Note: I changed the title of this post from a declarative statement to a question – because I am just not sure!

What is it with Joe Wilson outing his wife? We have the breaking news that he was telling anyone and everyone at FoxNews about his CIA wife (which is why John Gibson made the same comments one night last week). We kniow he told the Kerry campaign and we know he wrote this big Op-Ed article that put everyone on the planet onto his wife’s trail. One thing I had paid much attention to was the outing of Brewster & Jennings – Valerie’s cover company.

Here is the record of the campaign contribution tothe Gore campaign. What caught my eye was the value of contributions. Joe and Val are gratefully listed side by side for this 1999 period (well before the prime election period and before Gore was formally selected as the nominee). Joe and Val both are down for $1000. But Joe was down for $2000 for “Amount of Each Receipt This Year” followed by “Reattribution Below”. The initial payment was on 3/26/99. Valerie’s donation was on 4/22/99 and is identified as a “Reattribution”.

This probably means Joe came back later and allocated half his initial campaign donation to his wife – and he is probably the one that listed Brewster and Jennings has her place of work. So it was Joe who exposed his wife’s cover – not Novak or anyone else! Is this guy a clutz or what?

Though not on subject entirely, I like to see what ex-CIA or Intel folks think of this mess – and Ed Morrissey as a post from Vox Taciturn worth reading.

UPDATE:

This article in the Boston Globe describes what a poor CIA cover Brewsyer and Jennings was

Former intelligence officials confirmed Plame’s cover was an invention and that she used other false identities and affiliations when working overseas. “All it was was a telephone and a post office box,” said one former intelligence official who asked not to be identified. “When she was abroad she had a more viable cover.”

That’s a good thing, considering how little work seems to have gone in to establishing the company’s presence in Boston, intelligence observers said. While the renovated building houses legal and investment firms, current and former building managers said they’ve never heard of Brewster Jennings. Nor did the firm file the state and local records expected of most businesses.

Both factors would have aroused the suspicions of anyone who tried to check up on Brewster Jennings, said David Armstrong, an Andover researcher for the Public Education Center, a liberal Washington think tank.

At the least, a dummy company ought to create the appearance of activity, with an office and a valid mailing address, he said. “A cover that falls apart on first inspection isn’t very good. What you want is a cover that actually holds up . . . and this one certainly doesn’t.”

Well, if it walks, talks and smell like something else – it must be. I suspect this was not a real CIA cover operation. Just like Wilson’s Niger trips were not real CIA investigations, but simply some shadow activity running under a real activity. The question is, how much visibility did CIA upper levels have into this?

UPDATE II:

Why was Novak so convinced Brewster Jennings did not exist? His sources with the CIA have been spot on through all of this!

“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.”

Or so he was told. But then we have this belated confirmation from administration sources:

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.

Interesting. The firm only seems to have existed in 1999…

What a magical year that was.