May 30 2007
Valerie Heading For Perjury And Obstruction Charges
Wilson and Plame have failed to understand one thing about the DoJ – they do not like ANYONE lying to them about investigations. There is a point where professional morals and conduct trump partisan feelings. People tend to associate very much with their career and profession (of course). So when that profession is under attack at its core, they tend to ignore partisan needs and work to salvage what is, in essence, a very real part of them. So if I were Plame and Wilson I would be very, very concerned that many career laywers and investigators will be ready to punish ALL of those who tried to warp the legal process in this country by giving false and misleading testimony in a serious (OK, some claim ‘serious’) Federal investigation.
A February 2002 CIA memo released last week as part of a study of pre-Iraq-war intelligence shows that Plame suggested her husband, former State Department official Joseph Wilson, for the Niger trip, Bond said. That “doesn’t square” with Plame’s March testimony in which she said an unnamed CIA colleague raised her husband’s name, Bond told USA TODAY.
Here are Plame’s three versions of how Wilson was sent to Niger, according to Bond:
•She told the CIA’s inspector general in 2003 or 2004 that she had suggested Wilson.
•Plame told Senate Intelligence Committee staffers in 2004 that she couldn’t remember whether she had suggested Wilson.
•She told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March that an unidentified person in Vice President Cheney’s office asked a CIA colleague about the African uranium report in February 2002. A third officer, overhearing Plame and the colleague discussing this, suggested, “Well, why don’t we send Joe?” Plame told the committee.
Corruption of the process will destroy the institutions and all associated with them. Letting lies stand openly taints everyone involved, just as it would any witness to a crime – with the power to do something – who stands by and lets it happen. Plame’s variations are as serious and more obvious than Libby’s bizarre recollections. Remember Libby actually testified talking about Plame to Russert, making the case he DID leak about Plame, but Russert denied he was leaked to – making the entire incident irrelevant to the IIPA charges! Only Fitz-Magoo would charge someone with not testifying he was innocent of the leak, instead of claiming he did talk to the media and possibly guilty of the leak. I think this has to be the first time in history someone perjured themselves for not claiming their innocence to the charge being investigated.
But I digress. Lying under oath to committees trying to understand the intel leading up to the Iraq invasion is just as problematic – if not more – than covering up who leaked Plame’s name to the media (which we know WAS NOT Libby). Plame is in some trouble here. And the statute of limitations will not help her out here. She has no immunity for false testimony to Congress. My gut tells me if there is another power switch in 2008 (and right now I would bet there would be) Wilson and Plame will find themselves on the wrong side of witness table. Of course, their credibility will be tested in any civil case as well – so we may get some answers much sooner than 2009.
Don’t bet on it. The Republican wimps don’t have the balls to take on the Clintonista traitors embedded in the intelligence community who have repeatedly leaked bits and pieces of national security info to embarrass and discredit Bush. If they had the courage to do what the Democrats do on a daily basis, which is to attack and try to discredit everything any Rep. does or says, we wouldn’t have the likes of Jefferson, Reid, Feinstein, etc. still in Congress. Reps. sat by while the whole party was smeared with Foley’s picadillos and let the Jefferson, Reid, et al get away with stealing the store. The American people have been trained to gag at gnats while swallowing camels. A weak willed, always be Mr. nice guy Republican Party is responsible for letting them get away with it.
If this wasn’t so, Sandy Burglar woudl be sitting in jail today.
Another pathetic attempt to tar Plame, probably to deflect the most telling part of Patrick Fitzgerald’s recent filing in the Scooter Libby case:
thus forever putting to rest Victoria Toensing’s shrill claims that Plame was not covert and had not been out of the country and therefore no underlying crime occurred.
What is plain is that Plame was a covert agent; Libby was a Republican criminal who was indicted, tried and convicted by a jury of his peers of multiple felonies; Toensing was a partisan tool trying to smear Plame and Fitzgerald, and the Senate’s #1 alcoholic, Kit Bond, continues the effort to discredit Plame.
With respect to Plame and 2008 – how about a couple of side bets: #1 – I bet $1,000 Plame will never be indicted for allegedly misleading testimony on the Niger trip; and #2 – $1,000 says the Democrats will enjoy larger majorities in both House and Senate after November 2008.
I agree with Momdear, I’m afraid to say. When I saw your headline AJ, I thought for a second you had a story where charges had actually been referred against Plame and her piece of shit lying husband.
Alas…Momdear is correct, the Republicans in the House and Senate, are too content, getting fat off their earmarks and Lobbyist freebies, to do the right thing, and stop all this crap that has beening undermining the President, the War, and the Troops, for the past 6 years. It makes me sick to my stomach, that Leftist, treasonous liars, like Plame, Wilson, Pelosi, the MSM, and the seditionist bastards in the CIA and State Department and the Pentagon, who’ve been leaking like a sieve since 2002, are all going to get away with all this crap!
AJ, as usual, you see the glass half full; for me, it’s EMPTY!
Sooth,
Selectively copying the reference doesn’t negate the part that said her travel was not always as a NOC. All agents are, by definition, under cover if they are not open about their employment.
And her NOC status as zip to do with her conflicting testimony under oath. Gonzales stays and Plame flames….
AJ
It is just another pathetic attempt by soothie to deflect away from Valerie the REAL Perjurer.
Unfortunately, I agree any further investigation of Val’s story will not happen as we all know the “Caucus of Corruption” is currently the majority in the house and the senate.
I second the thoughts of Momdear and Daleinatlanta. The repubs are wimps at not pressing to rid us of Dimmicrat pestilence.
They’re also wimps at letting the Dimms make them look like the bad guys in the compromise”psuedo amnesty” immigration bill. Look, it’s the Dimms that want to give the country away, let them take the blame for it…..
The CIA are geniuses instead of concocting huge cover stories for their agents to hide behind, they are having them hide in plain site like Waldo. I mean it takes me forever to find him in those books, so you can just imagine how long it would take a dedicated intelligence agency who is researching cover stories to find the covert spy driving in and out of the front gate at Langley, while maintaining her presence in who’s who, and appearing on the cover of Vanity Fair. No possible way at all they could figure that out. Nope. None. nu unh. No way SoothSay.
Damn AJ I learned how to do bold and all that but how do I change the sarcasm setting????
If you read the entire post, AJStrata implies that if ’08 elections switches the majority, the Wilsons may find themselves on the wrong side.
If you read Toensing’s “testimony”, IIPA provides very limited prosecution for leaked covert agents by definition. Plame never qualified for IIPA.
You’re right that Plame committed perjury and obstruction of justice.
And Libby never got a fair trial by jury. Time will prove him innocent of all counts.
And has Judge Bates ruled anything on the Wilson’s civil case against Rove, Cheney, Lewis, and Armitage?
doesn’t negate the part that said her travel was not always as a NOC
Where does it say that ALL travel must be NOC. The point is – the Faux News/Toensing talking points claimed she was NOT covert. Now, the CIA has actually declassified data sufficient to demonstrate to the Court that she WAS a covert agent that was traitorously outed by Mr. Libby at Dick Cheney’s command.
Again – anybody care to bet on this???
I believe there may actually be a chance that the judge will ignore the sentencing guidelines and give Scooter MORE time than called for. As you may recall – when he was convictecd I posted that his probably sentence would be 30-37 months, since his perjury interered with the orderly administration of justice, i.e., investigation of the felonies commissioned by Mr. Cheney.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/05/fitzgerald_plame_cia_director.html
One does not stay covert at all times. One goes covert when the job requires it. Valerie Plame was moving into an adm position at the time of the leak, then move to state. Moving into an adm position does not require covert status but rather security clearance, probably.
Traveling overseas under their true name does not call for covert status either.
Joe Wilson’s autobiography said that the last time they lived abroad was 1997.
Plame went on maternity leave with an extended leave of absence, believe lasting at least 2 years. She had her twins in 2000 or 2001.
Plame’s identity was outed by Ames and Cuba. The foreign intelligance knew all about her. Her job turned into a desktop kind of a job.
“As Andrea Mitchell stated, “everyone” knew that Plame was CIA. And there’s more. Victoria Toensing is the attorney who drafted the IIPA. She, too, testified before Waxman’s committee, and she had handy the Senate Report on the IIPA, that spelled out what the Act was intended to cover. Referring to page 16 of the Senate Report Toensing stated (under oath): “Notably, the legislation limited coverage of U.S. citizen informants or sources (agents) also to situations where they “reside and act outside the United States.” Toensing then quoted Joe Wilson’s (self) absorbing autobiography to show that Plame had returned to the US in 1997 and had never “resided and acted” overseas again. ”
IIPA provides limited prosecution, which does not cover Plame. She may qualify as “covert” but not under IIPA. “Covert” status doesn’t call for prosecution at all but those that qualified as covert status under IIPA calls for prosecution.
Fitz did not charge anyone for leaking Plame’s status under IIPA.
So what exactly is Fitz doing?
I agree with the bad news in the last paragraph (before the update).
“So, what’s the bad news? Well, the bad news is that some one is trying to pull the wool over your eyes. If this information is so readily available, count on it, Fitzgerald and the CIA lawyers all knew it, too. But they don’t want you to know that there are people out there–people with real power and influence who are sworn to do justice and uphold the law–who are willing to frame a political opponent and send him to jail. That’s really bad news. ”
Yup, Fitz is setting new precedences that will affect all of us.
And after the update:
“Intelligence services go to great lengths to establish plausible “covert” identities for especially sensitive operatives. Traveling in true name, an identity that can easily be traced and verified by a hostile or merely curious intelligence service, defeats the whole rationale behind a “covert” identity–by definition it is not covert. For a covert operative, as Plame supposedly was, to travel on official business in true name was to simply blow any pretense at maintaining a “covert” identity. If anything worse was the fact that she traveled under “official cover.” Are we really supposed to believe that foreign intelligence services fail to do something so basic as tracking the identities and careers of US Government employees, especially those who travel overseas? Plame’s lack of a plausible career history would quickly become apparent if subjected to even routine scrutiny.
No, the CIA’s contention that Plame was covert for the very specialized purposes of the IIPA (see Toensing’s words above) is a bad joke–but one they’re trying to use to frame Scooter Libby.”
Yup, they’re trying to frame Scooter Libby and Walton will play the game.
Rick Moran has a post up about Larry Johnson and it wasn’t nice. I do not agree with some of his comments about Cheney, Lewis, and their group. But other than than, he’s saying, “Don’t mess with Larry Johnson”.
Lurker –
All your tired talking points are out of date. Where do you get this ridiculous information. The CIA has now declassified the fact that Plame was a “covert agent” from Jan 1 2002 on – until outed.
When Toensing said Plame was not covert – Toensign was understandably not privy to the fact that Plame had been out of the country on 7 occasions after Jan 1, 2002. She was “acting” outside of the country – and thus protected.
Further, since she was a NOC agent – with Brewster Jennings as her front – when she traveled under her own name (which she did) OR under another name (which she did) she was covert.
Wilson outed Plame, Armitage outed Plame, Plame outed Plame, the CIA outed Plame, the NYT outed Plame, every one outed Plame.
It’s amazing to watch a Democrat scream for investigations into this, but turn a blind eye to intelligence leaks from House Democrats, and the partisan hacks in the intel community. One big game of got ya, it’s all more important then defending us. Jeez the bull shit never stops with the Democrats. Your spending so much time trying to make Republicans look bad that your party has become a joke. That’s all you Democrats run on, oh look at them look what they might have done. Throw up enough smoke and shit, get enough Republicans in show trials so that no one can investigate your cowardly, corrupt, closet commies party.
It doesn’t matter whether Plame was covert or not. What matters is what exactly IIPA covers., which is limited prosecution. Plame does not qualify under limited prosecution of IIPA. Sorry, talking points are NOT out of date.
Just because she was “acting†outside of the country doesn’t mean that she was protected.
Just because she used Brewster Jennings as her front – when she traveled under her own name (which she did) OR under another name (which she did) does not mean that she was covert 100% of the time. It doesn’t mean that she went overseas using Brewster Jennings as her front.
Sorry, I am not convinced that she was covert under the narrow, limited prosecution of IIPA.
Well, Patrick Fitzgerald is convinced she was “covert” . . . and your legal credentials, besides watching Law and Order, are . . .????
Fitz can be convinced but he did not push for any evidence during Libby’s trial and has no evidence showing that Plame was truly covert under the narrow, limited prosecution of IIPA. Plame may be “covert” in some of her work at certain times but not covert under the narrow, limited prosecution of IIPA.
The fact that Fitz chose to make Plame’s status irrelevant in his case against Libby, then he submitted something that indicates as a possibility that Plame was “covert” using Plame’s perjured testimony in front of Waxman, is setting new precedences against all of us and Libby is being framed and sentenced.
All evidence to date has not proved that Plame was covert under the conditions of IIPA. Sorry, I am still unconvinced that she was. I can accept the possibility that she was “covert” but I cannot accept that she was covert under the conditions of IIPA.
Read the statute:
Title 50 Chapter 15 Subchapter IV § 421 says:
and – as Fitzgerald pointed out in his sentencing filing: … it was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute (Title 50, United States Code, Section 421) as a covert agent …