Novak: Plame's CIA status was "well known around Washington"
There is only one primary question for investigators: was Plame's identity protected?

Rick Ballard emailed me the link to Robert Novak's column today in TownHall.com,

First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret. ...

It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

Novak does say that just what Plame's duties at Langley involved is "a big question," and that he regrets using the word, "operative" to describe her, "a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years." But there are conflicting reports from within the CIA as to just what her status is.

In his own piece, Cliff May writes that when he read in Novak's July 14 column of Plame's CIA status,

That wasn't news to me. I had been told that - but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhanded manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.

So ISTM that the first question (and until it is answered, the only question) to be addressed by the just-begun DOJ investigation is simple: Did Valerie Plame's CIA employment status fall under the provision of US Code: Title 50: Section 421, "Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources"? The kind of intelligence-related employment or affiliation protected by the code is that of "covert agent," not "operative" or "employee."

In order for Plame's identification in Novak's column to be considered violating the law, all the following elements of proof must be met:

1. The person who told Novak (or anyone else) had to have had access to classified information that identified Plame as covert. Even if the information is accurate, if the "leaker" did not learn it from classified sources, there is no violation of the law.

2. The disclosure of Plame's covert status must have been intentional; this would seem easy to ascertain.

3. The person receiving the information, i.e., Novak, was not authorized to receive classified information; again, this would seem easy to prove.

4. The discloser must have known that the information identified Plame as covert.

5. The discloser must have known that the United States was taking positive actions to conceal Plame's covert intelligence relationship to the US government.

Note well: all five of these things had to have happened in order for the law to have been violated. IMO, that will be very difficult to prove; in fact, the CIA itself seems to have shown that #5 was not being done. Novak writes,

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me ... asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered.

If the CIA was taking affirmative actions to conceal Plame's intelligence status, that's a pretty weak way of heading off a reporter's question, but no doubt that the official whom Novak interviewed will be extensively questioned by investigators.

I should advise my readers here that as the chief of media relations for XVIII Airborne Corps and five years as a public affairs officer at the Pentagon and as chief of public affairs for US Army CID Command, I have an awful lot of experience in speaking to reporters about topics that had classified content. I don't know what the CIA's public-affairs policy is, but I can't imagine it would be less restrictive than the US Army's. Our policy was quite simple: classified information was not discussed, period.

When a reporter asked me a question concerning unclassified information, I would answer it and correct factual errors in his information if there were any. But if the conversation showed that he had somehow learned classified information, I didn't try to head him off because that would simply confirm to him and to his readers the accuracy of the information. For example:

Q: Would you confirm that the M109A3 howitzer is capable of firing atomic warheads?
A: Yes, it is a nuclear-capable system. [unclassified fact]
Q: And I understand that the minimum safe distance for its 155mm atomic warhead is 800 meters.
A: We do not discuss the technical data regarding atomic weapons. [the MSD was classified]
Q: Is it true that the 155mm warhead is being withdrawn from inventory because of its age?
A: I do not have any information to give you about that.
Q: You're stonewalling me.
A: No, it's just that there are certain categories of information that we don't discuss.
Q: I have been informed of these facts by other sources, you know.
A: Whether you trust those sources is up to you. I still won't discuss that information.
Q: I can put in a Freedom of Information Act request, you know.
A: Okay. If you do not have the mailing address of the FOIA office, I will be glad to give it to you.

My point is that any PAO whose activity handles classified information is trained in how to deal with reporter's inquiries that bump against it, and should be training other officials in doing so as well. I simply do not consider it credible that a PAO or some other official that Novak talked to would have been so cavalier with Plame's status if it actually was protected as defined by law.

My prediction: Plame's status will be shown not be have been protected by the law, but someone will be fired anyway, just because the Washington culture of punishment of the innocent demands it.

Update: Begging to Differ writes that the evidence in the public record (such as it is) confirms that Plame's status was indeed protected by the code, and that a criminal violation of the law probably did occur.

by Donald Sensing, 10/1/2003 08:11:46 AM. Permalink |