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Monday, September 29, 2003


Novak: "'Nobody in the Bush administration" asked him to ID Plame
The top story on Drudge right now is that journalist Robert Novak has said today that no one in the Bush administration asked him to finger former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative.

'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives'...
Note that Novak today identified Plame as an "employee," not an operative. It is prima facie a violation of federal law to reveal the names of CIA operatives, meaning CIA employees who conduct covert duties in foreign countries. But there is no law against naming someone as a non-covert employee. An "analyst" is not an operative.

by Donald Sensing, 9/29/2003 05:54:14 PM. Permalink |  





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