Traitorgate: CIA Company exposed

posted by ewing2001 on Friday October 03, @04:55PM

Update: Conyers wants Rove to resign (10/07), Interview with Democracy Now (10/09)
Update: Bush Aides Will Screen Leak Material (10/07)
Update: Did Leaker call Chris Matthews (Hardball) ? (10/07)
Update: Rep. King (NY) wants to investigate Wilson (10/06)
Update: Ms. Plame was a 'NOC' (10/05)

Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA.

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... The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

C.I.A. Chief Is Caught in Middle by Leak Inquiry

"Nocs are the holiest of holies," said Kenneth M. Pollack, a former agency officer who is now director of research at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. "This is real James Bond stuff. You're going overseas posing as a businessman, and if the other government finds out about you, they're probably going to shoot you. The United States has basically no way to protect you."

Rep. King (NY) wants to investigate Wilson

According to Newsmax, "Peter King, R-N.Y., said Sunday that it's Wilson who needs to be investigated - and even prosecuted if he violated CIA secrecy."

The next day Wilson got a call from Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show “Hardball.” According to a source close to Wilson, Matthews said, “I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was fair game.” (Matthews told NEWSWEEK: “I’m not going to talk about off-the-record conversations.”)

Bush Aides Will Review Leak Notes/White House to screen leak material

MSNBC -October 7

WASHINGTON, Oct. 7 — White House lawyers will spend up to two weeks screening responses turned in by roughly 2,000 staff members asked what they know, if anything, about the unauthorized disclosure of an undercover CIA officer’s identity.

From White House Press Briefing:

Q Under what circumstances would information not go over there? Why don't you just send it all?

MR. McCLELLAN: If it's not responsive or relevant to the request from the Department of Justice -- one reason you wouldn't want to do that is because you don't want to overburden the Department of Justice with documents that have no relevance or are not responsive to their request. You want to make sure that they have the information they need to get to the bottom of this.

That's why we're assisting them. They're welcome to look at the other documents -- that's not an issue -- that are not responsive to their request. But what we want to do is not overburden them with large amounts of documents th at have no responsiveness to their request or no relevance to this investigation.

Buzzflash (Mirror)

October 7, 2003

Dear Mr. Rove:

I write to ask you to resign from the White House staff. Recent press reports have indicated that, while you may or may not have been the source of the Robert Novak column which revealed the status and name of a covert operative, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, you were involved in a subsequent effort to push this classified information to other reporters and give it even wider currency. This itself may be a federal crime, but regardless of that fact, your actions are morally indefensible.

Interview with

Democracy Now -October 9

"...According to the London newspaper, The Guardian, on October 1, several journalists have confirmed off the record that Mr. Rove is the source these leaks. We know from the Washington Post that fully, six journalists were called with the initial leak.

Now, the above information is all publicly available. I do not possess a team of investigators. All one needs to do is gather -- to gather this information is read The New York Times, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Time Magazine...

AMY GOODMAN: Right now, we have a situation at the White House where the deadline was set for the white house to turn over any information, any relevant information to the Justice Department 5:00 PM Tuesday, yet that was not done.

What do you say about that?

JOHN CONYERS: Well, I -- I don't know where they're going to get it from the clerks and receptionists, and secretaries in the White House.

The people that were doing this are right there near and around the oval office. Karl Rove is not a guy that you have to wait for him to send in a document by Tuesday at 5:00 or something like that. This is the political director for the President of the United States of America. And so we have now over and above the criminal aspects of this, which could burn anybody found guilty under United States code 18, section 793 of either promoting this or instigating this misinformation and revelation of the identity of a covert central intelligence agency operative. You can get up to ten years in a federal prison not of your choice. So --

AMY GOODMAN: So, Congressman Conyers, can you tell us what exactly you're calling for?

JOHN CONYERS: Well, I’m calling for first -- first for Rove to step down because regardless of the criminal character of this, the whole thing is obscene, and it seems to be clearly going back to him because some of the reporters said so.

Now, number two, we are calling for an independent council. Which is precisely what the independent council was -- independent council was created by law, we have had this for a number of years.

It's created when the White House or someone in it is under investigation, they will -- they will not have the investigation compromised by the person that the President named to be Attorney General conducting, in effect, the investigation.

Here that's pretty patent, but in addition to it, there's 746,000 reasons why there should be a -- an independent counsel here -- because that's the amount of dollars that John Ashcroft paid Karl Rove as a political consultant in the course of three campaigns.

AMY GOODMAN: How often do you call for the resignation of an administration official, Congressman Conyers?

JOHN CONYERS: I can't remember ever having done it. I have called for some impeachments in the course of my career, but not resignations.

AMY GOODMAN: Has the White House responded?

JOHN CONYERS: No.

AMY GOODMAN: Have other congress members or senators backed your call?

JOHN CONYERS: Yes. Iím running into people now that are meeting me and getting ready to do their own thing. I didn't consult with my colleagues when I did this.

AMY GOODMAN: Why at this point did you decide to do it?

JOHN CONYERS: Because I just got enough material together. I mean, look, this wasn't the toughest research I have ever pulled. Reading Newsweek and Time magazine or even one of them should get you -- should alert somebody without having to be a congressman or a lawyer or a member of the Judiciary Committee.

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