- As U.S. attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald's two-year investigation
into the CIA leak case reportedly draws to a close, the long-standing debate
over the origins of the scandal, the merits of the federal investigation,
and the legal authority of the prosecutor has intensified greatly. At issue
is the disclosure to the press of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame,
which first appeared in syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak's July 14,
2003, column. Bush administration officials allegedly leaked her identity
in order to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV,
a vocal critic of the White House's decision to go to war with Iraq.
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- In this rhetorical environment characterized by limited
information and boundless speculation, those defending the officials at
the center of Fitzgerald's probe have advanced numerous falsehoods and
distortions. As Media Matters for America documents below, the media have
not only failed to challenge many of these claims, but also repeated them.
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- Falsehood: It is legally significant whether the leakers
disclosed Plame's name in their conversations with reporters
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- Shortly after Newsweek published an email by Time magazine
reporter Matthew Cooper to Time Washington bureau chief Mike Duffy saying
that, according to White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, "Wilson's
wife" worked at the CIA, Rove's lawyer responded by noting that his
client had not stated her actual name. Several news outlets went on to
report Rove's response as if his reported omission of Plame's name was
relevant to whether he violated the law. Simultaneously, commentators such
as former presidential adviser David Gergen and Washington Times chief
political correspondent Donald Lambro, as well as the Republican National
Committee (RNC), began to advance the argument that because Rove didn't
specifically name her, he did not reveal her identity.
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- But whether leakers identified Plame as "Valerie
Plame," "Valerie Wilson," or "Wilson's wife" is
irrelevant, both as a practical matter and likely as a legal matter. Practically
speaking, a quick Google search of Joseph Wilson at the time would have
produced Plame's actual name. As such, administration defenders have declared
that whether her name was mentioned to reporters likely has no bearing
on whether there was a violation of the law. Despite having previously
implied that there is a meaningful distinction between disclosing her name
and her identity before, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, later conceded
that drawing such a line was "too legalistic." Similarly, Victoria
Toensing, the Republican lawyer who helped draft the potentially applicable
1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA), agreed that the use
of her name is "not an important part of whether this is a crime or
not."
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- Nonetheless, numerous media figures recently revived
this claim in the wake of New York Times reporter Judith Miller's revelation
that the source who told her that Plame worked at the CIA, Vice President
Dick Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, also never
disclosed her actual name.
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- Falsehood: Wilson said that Cheney sent him to Niger
-
- An RNC talking points memo made public on July 12 accused
Wilson of falsely claiming "that it was Vice President Cheney who
sent him to Niger." The allegation that Wilson had lied about the
genesis of his trip was soon repeated by RNC chairman Ken Mehlman, who
argued that this fact justified the purported leaking of Plame's identity
to the press and that the White House had simply been attempting to set
the record straight.
-
- New York Times columnist David Brooks made this argument
at least twice (here and here). And a string of journalists and commentators
-- including CNN's Dana Bash, the Washington Post's Mike Allen, Newsweek's
Jon Meacham, and U.S. News and World Report's Michael Barone -- parroted
the allegation during news reports and media appearances in the following
weeks. NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell recently
repeated the claim as a guest on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews.
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- But Wilson never said that Cheney sent him to Niger.
To support this accusation, the RNC had misrepresented his July 6, 2003,
op-ed in the New York Times and distorted a remark he made in an August
3, 2003, interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer. Contrary to
their allegation, Wilson clearly stated in the op-ed that "agency
officials" had requested he travel to Niger. Further, in the CNN appearance,
he stated it was "absolutely true" that Cheney was unaware he
went on the trip.
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- Falsehood: Plame suggested Wilson for the trip to Niger
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- In their ongoing attempts to justify the alleged leaks,
Mehlman and other supporters claimed that the White House had a legitimate
interest in setting the record straight by disclosing that Plame, not Cheney,
was actually responsible for Wilson being sent to Niger. In a January 2005
Washington Post op-ed, attorneys Victoria Toensing -- a friend of Novak
-- and Bruce W. Sanford framed the leak in such a light and suggested that
Novak outed Plame because he wanted to "expose wrongdoing" --
i.e., the alleged nepotism that led to Wilson's assignment. Numerous reporters
subsequently repeated that Plame suggested Wilson for the trip, including
the Washington Post's Jim VandeHei, MSNBC host Chris Matthews, and, most
recently, MSNBC correspondent David Shuster.
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- But what these reporters stated as fact is actually in
dispute. Unnamed intelligence officials have been quoted in the media claiming
that the CIA -- not Plame -- selected Wilson for the mission. Also, CIA
officials have disputed the accuracy of a State Department intelligence
memo that reportedly indicates that Plame "suggested" Wilson's
name for the trip. Novak himself claimed that the Senate Intelligence Committee,
in its 2004 "Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence
Assessments on Iraq," concluded that Plame suggested the trip. In
fact, the committee did not officially conclude that she had been responsible
for Wilson's assignment.
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- Falsehood: Wilson was not qualified to investigate the
Niger claims
-
- In conjunction with the claim that nepotism led to the
selection of Wilson for the trip to Niger, several conservative media figures
have attempted to cast the former ambassador as unqualified to investigate
the claims that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake form the
African country. Toensing has repeatedly claimed that he lacked "any
experience in WMD" and "any kind of senior experience in that
country." National Review Washington editor Kate O'Beirne has described
Wilson as "no expert in weapons of mass destruction." But Wilson
possessed extensive diplomatic experience, had specialized in Africa during
most of his career, and had taken a similar trip to Niger in 1999 to investigate
possible purchases by Iran.
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- Falsehood: Plame's CIA employment was widely known
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- In an apparent effort to undermine the possibility that
the alleged White House leakers committed a crime, both the Washington
Times editorial page and right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh have argued
that Plame's identity was known by many in Washington, D.C., at the time
Novak published his column outing her as "an agency operative."
As support for this argument, the Times claimed that "numerous neighbors
were aware that she worked for the agency."
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- In fact, none of the neighbors cited in the Washington
Times' own news reports or in other reports said that they knew before
reading the Novak column that Plame worked at the CIA. Her acquaintances
told reporters that they believed she worked as a private "consultant."
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- Falsehood: Fitzgerald must prove that Plame's covert
status was leaked
-
- Recent reports from a number of news outlets have attributed
legal significance to whether Rove and Libby leaked Plame's covert status
to the press. But as with the issue of whether Plame's actual name was
leaked, whether the officials communicated her status as a covert operative
is likely not relevant to the question of whether their actions violated
federal law. According to news reports, a 2003 State Department memo --
which was likely read by top administration officials during a trip to
Africa -- designated as "S" for "secret" a section
mentioning Plame, even though it did not mention her covert status. Therefore,
the information allegedly disclosed by Rove and Libby -- that she worked
at the CIA -- was apparently classified.
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- Falsehood: Fitzgerald's investigation was originally
limited to possible violation of 1982 law
-
- Conservative commentators have reacted to reports that
Fitzgerald is looking at a variety of legal approaches to the CIA leak
investigation by characterizing him as a "runaway prosecutor"
or a Captain Ahab "chasing a white whale." The argument put forth
by Toensing, as well as columnists Richard Cohen and George F. Will is
that, in pursuing such charges, the special prosecutor is overstepping
his mandate. The claim underlying this argument is that the Department
of Justice (DOJ) originally granted him authority to investigate whether
the alleged leakers had violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection
Act (IIPA).
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- But the DOJ's delegation of Fitzgerald as special prosecutor
gave him broad authority to investigate the leaks; it made no mention of
the IIPA, nor did it name any other specific statute. The DOJ official
who appointed Fitzgerald as special prosecutor, then-deputy attorney general
James Comey, stated in a December 30, 2003, press conference that "Mr.
Fitzgerald alone will decide ... what prosecutive [sic] decisions to make"
and that "he can pursue it [the leak investigation] wherever he wants
to pursue it." In a February 6, 2004, letter to Fitzgerald, Comey
further clarified that his delegation included the "authority to investigate
and prosecute violations of any federal crime laws related to the underlying
alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in
the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such
as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation
of witnesses."
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- Despite the lack of evidence that the DOJ limited the
scope of Fitzgerald's investigation in any way, two recent New York Times
articles (here and here) reported that he was appointed to investigate
"whether government officials had violated a 1982 law that makes it
a crime in some circumstances to disclose the identity of an undercover
agent."
-
- Similar to this baseless claim is Weekly Standard editor
William Kristol's recent assertion that the CIA referred the case to the
DOJ specifically as a possible violation of the IIPA. But the initial news
reports on the referral indicate that the CIA more generally requested
that the DOJ "investigate allegations that the White House broke federal
laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees."
Moreover, a "former government official" quoted in Newsweek stated
that the CIA's referral never even mentioned the IIPA.
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- Falsehood: Leak investigation is the result of partisan
motivations
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- Conservative commentators have made what appear to be
preemptive accusations that Fitzgerald is a partisan. Numerous Fox News
personalities -- including Chris Wallace, Sean Hannity, Stuart Varney,
and Bill O'Reilly -- have stated that his probe represents the "criminalization
of politics." William Kristol penned a Weekly Standard editorial on
the topic titled "Criminalizing Conservatives." On the October
19 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto, nationally syndicated
radio host Mike Gallagher claimed that this investigation -- like the recent
indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) on money laundering
charges -- "is driven by partisan politics."
-
- But Fitzgerald is no Democratic partisan. In September
2001, President Bush appointed Fitzgerald to his current post as U.S. Attorney
for the Northern District of Illinois upon the recommendation of then-Sen.
Peter Fitzgerald (R-IL). When then-deputy attorney general James Comey
selected Fitzgerald as special prosecutor in December 2003, he cited his
"sterling reputation for integrity and impartiality" and described
him as "an absolutely apolitical career prosecutor." And in a
recent interview on NBC's Today, President Bush described the prosecutor's
investigation as "dignified." Moreover, in his capacity as U.S.
attorney, Fitzgerald is also currently conducting an "intense"
investigation of the Democratic mayor of Chicago, Richard M. Daley, and
his administration.
-
- Despite Fitzgerald's background, Limbaugh suggested on
the October 20 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show that if
the outcome of the CIA leak investigation is "over the top,"
he and other conservatives may target the prosecutor:
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- LIMBAUGH: [W]e're going to be watching ... very carefully
here to see what Fitzgerald does, the special prosecutor here. If he conducts
himself in a way that we find over the top, we'll say so. You can count
on it. Now, you liberals, you viciously attacked [former independent counsel]
Ken Starr. You went out there and tried to portray him as a sexual pervert,
a voyeur. You did everything you could to destroy Ken Starr's reputation
and his life, and now you demand that we accept whatever comes down the
pike that we must be consistent. Well, it depends on what it is. If it
stinks, I will say so. Pure and simple.
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- Falsehood: Leaks go on all the time in Washington
-
- In defense of the Bush administration officials alleged
to have disclosed Plame's CIA identity, numerous media figures have attempted
to downplay the alleged leak as par for the course in Washington. Washington
Post columnist Richard Cohen claimed that such leaking is "what Washington
does day in and day out" and that it "is rarely considered a
crime." On the October 20 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews,
Republican strategist Ed Rollins stated, "We know for sure that a
couple of very high-ranking White House guys talked to some reporters and
basically tried to go out and diminish someone who was criticizing them.
I mean, that goes on every single day in the White House."
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- But Cohen and Rollins glossed over the fact that this
leak allegedly involved the identity of a CIA operative -- potentially
a crime -- although Cohen subsequently issued a "clarification"
in which, responding to readers, he wrote that he does consider "the
outing of a covert employee a serious matter." Former President George
H.W. Bush expressed his view of such actions during an April 26, 1999,
speech at the dedication of the CIA's George Bush Center for Intelligence.
He stated: "I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray
the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the
most insidious of traitors."
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- Josh Kalven is a member of the Research Department at
Media Matters for America.
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- © 2005 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
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- View this story online at:
- http://www.alternet.org/story/27281/
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