The Next Hurrah: The CIA pushes back

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July 27, 2005

The CIA pushes back

by emptywheel

Last week, we were treated to a number of articles sourced to former senior State department officials clarifying some of the facts in the Plame case, particularly as regards to the INR memo. Those articles undermine some of the anonymously (read, Luskin) sourced articles pinning Colin Powell with the memo on AF1.

Today, we're treated to a similar pushback article, this time from the CIA.

This is similar to a number of grand narrative articles the WaPo has published recently. It offers little that is entirely new information. One detail that is technically new, for example, is an expanded list of who has been interviewed.

Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.

While these names have never been published before, they should not come as a surprise to anyone who has followed this closely. It was rumored when Tenet quit, for example, that he did so so he could begin to testify fully to the Grand Jury. And several news reports have told stories about investigators spending a lot of time at the CIA. If they were at the CIA, then it's safe to assume they were interviewing people at the CIA.

And Wilson's friend? Well, Wilson's friend is the witness who can prove that Novak knew Plame's identity as early as July 8. And pinpointing when Novak knew of Plame's identity is a key step to learning who told him. Fitzgerald would have been remiss if, with all the publicity surrounding this detail of Wilson's story, he hadn't interviewed the friend.

(On a side note. Consider this person's probable profile. It must be a person who is easily recognizable, or I doubt Novak would have willingly walked several blocks with the person. And it's a person from whom questions about Niger and Wilson would not strike Novak as suspicious, or Novak wouldn't have blurted out the news so readily, even with his big mouth. I'm guessing it's either a moderately prominent Republican, a nationally-recognizable journalist, or someone at State. But it's almost certainly not Wilson's anonymous housekeeper.)

Two more newsworthy bits of information concern what Tenet (or some other former senior CIA people) and Harlow testified. First, there's the news that CIA wrote Tenet's mea culpa, with very little input from the White House.

On July 9, Tenet and top aides began to draft a statement over two days that ultimately said it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have permitted the 16 words about uranium to remain in Bush's speech. He said the information "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed."

A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to get White House input. Only a few minor changes were accepted before it was released on July 11, this former official said. He took issue with a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in Tenet's statement.

As this "former official" makes clear, this is a refutation of Libby's and Rove's earlier leak claiming they were involved in the drafting of Tenet's speech (and with it, presumably, the idea that he was just cooperating on policy/politics split).

Back at the White House, Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby had been at work all week, along with Ms. Rice's deputy, Stephen Hadley, helping to craft a statement that was issued on Friday by George Tenet, the C.I.A. director. Mr. Tenet did precisely what the White House needed: he took responsibility for the inclusion of the 16 words on uranium in the president's speech, and he made clear that Mr. Cheney had neither dispatched Mr. Wilson to Niger nor been briefed on what he found there.

Now so far, this CIA pushback just seems to be refuting the information that has been floated in the recent spin war. No, these CIA sources make clear, Rove and Hadley weren't being helpful speechwriters for Tenet.

But the article also refutes some more fundamental claims the White House--and everyone else spewing the GOP talking points--have been advancing for the last two years. Harlow makes clear something Wilson has asserted in numerous places, particularly his response to the GOP findings against him in the SSCI report. Harlow told Novak that Plame was not responsible for Wilson's trip and he did what he could--without revealing classified information--to discourage Novak from revealing Plame's identity.

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. [emphasis mine]

This demolishes the common wingnut claim that Plame was not covert and that the CIA was not taking assertive efforts to hide her identity.

This article, as I suggested, reveals a lot of things which should have been clear to anyone following this case. So why was it released today?

Well, it might be that the CIA sources for this story are not so much worried about what wingnuts say on their talk radio. They know that Fitzgerald has seen enough evidence to believe the IIPA may have been violated. All the wingnuts on all the radio shows in the world can't refute that evidence.

But what about Senator Roberts? This article, after all, responds closely on the heels not only of Rove and Libby's helpful speechwriter spin, but even more closely on the heels of Roberts' announcement that he's going to investigate Fitzgerald.

Little said the Senate committee would also review the probe of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the Plame case for nearly two years.

Roberts has been threatening to pressure Fitzgerald for some time. In particular, he (and Judith Miller, in her last plea before she went to jail) has said that Fitzgerald should not be able to continue to push this until he has proven a crime was committed. Roberts has reverted, over and over, to the claim that we don't even know if Plame was covert, we don't even know whether the CIA was protecting her identity.

Senator Roberts? All the questions you wanted to answer with your little investigation? They've all been answered, clear as day, in the Washington Post. Want to keep talking about investigating? Well, be prepared for former CIA officials to start leaking like a sieve, then, undermining all of Rove' s and LIbby's spin.

Touché.

July 27, 2005 at 14:08 in Bush/Republican Scandals, Contributor--emptywheel | Permalink

Comments

Here's what caught my eye in all this:

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. [emphasis mine]

Why?

Way, way, way back when, I was puzzling over whether Novak himself might indeed be caught up in the IIPA web, although I was repeatedly brushed off for not having established the requisite "pattern of activities." I argued, at the time, that Novak's call to the CIA, his subsequent ignoring of their warning, and the publication of Plame's name might (under the RICO-style conspiracy rubric) constitute such a pattern. The other objection at the time was that such a "pattern" had to expose the identities of multiple agents, and not just one. But then Novak took care of that objection with the subsequent act of revealing the name of Wilson's cover operation, Brewster-Jennings -- itself another "activity" in the "pattern."

Now, of course, we learn that not only was Novak warned off once by Harlow, but in fact Harlow called him back to warn him again. A second ignored warning. Another "activity" for our "pattern?" Conspiracy prosecutors are not generally known for their forgiveness in these sorts of definitions. At least not until a court forces them to be.

Posted by: Kagro X | July 27, 2005 at 14:55

From 2003-06-22, days before Wlson went public, a post of mine concerning the past future of this story:
WMD -- the Mosaic Speaks

Perhaps I'll excerpt a bit for a post later.

Posted by: RonK, Seattle | July 27, 2005 at 15:20

Kagro,

Maybe that's why Novak perjured himself. He realized he was more culpable than most people realized, so he didn't have much to lose in perjuring himself.

Posted by: emptywheel | July 27, 2005 at 15:23

Emptywheel,

That may certainly explain Novak's willingness to perjure himself. Especially if he did so in league with others under suspicion. He would have a lot riding on perpetuating the notion that her identity was "well known in Washington," which could be the flip-side of the claim that Rove, et al. heard her name from journalists, and not the other way around. "Don't worry, Bob. Yes, we'll say we heard it from you, but you're OK in this, because for you, there has to be a 'pattern of activities,' and this isn't a pattern."

And while I'm here, I might also point out that I took RonK's comment from yesterday:

Suppose the trail of orchestrated stonewalling and deliberate misdirection reaches into the Senate itself. Might that not be "extraordinary"?

to be relevant to the continued threats from Sen. Roberts that you've highlighted.

Posted by: Kagro X | July 27, 2005 at 15:34

Kagro,

Yup. I'm fairly sure Roberts is feeling the heat. If I'm right about my most recent post--that the SSCI deliberately buried a document that totally discredited Bush's war--then Roberts is going to have a lot to answer for. But it might explain Rockefeller's inaction as well. I always suspect Dems get suckered to go along with GOP stonewalling in the name of comity, but more importantly in the name of national unity. I mean, seriously, what would the family of active duty servicemen do if they learned that Bush not only lied to get us into this war, but the minority party let the majority party cover those lies up? How're you going to retain legitimacy for our government anymore?

This whole CIA is scary. I really thought--and hoped--they'd exact their revenge before the elections. But now things have gone so far I worry about serious constitutional problems.

"extraordinary" indeed.

Posted by: emptywheel | July 27, 2005 at 16:35

The problem for someone such as Rockefeller and many other members of congress is that once "read into" intelligence product, they can't really use any of that information to argue back in public. It is a classic problem -- being witting essentially makes you either a co-conspirator or a neuter. But if you are not witting, you are not able to think the whole story through, as you don't have the full deck of cards.

I suspect if the CIA really pushes back it will be around an issue not related to what I am now calling XYZgate. They have many ways of finding another Bush vulnerability, and going after it in a covert fashion that cannot be traced back to the Company.

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