Jeff Gannon: "....and their Washington socializing was what “outed” her"

sabra

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Wed Oct-26-05 03:00 PM
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Jeff Gannon: "....and their Washington socializing was what “outed” her"

http://www.jeffgannon.com/archives/general/index.html#a000336

The backward Plame probe

Like everyone else inside the Beltway, I have been watching the leak probe investigation as it draws to a close. In lieu of reliable information coming from the secret proceedings of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and the Grand Jury, the Old Media has been repackaging various tidbits with more breathless speculation. It is clear what outcome it is rooting for.

For a variety of reasons, I have resisted commenting at any length about this whole affair, until now. The news services are reporting that the FBI was interviewing the Joe and Valerie Wilson’s neighbors this week to determine if her they knew of her association with the CIA before Robert Novak’s column was published – over two years ago.

The lead investigator, Jack Eckenrode, has been on the case since the beginning, conducting the first interview with me in March of 2004. The bureau’s 11th-hour mop up operation appears to be a CYA move by investigators who failed to address the central issue in the case from the outset. Valerie Plame’s “covert” status is at the heart of this matter. If she was not a secret agent at the time Novak wrote his piece, there is no leak, no crime. I believe there is sufficient evidence to conclude that she was not.

It was my questioning of Wilson in Fall 2003 about a memo that detailed a meeting at which Plame suggested her husband for the mission to Niger that brought agents to my door. Wilson denied his wife’s role in his selection. The CIA also tried to refute the account of a whistleblower who exposed a group within the agency that was actively engaged in undermining the Bush administration’s policy toward Iraq. In December 2003, the Washington Post ran a story that quoted unnamed sources claiming that the memo was a forgery and that the meeting never took place. It specifically singled out the news outlet that pubished my interview with the former ambassor during which I confronted him about the memo. The Senate Intelligence Committee confirmed the accuracy of the memo in its July 2004 report and chastised Wilson for his “misleading statements.”

It appears that indictments will be forthcoming in this case. Despite the distraction for the White House and the difficulty for those who will have to defend themselves against whatever charges might be filed, I am hoping for a trial where the roles of Wilson, Plame and CIA officials can be examined. It would probably confirm what I have been saying for some time, that a rouge group within a politicized and dysfunctional agency was conducting a covert operation against the White House. Some of this group’s leaders may be among those who left the CIA when Porter Goss took over.

The role of reporters should also be examined, particularly the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus. The New York Times wrote that the long-time Washington journalist “has earned the respect and envy of his colleagues for the government contacts he has cultivated….” He was one of the reporters that the CIA used to refute the INR document about the meeting where Plame offered up Wilson’s name for the trip to Africa. Accuracy in Media wrote a lengthy article on Pincus in 2002, his relationship to the CIA and his wife Ann’s position with the State Department as a Clinton appointee.

The Washington Post reporter who was in the Wilson’s home well before the alleged leak was to have occurred should also be questioned. He was doing an “in-depth” interview of Wilson, but it would be difficult to believe that he had no questions about his wife. This is not the conduct of a couple with a secret to protect.

The point of all of this is, the Washington journalism elites knew all about Wilson and his wife. Let me tell you about Washington, it’s a very small town, a company town. Everyone’s identity inside the Beltway is attached to who it is they work for. By all accounts, Plame has been stateside for the past six years, a disqualifying factor in the “covert” business. In the unlikely circumstance that she had still been classified as a secret agent, her marriage to the flamboyant, self-important, publicity-seeking Wilson and their Washington socializing was what “outed” her, not anyone at the White House.