’)It wasn’t just Ms. Plame. A flashback to 2003: Leak of Agent’s Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm
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.
Who is going to answer for this petty vindictiveness that endangered our national security?
The President has clammed up.
The fact that this was in a FEC filing is irrelevant, the CIA front would have been blown without it. Every country to which Plame travelled had her as an employee of “Brewster-Jennings.” Once her cover was blown, so was the company’s. So was everybody who met with her. So was anybody else who used Brewster-Jennings as a cover.
The over-emphasis of some on the danger to Plame really misses the point – I doubt any government or organization cares to hurt her. What the exposure did was blow a significant amount of effort by the CIA to build her network of informants. It put her informants at risk, and it undermined intelligence gathering in the area of WMD.
All for the purpose of getting back at her husband, a petty little war against an honorable man for telling the truth.
“It’s disappointing that once again, so many Democrat leaders are taking their political cues from the far-left, Moveon wing of the party. The bottom line is Karl Rove was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise and the Democrats are engaging in blatant partisan political attacks.”
-RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman ( via GOP.COM )
Well, according to Ken its the Democrats who should answer for this whole mess.
“As one Republican said to me last night, if this was a Democratic White House we’d have congressional hearings in a second.” Tim Russert on the Today show.
Of course, the story wasn’t false. Joe Wilson was right.
You know, even though Ken Mehlman is a pretty persuasive guy, I still don’t see how Democrats are to blame for the fact that THE WHITE HOUSE EXPOSED A CIA OPERATIVE DURING WARTIME FOR POLITICAL GAIN.
Maybe it’s just me.
Via LA Times: Luskin declined to say whether Rove knew that Plame was a covert agent, even if he did not know her name, which analysts said was a crucial factor in determining whether the law was broken.
Looks like Rove’s lawyer has clammed up too….drip…drip…drip.
It’s getting bleak for the Dubya’s sidekick.
Say, where are all the usual defenders of the faith on this thread?
They are downloading the talking points as we speak…
Let’s play a game: see if we can predict what the Defenders Of The Faith will say (nice title there Quaker) and guess who will say them:
(1) but he didnt’ say her name so it doesn’t count.
(2) But what about (insert completely unrelated Democrat’s name here)?
(3) How dare you impugn the character of Rove! You are a &%$!!!! You are unfit to be alive! Meet me at the corner of 5th & 3rd at 3:04 am and I’ll show you what’s what!
(4) Rove was just trying to prevent incorrect information from being disseminated to the American people. He was actually doing the country a service. He’s a patriot, dammit!
(5) Rove didn’t actually commit a crime.
(6) Liberals don’t have the right to be worried about National Security.
(7) Plame wasn’t a real /important CIA agent anyway.
crickets chirping
I’ll take: “See! She contributed to Al Gore! She’s clearly a partisan liar!”
Here’s another game: Guess which one I would have chosen. You saved me a lot of typing and senseless nitpicking, not to mention personal attacks on me…
TomY, they can’t go there, he is a longtime republican
(8) Clenis!
10) Fitzgerald is a Democrat/Democratic appointee/married to a Democrat/once gave a Democrat the time of day.
(8) Hillary sure was out of bounds when she compared Bush to Alfred E. Newman.
(9) Those WH reporters who keep pestering Scott McClellan are jerks.
You forgot
12) This is all a tempest in a teapot. Nobody cares but the lefties who think they smell blood.
11) Kerning!
Misplaced Patriot has it exactly right; the vast majority of covert intelligence opertaions aren’t James Bond-material. Most of it is conducted in the open and via networking and personal relationships.
I’d add this entire affair will make potential informants very leery of helping the US, knowing their personal safety could be compromised because some traitorous pinhead decides to try to score political points.
Well here’s a puzzler for you:
Which of the following is a greater threat to our security?
a) a Senator who says: “If you didn’t know any better, you might guess that only really bad people would chain a prisoner up in a sweltering hot room til he craps himself.”
or
b) a White House advisor who exposes a front corporation for the CIA.
Now which of the above had your sort screaming for a resignation?
Frank,
So your saying a well respected republican prosecutor, noted for being a no-nonsense straight shooter spent 2 years, escalating all the way to the Supreme Court and locked up a reporter for nothing? Sure I’m sure Fitzgerald had nothing better to do with his time for the last 2 years…
No, ewk, you’re saying that…
Quaker, I already told you I’m not playing games with you anymore.
Short answer: I don’t know of any Senator who said “A” (neither do you).
The End.
Shorter answer to your question: Neither one.
As you know, Quaker, making sure that things are “OK with you” is what I live for.
Very well, Frank. You want to dodge yet another direct question, that’s OK with me.
As for whether Rove’s legal and ethical problems are a “tempest in a teapot,” we’ll learn soon. I look forward to reminding you of these words–again and again–over the weeks to come.
I am a bit curious why we have neither seen nor heard any reaction from CIA ‘insiders’ or some other form of communication that would tell us exactly how the outing of Plame and the front company with which she was associated ‘rippled through the CIA.’ My guess is that if it is true that Plame was a covert agent, CIA regulars would be very pissed, institutionally and personally, and might want the wider world to know that.
Has Goss completely purged or intimidated anyone who would squawk?
JEP: Here’s your explanation, from the story:
with commentary added by me
The Corner has picked up my metaphor
How much dishonesty does Cliff May think we’ll swallow? At least this much:
Take note of what Wilson says:
1) CIA officials told me Cheney wanted answers.
2) CIA officials asked me if I would go to Africa.
Somehow, May wants us to think Wilson was telling us that Cheney asked him to go to Africa. Of course, Wilson says nothing of the sort. (Ironically, this little exercise is offered up in defense of Mr. Bush’s carefully worded statement that “The British have learned that Saddam Hussein sought significant quantities of uranium…” Why is May willing to parse Bush so carefully and eager to interpret Wilson so broadly?
Because Cliff May is a lying little weasel, that’s why.
I win!!
JEP’s inquiry was “I am a bit curious why we have neither seen nor heard any reaction from CIA insiders … that would tell us exactly how the outing of Plame and the front company with which she was associated rippled through the CIA.”
My theory is indicated by the points I emphasized:
1) The company s identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records (it wasn’t “outed” — she revealed it.) AND
2) She contributed $1,000 to Al Gore s presidential primary campaign — we wouldn’t want that blared all over the papers, would we…
This is just my theory, which I shared with JEP.
As Monty Python might say:
This is my theory, which is the theory that is my own, because it is not anybody else’s…
This whole thing is becoming “curiouser and curiouser”. I think it’s going nowhere.
The company’s name appeared in the records. But it wasn’t until Plame was exposed as a CIA operative that the company was revealed to be a CIA front. Simply having the company name show up somewhere didn’t reveal anything.
The company’s “identity” was also listed in Dun & Bradstreet. However, the listing there didn’t say “CIA front organization.”
For something’s that’s going “nowhere,” the GOP is sending an awful lot of time attacking Wilson and sending out their surrogates (Mehlman, Gingrich, May, etc.) to repeat their talking points.
For a bunch of folks who don’t think it appropriate to discuss “an ongoing investigation”–they’re doing a lot of discussing.
Of course, since Frank D thinks racism is “understandable”–I could see where he might be, well, wrong.
Only liberals believe that telling the same lie over and over again will make it true.
It’s not going to work with Karl Rove, and it’s not going to work with me.
How ironic.
That, in itself, is a lie.
A twist on the Cretan paradox: {Liberal speaking} Only Republicans are liars. But liberals are liars.
[...] agent, every CIA agent she worked with, every human asset who worked with her, and even at least one CIA front company became compromised. This complete breach o [...]