CIA Asks for Criminal Probe of White House Treason

[Chris Alger]

I guess they thought the having Tenet fall on his sword about the Niger thing was a freebie. Apparently not.

Of course not really "treason," the only federal crime defined by the Constitution. I mean "treason" the way the war traitors tend to use it, a synonym variously for sedition, dissent, espionage, national betrayal, subversion of the official line, etc. In this case, it means violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 by making public the identify of an undercover CIA operative for pure political spite. She is the wife of for diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, who embarrassed the White House by revealing the Niger uranium hoax. Wilson is retired, so certain administration officials allegedly decided to wreck his wife's career and upset her personal life by outing her to the press.

Her ongoing assignment? Posing as an energy analyst in order to track down WMD proliferators. So the White House allegedly wrecked her attempts to truly prevent what the White House implausibly claims was its goal by prosecuting Bush's "brain fart" (Gen. Anthony Zinni) of a war against Iraq. The White House denies the story, which means that it is calling one of its most prominent press supporters a liar.

My introduction to the story came with David Corn's editorial, A White House Smear, in The Nation.

Here's an excerpt:

"Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad. the payback came. [Conservative jounalist Robt.] Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: '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 Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate' the allegation. ...

That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.

The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be 'two senior administration officials.' If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as 'nonofficial cover' and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. If Wilson's wife is such a person--and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her--her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration. (Assuming she did not tell friends and family about her real job, these Bush officials have also damaged her personal life.) Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, 'Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.' If she is not a CIA employee and Novak is reporting accurately, then the White House has wrongly branded a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm as a CIA officer. That would not likely do her much good.

This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison."

According to MSNBC today, "The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush’s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned." Full story here.

Imagine how the right would react if Ted Kennedy had done it.

OTOH, war between these guys usually means blocking an appointment or a recommendation letter for someone's kid. It might be that the CIA is just going through the motions of enforcing a law it has to enforce, that the Justice Dept. will conduct a meek inquiry, and the matter will drop. After all, the CIA did have the decency to slip it in on Friday, making it old news by the time most people tune in. One can't expect much from Ashcroft's Justice Dept., to say nothing of the usual gang of reactionary fellow travelers.