's a 33-year old Egyptian arrested Friday morning in Cairo, and thought to be what they call a ''little emir'' -- i.e., the head honcho in the local terrorist cell, the one who fires up the suicide bombers. Until his timely disappearance, he was a biochemist studying at Leeds University and it's in his apartment the London bombs were made. Previously he was at North Carolina State University.

So this time round he blew up London rather than Washington. Next time, who knows? Who cares? Here's another fellow you don't read much about in America: Kamel Bourgass. He had a plan to unleash ricin in London. Fortunately, the cops got wind of that one and three months ago he was convicted and jailed. Just suppose, instead of the British police raiding Bourgass' apartment but missing el-Nashar's, it had been the other way around, and ricin had been released in aerosol form on the Tube.

Kamel Bourgass and Magdy el-Nashar are real people, not phantoms conjured by those lyin' sonsofbitches Bush and Cheney. And to those who say, "but that's why Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror," sorry, it doesn't work like that. It's not either/or; it's a string of connections: unlimited Saudi money, Westernized Islamist fanatics, supportive terrorist states, proliferating nuclear technology. One day it all comes together and there goes the neighborhood. Here's another story you may have missed this week:

''Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Tuesday.''

Got that? If you don't let us go nuclear, we'll go nuclear. Negotiate that, John Kerry. As with Bourgass and el-Nashar, Hossein Moussavian and Cyrus Nasseri are real Iranian negotiators, not merely the deranged war fantasies of Bush and Cheney.

The British suicide bombers and the Iranian nuke demands are genuine crises. The Valerie Plame game is a pseudo-crisis. If you want to talk about Niger or CIA reform, fine. But if you seriously think the only important aspect of a politically motivated narcissist kook's drive-thru intelligence mission to a critical part of the world is the precise sequence of events by which some White House guy came to mention the kook's wife to some reporter, then you've departed the real world and you're frolicking on the wilder shores of Planet Zongo.

What's this really about? It's not difficult. A big chunk of the American elites have decided there is no war; it's all a racket got up by Bush and Cheney. And, even if there is a war somewhere or other, wherever it is, it's not where Bush says it is. Iraq is a ''distraction'' from Afghanistan -- and, if there were no Iraq, Afghanistan would be a distraction from Niger, and Niger's a distraction from Valerie Plame's next photo shoot for Vanity Fair.

The police have found the suicide bomber's head in the rubble of the London bus, and Iran is enriching uranium. The only distraction here is the pitiful parochialism of our political culture.

More news, looks like perjury.


Rove, Libby Accounts in CIA Case Differ With Those of Reporters

By Richard Keil

July 22 (Bloomberg) — Two top White House aides have given accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to persons familiar with the case.

Lewis “Scooter'’ Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’s identity.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who was first to report Plame’s name and connection to Wilson. Novak, according to a source familiar with the matter, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor.

These discrepancies may be important because one issue Fitzgerald is investigating is whether Libby, Rove, or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation. The Plame case has its genesis in whether any administration officials violated a 1982 law making it illegal to knowingly reveal the name of a CIA agent.

The CIA requested the inquiry after Novak’s July 14, 2003, article that said Plame recommended her husband for a 2002 mission to check into reports Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. Wilson, in a July 6 column in the New York Times, said the Bush administration “twisted

The abuse of my integrity provokes this response
By ROBERT D. NOVAK


A statement attributed to the former CIA spokesman indicating that I deliberately disregarded what he told me in writing my 2003 column about Joseph Wilson's wife is just plain wrong.

Though frustrated, I have followed the advice of my attorneys and written almost nothing about the CIA leak over two years because of a criminal investigation by a federal special prosecutor. The lawyers also urged me not to write this. But the allegation against me is so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist that I feel constrained to reply.

In the course of a front-page story in last Wednesday's Washington Post, Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei quoted ex-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow describing his testimony to the grand jury. In response to my question about Valerie Plame Wilson's role in former Ambassador Wilson's trip to Niger, Harlow told me she "had not authorized the mission." Harlow was quoted as later saying to me "the story Novak had related to him was wrong."

This gave the impression I ignored an official's statement that I had the facts wrong but wrote it anyway for the sake of publishing the story. That would be inexcusable for any journalist and particularly a veteran of 48 years in Washington. The truth is otherwise, and that is why I feel compelled to write this column.

My column of July 14, 2003, asked why the CIA in 2002 sent Wilson, a critic of President Bush, to Niger to investigate an Italian intelligence report of attempted Iraqi uranium purchases. All the subsequent furor was caused by three sentences in the sixth paragraph:

"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA (Harlow) says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."

There never was any question of me talking about Mrs. Wilson "authorizing." I was told she "suggested" the mission, and that is what I asked Harlow. His denial was contradicted in July 2004 by a unanimous Senate Intelligence Committee report. The report said Wilson's wife "suggested his name for the trip." It cited an internal CIA memo from her saying "my husband has good relations" with officials in Niger and "lots of French contacts," adding they "could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." A State Department analyst told the committee that Mrs. Wilson "had the idea" of sending Wilson to Africa.

So, what was "wrong" with my column as Harlow claimed? There was nothing incorrect. He told the Post reporters he had "warned" me that if I "did write about it, her name should not be revealed." That is meaningless. Once it was determined that Wilson's wife suggested the mission, she could be identified as "Valerie Plame" by reading her husband's entry in "Who's Who in America."

Harlow said to the Post that he did not tell me Mrs. Wilson "was undercover because that was classified." What he did say was, as I reported in a previous column, "she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.' " According to CIA sources, she was brought home from foreign assignments in 1997, when Agency officials feared she had been "outed" by the traitor Aldrich Ames.

I have previously said that I never would have written those sentences if Harlow, then-CIA Director George Tenet or anybody else from the Agency had told me that Valerie Plame Wilson's disclosure would endanger herself or anybody.

The recent first disclosure of secret grand jury testimony set off a news media feeding frenzy centered on this obscure case. Joseph Wilson was discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign after the Senate committee reported much of what he said "had no basis in fact."

The re-emerged Wilson is now accusing the senators of "smearing" him. I eagerly await the end of this investigation when I may be able to correct other misinformation about me and the case.

Novak is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington.

Ninerfan1 Wrote:

JTiger Wrote:It was kind of a joke, but I'm glad about your stance on it and it's been made clear to me.  It seems every other conservative thinks getting a BJ from an intern is worthy of a hangin'.

No. But lying and committing purjury for which Clinton was disbarred is worthy of impeachment.

Dems have effectively distorted the Lewinsky scandal into being about sex. It was never about that. It was about did the President lie to a grand jury.

Answer?

He did. And was disbarred for it.

Sorry, jumping into this conversation a little late... in terms of Clinton's situation, what would you do if you had cheated on your wife and told her you never did? You'd probably try to continue to the lie if you thought you had a chance to get away with it. I'm not saying what he did was right (it wasn't), but at the same time if I had been caught with my pants down (pun intended) but thought I had a legitimate chance of getting out of the trouble I'd do the same. IMO there was a witch hunt in the Clinton case, and it appears now in the Rove case.

And to say that the democrats distorted it into a scandal about sex is offbase, IMO. What did Newt say? Clinton caused a national security breakdown because he got it on with Monica? Newt called for him to step down because he used his power in the office to solicit sex, if I remember correctly. Then Newt was found to be cheating on his wife, and had no choice but to step down.

I'm sorry, 99.9% of all politicians are sleezebags, whether they are democrat or republican. It is too bad we'll never get any real campaign finance reform since they are doing their own reforms.

mlbUC Wrote:Sorry, jumping into this conversation a little late... in terms of Clinton's situation, what would you do if you had cheated on your wife and told her you never did? You'd probably try to continue to the lie if you thought you had a chance to get away with it. I'm not saying what he did was right (it wasn't), but at the same time if I had been caught with my pants down (pun intended) but thought I had a legitimate chance of getting out of the trouble I'd do the same.

Sorry but this has absolutely nothing to do with anything.

He lied to a grand jury, it was a felony. Justifying by trying to say "wouldn't you do the same thing" doesn't change what it was and that he deserved to be impeached and disbarred.

And he wasn't lying to keep it from his wife. There's no doubt she knew what he was. My guess is they haven't lived as "man and wife" since Chelsea was born.

Quote:And to say that the democrats distorted it into a scandal about sex is offbase,

Not really. That was the whole PR strategy behind it. Make it about personal life, make it about sex and the public will side with you. The investigation on Lewinsky had to do with Clinton's grand jury testimony which just happend to be about sex with Lewinsky. The issue was his testimony, not the sex itself, at least not as far as the investigation went. Others I'm sure felt it was about sex.

Quote:

Quote:And to say that the democrats distorted it into a scandal about sex is offbase,

Not really. That was the whole PR strategy behind it.

What about Newt Gengrich's (sp?) statements before the investigation and impeachment? He went out of his way to say that Bill Clinton had caused a national security breakdown due to the situation. They tried to point out how immoral Bill Clinton was, all the while doing the same.

I'll say it again, 99.9% of all politicians are dirtbags. I have very little respect for any politician out there, republican or democrat.

mlbUC Wrote:What about Newt Gengrich's (sp?) statements before the investigation and impeachment? He went out of his way to say that Bill Clinton had caused a national security breakdown due to the situation. They tried to point out how immoral Bill Clinton was, all the while doing the same.

What about it? Saying that it was immoral, which it was, and saying that it caused a national security breakdown, which it may very well have, doesn't change what the investigation was about. It was about him committing purjury.

The House investigation was based on the report from the Independent Counsel who was investigating it. They found he had committed purjury. From there the House started their investigation as to if 1) he did commit purjury and 2) if it was an impeachable offense.

In politics there are 2 wars that are waged in this type of thing. A PR war and a legal war. You can't find someone guilty of having sex and impeach them. Clinton had to have committed a crime, which he did. Talking about the morality of it is waging a war of public opinion. Public opinion on your side is a very strong thing in politics.

Fair point... my point was the hypocrisy of Newt Gengrich. If you are doing the same thing you are calling someone else out on (namely, getting it on with someone besides your wife) you should shut your mouth. There is nothing I hate more than a hypocrite.

mlbUC Wrote:Fair point... my point was the hypocrisy of Newt Gengrich. If you are doing the same thing you are calling someone else out on (namely, getting it on with someone besides your wife) you should shut your mouth. There is nothing I hate more than a hypocrite.

Can't argue with that. But I think it's a requirement to be a politician. :D

mlbUC Wrote:... in terms of Clinton's situation, what would you do if you had cheated on your wife and told her you never did? You'd probably try to continue to the lie if you thought you had a chance to get away with it. I'm not saying what he did was right (it wasn't), but at the same time if I had been caught with my pants down (pun intended) but thought I had a legitimate chance of getting out of the trouble I'd do the same.

And if I robbed a bank, I would do all I could to avoid being arrested, but that does not excuse hostage taking, shoot-outs, or any other illegal behavior. Clinton lied not only to protect himself, but to keep another US citizen from receiving her due under the law. Here was a man sworn to enforce our nation's laws and to protect the rights of its citizens, and he was committing perjury and obstruction for private gain. That is what the scandal was about. No one cared about the BJ's until he committed perjury in the Paula Jones testimony.