Politics  

Big CIA Covert Operative About Town

Arthur Silber has a longish post discussing the splitting of treasonous hairs at Powerline over Rovegate. One of the points he quotes them on is their assertion that lots of reporters knew about Valerie Plame's covert CIA job helping to prevent the spread of WMD. After citing a "reluctant" answer by Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC to a question about whether Plame's covert job was generally known, Silber says this:

Let’s leave aside the credibility and veracity of Mitchell and whether her word should be taken for anything, on any subject. I note, however, that I hardly consider these to be minor issues. But let’s assume she said what she believed to be the truth. If Plame’s identity as a CIA agent was “generally known to news people,” then why were highly placed White House officials peddling this story to reporters at all? Why did they need to? Couldn’t Rove (and anyone else) have simply said, “And you know, of course, who Wilson’s wife is.” If it was indeed “generally known,” why was it such hard work to put this story out there?

Moreover, if it was “generally known,” wouldn’t that have mattered to the CIA? Have any of our intrepid reporters bothered to ask anyone at the CIA if this was a problem for them, and what they might have done about it? If not, why not? And if it was “generally known,” then what on earth has Fitzgerald been doing for all these many months? Hmm?

I have little to add to Silber's probing piece, but I do think that if I was Mr. Fitzgerald, one person I'd be pulling in to question would be Ms. Mitchell, in order to find out when she found out about Plame's CIA work, who told her about it, and how she could say with certainty that other members of the media knew about it, i.e. who she'd discussed it with.

Then I'd be pulling those people in, because no matter when this information was leaked, it was still a crime.