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Whatever Happened to the Plame Investigation? An Act of Treason
by the Bush Administration Gets Buried Alive.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by
Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics In Washington
Remember Valerie Plame? Ms. Plame was the CIA
undercover operative who was outed by the White House in effort to punish
her husband former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had publicly stated in a
July 6, 2003 op-ed in the New York Times, that despite President
Bush’s statements to the contrary, Iraq had not attempted to purchase
yellow cake uranium from Niger. The existence of that uranium, you may
recall, was presented to the public as "evidence" that Iraq had nuclear
weapons which, in turn, was used to justify our unilateral attack on
Iraq.
Ms. Plame, however, had nothing to do with any of
that. Ms. Plame was an operative under deep cover -- the CIA had created
an entire company just so that Ms. Plame could claim that she worked
there. Yet once Joseph Wilson broke his silence and announced that the
White House was lying, Karl Rove decided that Wilson needed to be punished
and that his wife was "fair game." Two top government officials called at
least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation
of Wilson’s wife. But only the ever-ready apologist for the Republican
Party, Robert Novak, took the bait. On July 14, 2003, Novak wrote a piece
outing Ms. Plame as an operative.
Neither Karl Rove -- or whomever among the Bush
senior staff leaked it -- nor Novak gave a moment’s consideration to the
lives that they may have jeopardized by outing Ms. Plame. Never mind that
anyone in another country who had so much as met Ms. Plame might now be
suspected of spying. No thought was given to the fact that others, who
were in fact spies, might be outed through their connection to Ms. Plame,
and no thought was given to the fact that actual lives could be lost as a
result of this odious act. Never mind that outing an undercover CIA
operative is a federal crime.
A very serious matter, yet you would never know that
from the White House’s response. When the revelation first hit the press
in July, the White House first refused to comment and later, had White
House press secretary Scott McClellan claim -- without so much as a
question asked of White House staff -- "that is not the way this White
House operates," and that "no one was certainly given any authority to do
any of that nature, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest there’s any truth
to it." It’s hard to find evidence you are doing your very best to
ignore.
Finally, in October the CIA referred the matter to
the Department of Justice for investigation, and Attorney General John
Ashcroft’s Justice Department, despite the obvious conflict of interest,
refused to appoint a special prosecutor.
President Bush’s response: "And if there is a leak
out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has
violated the law, the person will be taken care of." Apparently, it never
crossed the President’s mind to simply ask his staff who the leaker was
(or leakers were).
The Justice Department launched its allegedly
official probe on September 26th, but neglected to direct the White House
to preserve critical evidence until the evening of September 29th. Then,
when the White House Counsel asked if he could wait until the next day to
inform the staff of the need to preserve documents, the Justice Department
allowed it. Simply, if the leaker(s) had not been smart enough to get rid
of the evidence between July 6th and September 29th, the White House
Counsel’s office wanted to be sure that there was at least one last chance
to do so before destroying evidence would constitute criminal obstruction
of justice.
Since September 29th? Nothing, not a word. Nothing
from the White House and nothing from the Department of Justice. The
President never asked his staff to investigate the matter and never called
for the leaker to come forward. The White House is, however,
"cooperating."
The Department of Justice investigation appears to be
at a standstill. Sure, the Department might claim that even the existence
of a grand jury investigating the matter is a secret, but recall how such
secret investigations were conducted during the Clinton years. Was there
ever a grand jury matter that wasn’t leaked to the press? No, the press
set up camp outside the Courthouse where the grand jury sat and took note
of and publicly report on every person who went in. A grand jury
investigation involving the White House is too good a story not to be
subject of its own leak.
Why has the investigation stalled? Is it because the
Department of Justice, just as suspected by the Democrats all along, isn’t
serious about prosecuting the leaker? Is it because George Bush has swept
the matter under the carpet? Where are the Congressional hearings that
were so common during the Clinton administration? Can anyone seriously
doubt if the same events had transpired during the Clinton years there
would have been day after day, and month after month of hearings with
Congressional leaders clamoring for an independent counsel, with the
result that one would have been appointed?
I guess the truth is that neither this
administration, nor this Congress, cares nearly as much about national
security and the safety of undercover operatives as they do about
politics.
* * *
Melanie Sloan is the Executive Director of Citizens
for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ("CREW") [LINK]. CREW is a
public interest legal watchdog group that exposes government officials who
betray the public trust. CREW aims to counterbalance the conservative
legal watchdog groups that had such a strong impact over the past decade.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY |
