I wonder who Fitzpatrick is really after. It could be a reporter. It could be a CIA employee. One thing is certain, he's putting reporters in jail for a reason.
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050716/COLUMNIST14/507160304/-1/NEWS15
The Plame name game
WHY is special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursuing so zealously the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, since it is all but impossible to prove that the leaker or leakers committed a crime?
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act requires that the leaker learned the identity of a "covert agent" from authorized sources. And it requires that the leak be deliberate.
The law defines a "covert agent" as someone working undercover overseas, or who has done so in the last five years. Ms. Plame had operated under non-official cover, but was outed by CIA traitor Aldrich Ames, and has been manning a desk at CIA headquarters since 1997.
So why is Mr. Fitzgerald acting like Inspector Javert in Les Miserables? The answer may lie in a sentence Walter Pincus of the Washington Post wrote on June 12, 2003. First, some background:
SNIP
Mr. Wilson outed himself in an op-ed in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," which described his CIA-sponsored trip to Niger in 2002. On July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak wondered why Mr. Wilson, who had no intelligence background and strong anti-Bush views, had been selected for the Niger mission. "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report," he wrote. That set off the Plame name game.
Journalists lost interest when in July, 2004, the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded Mr. Wilson was lying about who sent him to Niger and what he learned there. Furthermore, the Butler Commission concluded reports that Saddam was trying to buy uranium were "well founded."
But by then the special prosecutor they'd sought had been appointed, and Mr. Fitzgerald was demanding testimony from two reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, who wrote a story about Ms. Plame, and Judith Miller of the New York Times, who didn't.
Journalistic interest revived when Mr. Cooper revealed his source was Bush political guru Karl Rove. Mr. Novak (the journalist who outed Ms. Plame) hasn't revealed his sources. But a fawning profile of Mr. Wilson and Ms. Plame in Vanity Fair in January, 2004, offers a clue:
"Wilson was caught off guard when around July 9 he received a phone call from Robert Novak who, according to Wilson, said he'd been told by a CIA source that Wilson's wife worked for the agency. "
Mr. Cooper is a free man because Mr. Rove gave him explicit permission to talk about their conversation. Ms. Miller is in jail because her source didn't, suggesting he or she is someone other than Mr. Rove.
Liberals want Mr. Rove's scalp. But the revelation Friday (if true) that Mr. Rove learned of Ms. Plame's occupation from a journalist makes it most unlikely that he could prosecuted successfully under the Identities Act.
Maybe Mr. Rove - or someone else - lied to the grand jury. Or maybe Mr. Fitzgerald is investigating a different crime.
What if someone in the CIA was leaking classified information to influence the 2004 election? Uncovering a crime like that would be worthy of Inspector Javert's doggedness.
I suspect the biggest shoe in this case has yet to drop, and liberal journalists won't be happy when it does.
