Was She Covert?

Sorry to again beat what some of you may believe is a dead horse, but a reporter from a major news organization told me today that they are still arguing in his/her newsroom about whether Valerie Plame was covert. The journalist who told me this is a talented, smart person but is still confused about the terms "covert", "cover", and "non-official cover". So here's my gift to confused journalists.

Scooter Libby is not on trial for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. He faces a jury because he lied about his role in giving out Valerie's name and obstructed the investigation into the leak. Can you leak the name of an overt employee? No because the person's relationship with the CIA is not protected.

The relevant section of the law relevant to the Libby investigation states:



So what is a "covert agent"? Here's what the Intelligence Identities Protection Act states:



There are two types of people who work at CIA. First are the "overt" employees. These are folks who can declare on their resume or any credit application that they are a CIA employee. Their status is not classified and their relationship with the CIA is openly acknowledged. Valerie Plame was never an "overt" employee. At no time during her entire time at the CIA did she identify herself as a CIA employee. Although she appeared in Who's Who as the wife of Ambassador Wilson there is no reference whatsoever to her having a job at the CIA. Zippo!

The remaining category of employee is covert. Covert employees include people who work under "official cover" and people who work under "non-official cover". A former CIA officer, Tom Gilligan, discussed both types of cover in his book CIA Life: 10,000 Days With the Agency. Official cover means the employee can say that he or she works for the United States Government, e.g. State Department, but at no time do you admit publicly that you work for the CIA. You get the added benefit of carrying an official or diplomatic passport. If you get caught overseas engaged in intelligence activity it means you have diplomatic immunity and the equivalent of a get out of jail free card.

Non official cover or NOC also is covert but is more sensitive (and dangerous). A NOC does not work for the U.S. Government. A NOC does not have an official or diplomatic passport. A NOC works for a business or organization with no tie to the U.S. Government. If you are caught overseas while conducting espionage activities as a NOC you are screwed. You do not get a jail out of free card. You remain in jail or may be executed.

Now I will write this in big block letters: VALERIE PLAME WAS STILL UNDER NON OFFICIAL COVER WHEN NOVAK PUBLISHED HER NAME. Valerie and I started our career together and both of us were given official cover. But Valerie later took the additional and more dangerous risk of going under Non Official Cover. She became a NOC and, thanks to the Corn/Isikoff book Hubris, we now know she was helping hunt down Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

Right wing hacks like Victoria Toensing, Cliff May and Byron York not only deny Valerie was covert but also insist that Valerie was not covered by the IIPA because she had not lived overseas in the five years preceding the July 2003 Robert Novak article. But that is not the law. The law states, "serving outside the United States". Although she was based in Washington, DC, Valerie traveled overseas and conducted espionage activities. She served outside the United States during the period 1998-2002 and was a covered person under the IIPA.

If Valerie had been an overt employee or a covert employee who had been sitting quietly at a desk, never venturing overseas, the CIA would not have sent the Department of Justice a letter on 30 July 2003 stating:



The CIA knew that Valerie was a covert agent. But they did not know if the Novak leak was an intentional disclosure. That was for the FBI to determine.

Here is the irony? If Valerie had been an overt employee or a covert employee not covered by IIPA then Scooter Libby would not have had to lie to FBI agents because there would not have been an investigation. But Valerie was a covert agent. Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, and Richard Armitage, among others, put her name in circulation with members of the press. They harmed a covert agent and in the process did serious damage to our nation's security. This may not be relevant to the charges Scooter faces, but it is relevant to our nation's security. We now know that the Bush White House was as cavalier with the identity of a CIA officer as they have been of late with the medical care for wounded Iraqi war vets at Walter Reed. And in both cases people have probably died because of their carelessness.

Not a dead horse, Noonan. It never hurts to clarify and this should be getting much more press than it has been !


I am wondering how the deliberations are going.

Check out the latest Libby summary at PoliticsTV.com - that's exactly what they are talking about, as well as what happens next. I won't even begin to wonder what that thread is like here, but they have some insightful comments on the Libby vlog today.

If you ignore the Washington DC cocktail party circuit no one else knew Valerie Plame was covertly working for the CIA

You know what would have been great marine?

If the damage caused by the outing had killed 100s of soldiers because of the outing.

You would have been hollering then marinne, wouldn't you???

that would have been funny to see

I am still laughing at that thought
(not great that soldiers died, great in the ironic irony of it all)

Why do you do this Marine? You do this too often and it really damages your credibility.

This is a Republican hack talking point shoved off as fact by Faux Noise. It has been debunked more times that anyone can count. No one knew where she worked or what she did before Novack's op/ed piece, as was brought out in sworn testimony in the Libby indictment.

Well, almost no one: Cheney and Libby knew.

Nothing funnier than ironic irony...

Well Winston I thinks it's sort of ingenious to claim she was a covert agent when all the people in the DC party circuit knew she worked for the CIA. I also wonder why her hubby didn't get charged with lying to the FBI when he claimed his wife didn't arrange his trip to Africa. Fitzgerald even gave up on the idea Valerie Plame was covert. You know something Winston? If the CIA is so sloppy gathering intelligence as they were keeping Valerie Plame's identity as a covert agent I sort a understand why the intelligence was so screwed up about Iraq.

You won't find anyone in the community questioning that she was covert, but what do they know, they're only pros.

Sorta OT- but I was under the impression that the intelligence got cherry picked.
Regardless, it is NOT okay to out an agent, covert or not.

Fitz did not give up, he was stymied due to a COVER-UP like happened in Watergate.
Rove lied and millions died.
Armatrage lied and millions died.
the only one who says they should talk is Ari Fleishman...how come he says that?
He has immunity.


from your quote below

George W. Bush is just thhis person- a yellow belly coward TRAITOR


A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague.”–Marcus Tullius Cicero - 106-43 B.C.

Valerie Plame’s opening statement: “I was a covert officer.” So says Gen. Hayden


Waxman's hearing started today and Valerie took the stand. She explained her role in the CIA and what it means to be covert and says her cover was blown. Plame described the moment when she realized she was outed. Taylor Marsh: "Today, Valerie Plame Wilson spoke in public before Rep. Waxman's committee, describing the day her husband came in and dropped the newspaper on the bed and said: "He did it." There's much more in the clip….

Update: As Christy says…"Apparently, Victoria Toensing still wants to argue what the meaning of "covert" is. But according to Gen Hayden, current head of the CIA, Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA agent at the time that her name was published by Robert Novak."

TP transcripts


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CIA Director Hayden: ‘Wilson Was Covert’

During House hearings today, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) announced that CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden recently told Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) that there was no doubt Victoria Plame Wilson was covert. Cummings — relaying what Waxman had told him — said that Gen. Hayden expressed clearly and directly, “Ms. Wilson was covert.”

Cummings also asked Wilson to respond to the specific claim, made by Victoria Toensing and others, that Plame had lost her covert status because she “had not been stationed abroad within five years.” Cummings asked, “During the past five years, Ms. Plame, from today, did you conduct secret missions overseas?” She answered, “Yes I did, congressman.”

Transcript:

CUMMINGS: Ms. Wilson, first of all, thank you for your service. Ms. Wilson, even today your work for the CIA is so highly classified that we’re not permitted to discuss the details, but we can clarify one crucial point — whether you worked undercover for the CIA. You said your position was covert but I’ve heard others say you were not covert. In fact, one of the witnesses who will testify a little bit later, Victoria Toensing, is making that same argument. In an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post on February 18, she says it quite bluntly. She says, “Plame was not covert. She worked at CIA headquarters and had not been stationed abroad within five years.” I know there are restrictions on what you can say today, but is Ms. Toensing’s statement correct?

WILSON: Congressman, thank you for the opportunity. I know I’m here under oath, and I am here to say I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. Just like a general is a general whether he is in the field in Iraq or Afghanistan, when he comes back to the Pentagon, he is still a general. In the same way, covert operations officers who are serving in the field, when they rotate back to a temporary assignment in Washington, they, too, are still covert.

CUMMINGS: Is it possible that Ms. Toensing had more information than you do about your work or had access to secret document that you don’t?

WILSON: I would find that highly unlikely, congressman, because much of that information about my career is still classified.

CUMMINGS: On Wednesday night, I know that Mr. Waxman, our chair, and Congressman Reyes, the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, spoke personally with General Hayden, the head of the CIA. And Mr. Waxman told me that Gen. Hayden said clearly and directly, “Ms. Wilson was covert.” There was no doubt about it. By the way, the CIA has authorized us to be able to say that. In addition, I understand that Chairman Waxman sent his opening statement over to the CIA to be cleared and to make sure that it was accurate. In it, he said, “Ms. Wilson was a covert employee of the CIA.” “Ms. Wilson was undercover.” The CIA cleared these statements. I emphasize all of this because I know that there are people who are still trying to suggest that what seems absolutely clear isn’t really true and that you weren’t covert. And I think one of the things we need to do in this hearing is make sure there isn’t any ambiguity on this point. Just three more questions, did you hold this covert status at the time of the leak? Did you — the covert status at the time of the leak?

WILSON: Yes I did, congressman. Yes.

CUMMINGS: Number two, the Identities Protection Act refers to travel outside the United States within the last five years. Let me ask you this question. Again, we don’t want classified information, dates, locations, or any other details. During the past five years, Ms. Plame, from today, did you conduct secret missions overseas?

WILSON: Yes I did, congressman.

CUMMINGS: Finally, so as to be clear for the record, you were a covert CIA employee and within the past five years from today, you went on secret missions outside the United States. Is that correct?

WILSON: That is correct, congressman.

CUMMINGS: I want to thank you and I hope this committee now has cleared up the issue of covert, whether Ms. Plame was a covert agent, and I yield back.
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None are so blind as those who will not see.

Next time you're in town for one of those let me know. I don't attend those, and I am surprised that you do.

On this topic I can share that analysts are indeed covert. They are exposed to extremely sensitive information.........like weaponry from an unfriendly country. Who they are and their knowledge puts them, their families and other agents at risk. What I can share is that when you wake up in the morning and we're still here.......thank a very liberal Democrat who is making sure we can. I can say no more.