22 responses to “Plame’s Identity Marked As Secret”

1. 

   scrapiron

   July 21, 2005 at 7:45 am

   I wonder if the former CIA agents that came out in support of Plame were part of the group (no way plame was acting alone) that developed a plan (that sent Wilson to Africa) to undercut the Presidents foreign policy instead of doing their job and supporting the Presidents policies. Want to bet they won’t be the subject of a Justice Department investigation to determine if they used their CIA positions to undercut the U.S. position and aid the enemy.
2. 

   SoloD

   July 21, 2005 at 7:47 am

   But the fact that her named was marked secret is significant, no? At least in the minds of the CIA and the State Dep’t her identity was not to be blown. Whatever the legal standard (and there are a lot of opinions out there about that) it does raise the heat ethically on whether her name should have been exposed.
3. 

   mike

   July 21, 2005 at 7:48 am

   This whole Rove “scandal” is the best thing that would happen to Bush b/c now no one is talking about Iraq. Now the press can move onto the SC nominee.
4. 

   Jim Jones

   July 21, 2005 at 9:03 am

   The Rove “scandal” is just a stepping stone to the big scandal: the selling of the Iraq war.
5. 

   James Joyner

   July 21, 2005 at 9:17 am

   SoloD:

   Perhaps. We don’t know whether Rove saw the memo. He claims that he first heard the info from Novak.

   The “crime” being investigation is violation of USC Title 50 Section 421 (Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources).

   Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

   […]

   The term “covert agent” means—

   (A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—

   (i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and

   (ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or

   (B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—

   (i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or

   (ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or

   It’s not clear Plame was “covert” under the language of the law or whether Rove got the info via classified means.
6. 

   Bindare2

   July 21, 2005 at 9:29 am

   Am I missing something? Why can’t the CIA, between their Legal Department and their Human Resources Department, tell us what they considered Valerie Plumes’ status to have been. Was she in their eyes considered a covert agent under the law or not. Are they prevented by law from just clearing up this contraversey or does it serve some other purpose of theirs to embarass the administration.
7. 

   SoloD

   July 21, 2005 at 9:37 am

   On the legal front, there are three steps in determining the Plame status. First, the CIA’s referral to the Justice Department; second, the grand jury determination; finally, a trial judge/jury verdict. We are only between steps one and two right now. And frankly we just don’t have enough information to know what the grand jury knows.

   But on the political/ethical front (and should those two ever be put together?) the news that the Plame’s identity was marked secret certainly makes the WH look worse in peddling the rumor that she was the only reason that Wilson was sent to Niger.
8. 

   htom

   July 21, 2005 at 9:58 am

   (S) IIRC, this paragraph is secret and (S) name1 is classified secret while name2 is not (although name2’s association with the contents of this paragraph are.)

   Now was her name classified, or not?
9. 

   Jim Henley

   July 21, 2005 at 11:24 am

   It’s rather odd for the fact that someone who works at CIA headquarters under their own name to be classified.

   James, this is simply not correct. It’s not odd at all. Clandestine Services employees rotate through Langley all the time. It’s not remotely “odd” for a clandestine employee to do a tour at headquarters in between overseas assignments.

   Also, thanks for posting the statute. I note that most apologists gloss this section

   (ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States;

   as saying “stationed” rather than “served.” It seems likely that the actual language would mean Plame was covered if she took any working trips abroad in the five years prior to July 2003, so long as she represented herself, on Agency direction, as other than an Agency employee.

   I’ll bet she did, and that’s why the Agency made the criminal referral, and why Fitzgerald’s grand jury has continued to pursue the case, with unstinting support from the Judge’s he’s had to get subpoena and detention approvals from.

   (Fun fact: Agency employees who are overt MUST tell the truth about their place of employ, by policy. That way they don’t ruin things for the real covert employees.)
10. 

    James Joyner

    July 21, 2005 at 11:42 am

    Jim,

    That sounds about right. My understanding, though, is that Plame/Wilson has been serving at Langley continuously since 1997 and that the NOC role pretty much ended when she married Joe Wilson, which made it hard for her to fly under the radar.

    My guess at this point is still that Rove heard that she was CIA from Novak or other than from seeing it on a classified doc and that he did not knowingly “out” a covert agent and would not have done such a thing. Even if one attributes such low ethics to him as to risk a covert op’s life for political expediency–which I don’t–it’s hard to fathom his doing it for the rather trivial purpose of pointing out that Joe Wilson’s Niger trip was set up by his wife.
11. 

    Jim Henley

    July 21, 2005 at 12:12 pm

    James, re your first paragraph, the law doesn’t just cover NOCs. It applies to officers with official cover too. Most of the narratives I’ve seen show Plame as transitioning from non-official cover to official cover, but not, as of June 2003, to overt status. Plame was officially, IIRC, a State Department employee from 1997-2003. That’s covert status.

    (In the old days, “The Department of the Army” was the employer of record for a lot of the Agency’s Washington-area employees on the clandestine side. If you saw, say, a wedding announcement in the Post for someone in The Department of the Army, there was a good chance you were looking at a CIA officer.)
12. 

    Rick Moran

    July 21, 2005 at 1:09 pm

    But the fact that her named was marked secret is significant, no?

    NO! In fact, Pincus says in his piece that Wilson’s name was not marked secret; that the paragraph that contained her name was marked “secret.”

    In talking about Wilson’s trip to Niger (which was secret until Wilson revealed it) the memo was dealing with sensitive material. There simply is no context in the Pincus piece so its impossible to say why her name was in the memo in the first place.
13. 

    James Joyner

    July 21, 2005 at 1:55 pm

    From an October 2003 WaPo piece:

    For the past several years, she has served as an operations officer working as a weapons proliferation analyst. She told neighbors, friends and even some of her CIA colleagues that she was an “energy consultant.” She lived behind a facade even after she returned from abroad. It included a Boston front company named Brewster-Jennings & Associates, which she listed as her employer on a 1999 form in Federal Election Commission records for her $1,000 contribution to Al Gore’s presidential primary campaign.

    So she was clearly still playing the covert role. How thin the disguise was is, of course, another matter.
14. 

    McGehee

    July 21, 2005 at 1:57 pm

    (In the old days, “The Department of the Army” was the employer of record for a lot of the Agency’s Washington-area employees on the clandestine side. If you saw, say, a wedding announcement in the Post for someone in The Department of the Army, there was a good chance you were looking at a CIA officer.)

    Boy, that sounds like serious deep cover there. It seems to me if your average Beltway cocktail-party attendee can figure out something like that, it’s kind of silly to think professional agents of other countries can’t figure it out.

    But of course, this is Karl Rove we’re talking about — and that makes all the difference.

    Jeez.
15. 

    Anderson

    July 21, 2005 at 2:30 pm

    Even if one attributes such low ethics to him as to risk a covert op’s life for political expediency—which I don’t—it’s hard to fathom his doing it for the rather trivial purpose of pointing out that Joe Wilson’s Niger trip was set up by his wife.

    Hard to fathom, unless you’re familiar with Rove’s utter lack of principle.

    The theory I always found plausible is that outing Plame was a twofer: one, it was meant to cast doubt on Wilson, & two, it punished him by hurting his wife’s career. To amoral politicos like Rove (not a word I use lightly; Cheney, for ex., has morals of a kind), it’s perfectly logical. Politics is the first & last test of values. N.b. the LAT story on Rove’s going ballistic on Wilson; challenged by some WH folk, his rationale was “he’s a Democrat.”
16. 

    Donald Sensing

    July 21, 2005 at 3:48 pm

    When I was on active duty, I personally wrote documents that, when written, were classied Top Secret and subsequently completely declassified, once in only 24 hours.

    But the original, marked copy was never released; the information was reproduced on clean sheet and that was released. It’s not surprising that you’ve found public-domain info still archived on copies marked secret or TS or whatever.
17. 

    capt joe

    July 21, 2005 at 5:55 pm

    NOC Identities and such are normally code word protected for purposes of compartmentalization. Most code word stuff sits above TS. I have rarely seen anything at the secret level. That is why it seems more likely that her status was reduced if secret is the only classification to be applied
18. 

    Brett

    July 21, 2005 at 11:41 pm

    I don’t see why you have such faith in Rove, James. We’re talking about the most powerful advisor of the most powerful politician in the world, in his most powerful role as commander-in-chief. It doesn’t strike me as hard to believe that this situation might have gone to his head.

    And even if your assumption is that Rove is basically a decent guy – hard to imagine from someone who is willing to start a whisper campaign that an opponent was a pedophile, actually – even if that’s your assumption, he has still been very careless with sensitive information, and people have gone to jail for less, apparently. Plus, the “I heard it from Novak” story may get blown out of the water soon enough.
19. 

    Bill Bacon

    July 22, 2005 at 8:32 am

    Anderson, having Plame’s cover blown couldn’t have hurt her career any more than marrying Wilson had already done. I would imagine its virtually impossible to maintain NOC as the wife of a senior Foreign Service officer – and impossible to do so as the wife of a politically-appointed Ambassador, which was Wilson’s next government position/stepping stone.