Coverup
The identity of CIA operative, Valerie Plame was divulged by senior members of the Bush administration in retaliation for her husband Joseph Wilson's disclosing the administration's practice of manipulating intelligence.
The Washington Post reported a State Department memo was circulated on Air Force One the week before the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife, C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame. The Post reported the paragraph containing information about Ms. Plame was marked with an S for secret. The claim that no one knew her identity was covert is therefore erroneous.
White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales was notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame. That notification came on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. Gonzales claims the delay was sanctioned by Attorney General John Ashcroft, another Bush loyalist. Inquiring Senate Democrats would like to investigate this 12-hour delay, but the coverup has been successful. When the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago Sen. Charles Schumer pointed out: "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence"
White House spokesperson Scott McClellan declared that Karl Rove had personally told him he was not involved in leaking any classified information or telling any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the C.I.A. Recently, reporter Matt Cooper wrote in Time magazine that it was through his conversation with Rove that he "learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A."
F.B.I. agents and the grand jury, may have an obstruction-of-justice issue which possibly is more grave than the hard-to-prosecute original charge of knowingly outing a covert agent. Karl Rove will provide plausible deniability for Bush, but it doesn't make sense that Rove would fail to get approval from Bush before revealing the name of a covert C.I.A. agent.
The Washington Post reported a State Department memo was circulated on Air Force One the week before the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife, C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame. The Post reported the paragraph containing information about Ms. Plame was marked with an S for secret. The claim that no one knew her identity was covert is therefore erroneous.
White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales was notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame. That notification came on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. Gonzales claims the delay was sanctioned by Attorney General John Ashcroft, another Bush loyalist. Inquiring Senate Democrats would like to investigate this 12-hour delay, but the coverup has been successful. When the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago Sen. Charles Schumer pointed out: "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence"
White House spokesperson Scott McClellan declared that Karl Rove had personally told him he was not involved in leaking any classified information or telling any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the C.I.A. Recently, reporter Matt Cooper wrote in Time magazine that it was through his conversation with Rove that he "learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A."
F.B.I. agents and the grand jury, may have an obstruction-of-justice issue which possibly is more grave than the hard-to-prosecute original charge of knowingly outing a covert agent. Karl Rove will provide plausible deniability for Bush, but it doesn't make sense that Rove would fail to get approval from Bush before revealing the name of a covert C.I.A. agent.
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