Evidence indicates that Plame did in fact engage in CIA business abroad between 1998 and 2003, even if she was not stationed abroad. For example, the Post suggested on October 8, 2003, that Plame remained undercover "in recent years" as an "energy consultant," while actually serving as a weapons proliferation analyst for the CIA, and was known by friends and neighbors as someone who "traveled frequently overseas":
For the past several years, she has served as an operations officer working as a weapons proliferation analyst. She told neighbors, friends and even some of her CIA colleagues that she was an "energy consultant." She lived behind a facade even after she returned from abroad. It included a Boston front company named Brewster-Jennings & Associates, which she listed as her employer on a 1999 form in Federal Election Commission records for her $1,000 contribution to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign.
Administration officials confirmed that Brewster-Jennings was a front. The disclosure of its existence, which came about because it was listed in the FEC records, magnifies the potential damage related to the leak of Valerie Wilson's identity: It may give anyone who dealt with the firm clues to her CIA work. In addition, anyone who ever had contact with the company, and any foreign person who ever met with Valerie Plame, innocently or not, might now be suspected of working with the agency.
Friends and neighbors knew Valerie Wilson as a consultant who traveled frequently overseas.
CNN national security correspondent David Ensor reported on the September 29, 2003, edition of Wolf Blitzer Reports:
ENSOR: "All I can say is my sources tell me that this is a CIA operative. This is a person who did run agents. This is a person who was out there in the world collecting information."
