New
Reuters story suggests that Scooter may have given Judy wrong information about Valerie Plame. But does this provide a defense for Scoot, as the article suggests, or another reason to indict?
More below:
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According to Miller's account of a July 8, 2003, meeting with Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, she wrote in her notes that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control, or Winpac, unit, which tracks the spread of unconventional arms.
A former intelligence official said Plame did not work at Winpac but for the CIA's clandestine service, known as the directorate of operations. The former official, who is familiar with Plame's activities at the CIA, spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
It is unclear how the discrepancy might affect the investigation. The former intelligence official said the WINPAC error could bolster Libby's defense, if he was charged with intentionally outing a covert operative, since most of Winpac's employees are not undercover.
"It may actually be helpful to him by showing he was acting under a misimpression and it wasn't an intentional outing of a known undercover officer," the official said.
But is this true? If Scooter read the famous memo on Air Force One, he had to have known (by that "S" on the memo) that Plame's work at the CIA was classified. It's also possible that he told Miller Plame worked at WINPAC to make it more likely Miller would write a story Plame. He may have thought she wasn't willing to go the distance on outing a NOC, but might name an "analyst." This scenario would raise the misdirection scenario as more incriminating, not less.
UPDATE: this has been diaried before; sorry I missed it. Also, as others have pointed out, Scooter wasn't on Air Force One that day. But Fitzgerald seems now to be focusing on the WHIG meetings, making such misinformation part of the larger conspiracy rather than "dinner table conversation," as the AP story cited by the earlier diary suggested.