Larry Johnson, a CIA agent, and CIA classmate of Plame, has once again come to Plame's defense. See his latest defense of Plame here:
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/07/the_real_outrag.html
Each time he does, the element of proving Plame's covert status under the IIPA, becomes easier for the prosecution. I believe this latest article answers any remaining questions about Plame's covert status in the affirmative.
More in extended entry ....
Here's what Johnson has to say in his latest article concerning Plame that is of major significance in proving Plame's status as a covert agent:
........
"A few of my classmates, and Valerie was one of these, became a non-official cover officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed.... The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, and P. J. O'Rourke insist that Valerie was nothing, just a desk jockey.... For the first time a group of partisan political operatives publically identified a CIA NOC.... She was not a division director, instead she was the equivalent of an Army major."
.......
Until now, I had not been able to find really strong evidence suggesting that Plame met the statutory definiton of a "covert agent" under the IIPA.
The pertinent part of the IIPA,
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode50/usc_sec_50_00000426----000-.html
states:
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(4) The term "covert agent" means--
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency--
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States....
..........
What I have never been sure of is whether Plame and the CIA could prove under (ii) that she had served outside the US in the last five years. There is nothing in the statute to sugget that her service needed to be for an extended period of time as some pundits have suggested. Indeed, if a soldier gets killed five minutes after hitting foreign soil, I believe he would be considered to have served outside the US.
I have always thought that the CIA could prove she had been outside the US within the past five years but there was nothing firm to indicate that. But if she had the equivalent status of an Army major, I feel almost certain that she would have met the "outside the United States" requirement of the statute.
Another nail in the coffin for Rove.