Remember Valerie Plame?
The caravan has moved on, and no one has been talking much about the execrable Ms. Plame lately. But a reader wrote to point out this Newsweek item by Michael Isikoff, which says that "newly released court papers" suggest the Plame was a "covert agent" after all:
[S]pecial prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion. (A CIA spokesman at the time is quoted as saying Plame was "unlikely" to take further trips overseas, though.) Fitzgerald concluded he could not charge Libby for violating a 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent; apparently he lacked proof Libby was aware of her covert status when he talked about her three times with New York Times reporter Judith Miller.
Not having seen the "newly released...judge's opinion," and having no idea of the context in which it was issued, I don't know whether the opinion is reliable, or whether Isikoff's interpretation of it is correct. But if it is, it is an interesting but minor footnote to a weird bit of history. We and many others assumed that Fitzgerald didn't indict Libby for violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act because, not having served outside the U.S. during the preceding five years, she was not a "covert agent" within the meaning of the statute. If Isikoff is right, Fitzgerald's decision turned instead on the lack of evidence that Libby was aware of her status.
None of this has any particular significance. It remains true that Libby would have been fine if he had simply told the truth to the grand jury (assuming, of course, that he didn't; that remains to be proved). And it is still true that Ms. Plame was a Langley desk employee, the disclosure of whose identity had zero national security significance.
I have to admit, though, that I'm looking forward a bit to Libby's trial. There has been a ridiculous amount of nonsense and hysteria over the Plame "leak," and it will be interesting to see how people respond to the case when Libby actually has the opportunity to defend himself, presumably with the aid of able counsel. I suspect that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame will not emerge looking good.
UPDATE: Never mind. Reader Clinton Janssen points out that Byron York has reviewed the underlying documents. There doesn't seem to be any substance there, one way or the other.
