Could You Repeat That? [John Podhoretz]

Dennis Kucinich is now questioning Valerie Plame Wilson. He asked her three questions she couldn't understand. Now he is comparing the leak of her name to the firing of the U.S. Attorneys. And to the dismissal of Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill. And to the cashiering of Gen. Shinseki.

03/16 11:13 AM

How Dare He! [John Podhoretz]

Valerie Plame Wilson complained that Dick Cheney — the elected vice president of the United States — made an "unprecedented number of visits" to the CIA in the run-up to the Iraq war. She's right. It's shocking. Evidently, Cheney actually listened to the CIA.

03/16 11:16 AM

Joe Wilson Was Sent to Niger By A Guy Who Walked By [John Podhoretz]

This is what Valerie Plame Wilson just said about her husband's trip: "I did not recommend him, I did not suggest him, I did not have the authority." An officer serving under her was upset to have received an inquiry from the vice president's office about yellowcake from Niger and evidently, while she was comforting that junior officer, some guy walked by her office and suggested her husband should go to Niger to check it out.

She said she was ambivalent about the idea because she didn't want to have to put her 2 year-old twins to bed by herself at night. Still, she and the guy who had just happened to walk by then went to her supervisor.

Supervisor: Well, when you go home this evening, would you ask your husband to come in.

Then her supervisor asked her to write an e-mail about the idea. She did so. That e-mail, she said, was the basis for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence claim that she had been responsible for sending her husband to Niger for the CIA.

In other words, she didn't recommend him or suggest him. Rather, it was a guy who walked by.

03/16 11:25 AM

Re the Junior Officer [Cliff May]

Why would a CIA officer be “upset” by an intelligence inquiry from the Vice President’s office? Isn’t providing intelligence to the White House among the main purposes for which the CIA was created?

Evidently not. Evidently junior CIA officers have better things to do.
And will any members of the panel show curiosity about such issues?

03/16 12:03 PM

[ UPDATE: More Plame [Cliff May]

My friend the ex-CIA officer reminds me that, in addition to Valerie Plame's new and very creative assertion that sending Joe Wilson to Niger was the idea of a guy who just happened to be strolling by her desk one day, there also is the fact that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that the Wilson was known to the CIA because Plame had recommended him for an earlier mission. See attached excerpt.

Also via the Corner, Victoria Toensing's testimony. (PDF)

Valerie Plame Wilson vs. the Senate Intelligence Committee [Byron York]

At her appearance before the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, Valerie Plame Wilson flatly denied playing a role in the choice of her husband for a CIA mission to Niger. "I did not recommend him. I did not suggest him," she said. She also testified that a Senate Intelligence Committee report which concluded she did suggest her husband was wrong. In particular, Mrs. Wilson said a CIA reports officer who, according to the Senate report, told Senate investigators that she had suggested her husband, "came to me almost with tears in his eyes. He said his words have been twisted and distorted." Tonight a key senator is disputing Mrs. Wilson's testimony. . . .]

Powerline Forum snippets:

I’m happy to see that Waxman is enforcing the strict decorum which should characterize House committee meetings. Some harpie is standing in the back with an “Impeach Bush Now” shirt and manages to stay in the camera’s view.

First republican gets to ask questions and starts with these:

Do you have evidence that the administration knew you were covert?

The statute defines covert very clearly. Have you ever been informed that you are covert according to the statute?

Did anyone tell you AFTER the Novak story that you were covert and this is a breach of security?

The answer to all three was NO, although she tried to tell the “I’m not a lawyer, but I went on secret missions so I must be covert” whopper. I also had a great laugh at the mysterious black box that informed Cheney and Rove of Plame’s super-secret identity.

A credible-sounding former CIA administrative type called Rush a few minutes ago and stated flatly that an agent returning from an overseas assignment is automatically removed from covert status. Logic would substantiate this since, as he said, any tourist standing outside Langley’s front gate could see who was going in to work at the CIA.

I hope Toensing will somehow clarify the covert status thing when she testifies this afternoon.

Yes, she was challenged by at least ONE Republican. He got her to admit that she and her hubby are both Democrats. That’s a start I guess. She alternately danced around the “covert” status b.s. and also claimed she was “covert” and “under cover”. I guess driving to work at Langley every day for six (6) years might just have blown her cover? LOL

I posted earlier elsewhere here that she should have declined to testify before this committee. She has dug a hole for herself so deep that there is no digging out.

“You have to get politics out of the intelligence process”. - Valerie Plame 3/16/07

Is that why both she and her hubby have consistently donated money to left-wing causes and liberal politicians?

Victoria Toensing just blew them all away. The Chairman should now apologize to the country for this partisan farce and dissolve this Inquisition.

Henry Waxman is trying to read into the record comments posing as facts. Of course he won’t give Ms. Toensing the opposrtunity to respond, he’s just off on his monologue whenever he gets a breath of an opening.

I realize that IDP has a much better sense of who is and is not NOC but according to General Hayden current head of the CIA in a statement prepared for this hearing:

... 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. Rep. Henry Waxman read a prepared statement today — prepared with the express approval of the head of the CIA and reviewed therewith — that substantiated the fact that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA officer, working on classified WMD issues for the CIA and the national security fo the United States.

Byron York has some questions for Ms Plame-Wilson.