* IF the CIA was sure she was covert why was a criminal referral necessary?

Because that's how the CIA is supposed to do things when someone "outs" one of their covert people.

* Why did Fitzgerald avoid the covert aspect by stating he wouldn't address it.

Because it wasn't germane to the charges he brought against Libby.

* Why wouldn't the current CIA director testify under oath that she was covert?

Because he wasn't asked to do so? Did you testify that she wasn't covert? If not, why not?

* But mainly, why bring it up now regarding Libby's sentencing but not at trial? Libby wasn't convicted for ANYTHING regarding Plame's status, it wasn't a factor. But here is the prosecutor trying to present something he couldn't prove in court as evidence?

Because it is germane to how Libby should be sentenced.

It like getting a speeding ticket and when you go to court and plead guilty, the prosecutor tells the judge they also think your car is stolen so they should give you jail time. If this isn't misconduct by a prosecutor, it should be.

Isn't your ass sore from all the crap you pull out of it?

You don't know shit you dumbfuck.

read them, absorbed them and repeated them with INTENT ... it's going to be rough sledding ...

If say, Cheney, merely repeated office gossip from Tenant, that Plame was or had been CIA and worked on weapon proliferation (or something both vague and detailed like that, approximating Novak's blurb), he could still claim to have just "repeated gossip" because he had not been given clearly labeled "classified information" ...

Everyone agrees that it is and has always been a badly written statute, very very very difficult to prosecute...

Her [Valerie Plame's] unit was expanded and renamed the Joint Task Force on Iraq. Within months of 9/11, the JTFI grew to fifty or so employees.

This is not speculation in the sense that I am proposing some course of action, but ever since this started I have wondered if other American agents were killed, captured or compromised as a result of Plame's outing. I ask myself, with fifty or so employees, how many of them were under cover? How many Iraqi agents working with the Americans were under cover? Was an entire intelligence network, whose purpose was to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons in Iraq, destroyed because it knew enough to prevent a war with Iraq based on the premise that Iraq had or was acquiring nuclear weapons? Just knowing the little that I know about the nuclear relationships of Pakistan, Iran, China and North Korea, how has the loss of this intelligence network affected the quality of U.S. intelligence relative to other nations in the region and the world? Did Cheney, knowing this and so much more, give the order to out Plame?

It's totally f-d up. And we're still talking about a pardon for Libby? And we're still talking about whether or not Plame was covert?

that's obstacle #1 .... obstacle #2, is to prove that that person DELIBERATELY, WITH INTENT outed this person's covert status ...

This statute is not about repeating gossip ... it is about someone with sufficient clearance to KNOW the names of individuals DELIBERATELY blowing their cover ...

It's very hard to prove what someone "knew" and in this case where there was quite a little gossip mill (Novak had, was it 3 sources?) buzzing ... it would be very hard to prove, for instance, that Dick Cheney (who doubtless insists of access even to things he should not want, like NOC lists) in mentioning Valerie Plame to Dick Armitage INTENDED for Plame's status to be blown ...

Dick Armitage, in repeating Cheney's gossip, as I understand it would not be liable because he did not have clearance or access to PROOF of Plame's status ....

Again, this is NOT about repeating gossip ... it is about the DELIBERATE OUTING of COVERT agents .... not CIA employees (of whom there are hundreds and/or thousands who are NOT covert) ...

Because the CIA is a left-wing organization full of communist moles and socialists out to destroy America, hurt our brave dear leader and thwart our efforts in the GWOT.

John Birch

correct me if i'm wrong,

but didn't the CIA itself ask for the investigation?

and, if i'm not mistaken,

they wouldn't have asked "if she hadn't been Covert"

in other words, why ask for an investigation, for a "desk clerk?"

mark hansen

Tie it up good and tight and chuck it in the river.

But not with a snake in it. Snakes are cleaner than this bunch and most won't hurt you unless you bother them.

A burlap sack will do.

Since Ms. Plame was indeed covert at the time that Armitage outed her, I'm curious why there were no charges brought against him?

If I recall correctly, Armitage didn't know (or should have known) she was covert. I think that's the same reason Libby wasn't tried for the outing, only the lying - Fitzgerald couldn't establish beyond reasonable doubt that Libby knew Plame was covert.

Now, the original crime was perpetrated by whoever directed Libby to spread the "Plame is CIA story" around, as long as that person knew Plame's actual status.

CIA, Maclean, Virginia

http://www.satellite-sightseer.com/id/1219/United_States/Virginia/Langley/CIA_Headquarters

Good luck surveilling that.

Larry Johnson's Congressional Testimony: "These [disparaging] comments [by members of the press and others in the public debate] reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected."

David Corn in The Nation, 9/2006:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn

Valerie Plame was recruited into the CIA in 1985, straight out of Pennsylvania State University. After two years of training to be a covert case officer, she served a stint on the Greece desk, according to Fred Rustmann, a former CIA official who supervised her then. Next she was posted to Athens and posed as a State Department employee. Her job was to spot and recruit agents for the agency. In the early 1990s, she became what's known as a nonofficial cover officer. . . . She told people she was with an energy firm. Her main mission remained the same: to gather agents for the CIA... In 1997 she returned to CIA headquarters and joined the Counterproliferation Division. (About this time, she moved in with Joseph Wilson; they later married.) She was eventually given a choice: North Korea or Iraq. She selected the latter...

Her unit was expanded and renamed the Joint Task Force on Iraq. Within months of 9/11, the JTFI grew to fifty or so employees. Valerie Wilson was placed in charge of its operations group. . . . [Valerie] Wilson, too, occasionally flew overseas to monitor operations. She also went to Jordan to work with Jordanian intelligence officials who had intercepted a shipment of aluminum tubes heading to Iraq that CIA analysts were claiming — wrongly — were for a nuclear weapons program...

When the Novak column ran, Valerie Wilson was in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management. Her aim, she told colleagues, was to put in time as an administrator — to rise up a notch or two — and then return to secret operations.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn