Robert Novak, in his own words:
Disclosing confidential sources is unthinkable for a reporter seeking to probe behind the scenes in official Washington, but the circumstances here are obviously extraordinary. [snip]
When my source was revealed as a spy, my first fear was that I had been the victim of disinformation by a truly evil man. [snip]
Nevertheless, I now wanted to make doubly sure and rechecked my report's validity. [snip]
Then, why break a reporter's responsibility to keep his sources secret? [snip] Furthermore, to be honest to my readers, I must reveal it.
"The Hanssen Mystery" Robert Novak, July 12, 2001.
Novak should follow his own counsel from 2001 and name his sources, especially those officials who stated Plame was an analyst. He should reveal his source(s) now since his credibility is on the line, the same way it was on the line with the 1997/2001 Hanssen case.
Let's get to the story, below the fold, shall we?
NB: This diary is an expanded version of a post I wrote in
pontificator's great diary regarding
L'Affaire Plame and Robert Novak. With the diarist's encouragement, I have expanded and added more information to that much briefer post. So, this is my hat tip to
pontificator.
That being said...
And so it begins...
Over the course of the past two years, the scandalous outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former US Ambassador Joe Wilson, has been an ugly reminder of the extent to which the Bush Administration has not only skirted but violated the law seemingly at will, and often doing so to exact revenge against those who dare defy their decisions or question their actions. AG John Ashcroft relented and recused himself in the formal investigation into possible criminal wrong-doing in the outing of Mrs. Wilson, and in his stead came Patrick J. Fitzgerald who is now -- by his own admission -- just about through with his investigation. In the balance, however, stands the fate of not just Plame and her husband, and by extension our intelligence operatives and their lives, their honor and their safety, but also Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller (NYTimes) who both have had eight judges rule against their decision to not reveal sources in this investigation.
But not getting ahead of the story in this grotesque travesty of justice, we need to first review how it all began. Two words: Robert Novak.
Seemingly oblivious to his role in this, Novak has been front-and-center always but equally unapologetic, unflapped and a media-incarnation of the elephant in the middle of the room. With the news Friday regarding Novak's revision of his story (as reported in Murray Wass Suspects The Fix Is In a great diary by pontificator) one has to wonder what in the hell is up with Novak. Throughout this ordeal, Novak's most consistent traits have neither been his consistency nor his humility.
The only way in which anyone with even the most miniscule of a slice of common sense would be able to conclude Novak's innocence in his involvement would be if that person was Novak himself. In his own words, Novak presents the facts to us, in a sequence that is aware of the controversy around the issue and which grounds his need to clarify in the midst of such a political maelstrom.
Sadly, he has no problem revising his own words when he is justifying and rationalizing his actions regarding Valerie Plame. He himself serves as his own judge jury and executioner.
However, it should be noted that for Novak to claim some kind of naiveté or to cite unintentional, less-than-precise verbiage when reporting on affairs that deal with intelligence activities would be a bald-faced lie. Novak, if anything, is absolutely aware of the power of words (media) in issues involving intelligence. In 2001, when writing about his to now disclose the name of a confidential source/spy un-named but critical to his 1997 article regarding spy secrets and China, Russia, Janet Reno, the FBI, a resignation, Novak's ego etc., he wrote:
Disclosing confidential sources is unthinkable for a reporter seeking to probe behind the scenes in official Washington, but the circumstances here are obviously extraordinary. The same traitor who delivered American spies into the Kremlin's hands was expressing concern about the fate of intelligence assets in China.
When my source was revealed as a spy, my first fear was that I had been the victim of disinformation by a truly evil man. I wrote my column of Nov. 24, 1997 only after other officials confirmed Hanssen's account. Nevertheless, I now wanted to make doubly sure and rechecked my report's validity. I did so, and several sources -- including one FBI agent who would not speak to me in 1997 -- totally confirmed what I had written. I am absolutely convinced that Hanssen told me the truth.
Then, why break a reporter's responsibility to keep his sources secret? I wrestled with this question for months and finally decided that my experience with Hanssen contributes to the portrait of this most contradictory of all spies. Furthermore, to be honest to my readers, I must reveal it.
"The Hanssen Mystery" Robert Novak, July 12, 2001.
If only for his own ego's sake... Clearly Novak appreciates the gravity in the accuracy of reporting about affairs in the international arena which are of the delicate, clandestine, covert or precarious in nature, because his reputation is also on the line.
This is the context out from which Novak's column emerges, (exactly two years and two days to the date of his Hanssen column) the column which initiates the ensuing uproar in L'Affaire Plame.
From that fateful column July 14, 2003, this is what he actually wrote:
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
"Mission To Niger" by Robert Novak, July 14, 2003.
However, as he notes in his second column on the subject, October 1, 2003, his writing about Plame has caused a political brouhaha, and in the context of this partisan cat fight, he feels so compelled to write a detailed clarification explaining what really transpired.
But, there are three more pieces of context which greatly inform Novak's October 1, 2003 column.
- Following the Novak column July 14, 2003, a July 22, 2003 column in Newsday cites intelligence sources who confirm Plame was an operative whose cover had been blown by the Novak column;
- Sometime in late July 2003 the CIA files a crime report regarding the outing of operative Plame; and
- Echoing in part the July 22, 2003 Newsday story, the Washington Post reports on September 28, 2003 that a senior administration official confirmed the assertion that Plame was outed by 2 senior administration officials in an attempt to discredit Plame's husband (former Ambassador Wilson) for challenging the validity of Bush's "yellow cake" claim in the State of the Union address.
At no time before these three pivotal events did Novak feel compelled to explain or clarify, even though between July 13 and September 30, 2003 there were allegations aimed at Novak that he had overstepped the lines of decency and perhaps the law.
Enter John Dean, part of the cabal that brought you the Watergate-cover-up-fiasco, who served as White House lawyer for 1000 days to President Richard M. Nixon, who among other things is famous for is remark to Nixon that there is a cancer on the presidency. One of the most consistent and intelligent writers who has been following L'Affaire Plame, Dean began his analyses of the issues surrounding this case August 15, 2003 with his article "The Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than-Nixonian Tactic: The Deadly Serious Crime Of Naming CIA Operatives" by John Dean, August 15, 2003. In looking at the applicability of several different laws regarding beaches in intelligence secrecy, Dean writes:
[snip]
The Espionage Act of 1917
The Reagan Administration effectively used the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute a leak - to the horror of the news media. It was a case that was instituted to make a point, and establish the law, and it did just that in spades.
In July 1984, Samuel Morrison - the grandson of the eminent naval historian with the same name - leaked three classified photos to Jane's Defense Weekly. The photos were of the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which had been taken by a U.S. spy satellite.
Although the photos compromised no national security secrets, and were not given to enemy agents, the Reagan Administration prosecuted the leak. That raised the question: Must the leaker have an evil purpose to be prosecuted?
The Administration argued that the answer was no. As with Britain's Official Secrets Acts, the leak of classified material alone was enough to trigger imprisonment for up to ten years and fines. And the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed. It held that such a leak might be prompted by "the most laudable motives, or any motive at all," and it would still be a crime. As a result, Morrison went to jail.
The Espionage Act, though thrice amended since then, continues to criminalize leaks of classified information, regardless of the reason for the leak. Accordingly, the "two senior administration officials" who leaked the classified information of Mrs. Wilson's work at the CIA to Robert Novak (and, it seems, others) have committed a federal crime.
.
Dean's other columns, all worthwhile reading, can be found here and here and here and here and even here, the last link being to his summation of the controversy from Friday, April 22, 2005. If Dean's style was mandatory for MSM analyses of current events, we would e i such a better place at least regarding the facts and the laws. But I digress...
With that in mind, the column Novak published on October 1, 2003 "clarifies" what he wrote just 3 months earlier thusly (here being some key excerpts of said column):
I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.
[snip] To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.
The current Justice investigation stems from a routine, mandated probe of all CIA leaks, but follows weeks of agitation.
[snip]
During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it."
[snip]
At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. EMPHASIS ADDED.He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name.
How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.
A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations EMPHASIS ADDED.
[snip]
"The CIA Leak"by Robert Novak, October 1,2003.
Say what? Yes, you read him correctly -- Novak just admitted that he was counseled by the CIA to not use Plame's name and he chose to ignore that request. While it certainly does reflect his lack of remorse and his concern, it also indicts his action as one in which e knowingly released information that he was told could be damaging to one of the CIA's staff. He seems perfectly content in telling us what he was advised; the CIA stated that it could make things "difficult." But for some reason, Novak is also perfectly happy showing us how he has lost all sense of reasoning when he trivializes this request, either because he disbelieved the CIA or because he was totally unconcerned about the fallout to Mrs. Wilson as a result of his ignoring the CIA request.
Novak's final point in the October column, his attempt to try to get us to both ignore the obvious (the precise language he used to define who Mrs. Wilson was) as well as believe the innocent misstatement on his part ("I meant analyst...") is just a classic example of obfuscation in the face of facts, and is just pure smoke and mirrors. In real terms, we would call Novak's backpedaling and incredible act of wordsmith-ing and contortionism his vain attempt to save his own ass. By the time he wrote the October 13, 2003 column, Novak had to be aware of the ramifications of his column in July. Because, if what he did in the first column was to name a CIA operative (which he did) then he must certainly know that such an act made him an accomplice, making his part in this act of revenge one of conspiracy/collusion, which is in and of itself very illegal, very punishable, with his criminal conspiracy activities being very serious.
Novak's back is literally against a wall here. This is cause for him to try for an overt and wholesale reframing of his original and very precise definition of Plame within the CIA ("an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction") with a more obtuse, banal, almost pedestrian phrase or two ("an analyst, not in covert operations"). Again, he is trying to save is own ass. If Plame is/was an "operative" then Novak's role in this crime (or crimes) is quite serious.
But if she is/was a lowly non-covert analyst, that is, if Novak can convince everyone of such, then he is off the hook. Plame (and Wilson) were just part of a mud-slinging match with and against the Administration and Novak can breathe easier. If this were the case, all that Novak suffers is just one more public display of him being nothing more than a miserable political hack. Given the two choices, Novak's efforts to revise his role, revise the truth, to do ANYTHING he has to so that he can escape punishment is as understandable as it is appalling.
Which brings us to now. Here we remain, at this juncture, with AG Gonzalez refusing to comply with the 9 House Democrats' request for information regarding the investigation by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, and with Fitzgerald already being public that for all intents and purposes his work is just about done, I am not surprised that Novak once again feels the need to shop his revisionist defense to the press, in any and all manners. I in his place would have gone into exile; he has chosen to peddle the same myths he created in October 2003, in some bizarre tribute to the Orwell principle that repetition makes lies into truths.
The problem is that while Novak may talk a smug, fast game, he can't go back in time and erase the archives of his writing.
Winding down, following a tip from essays and effluvia I did a Google search -- per Novak's comments on "Meet the Press" on October 5, 2003 and came up so very, very short on corroborative, Novak-penned proof that his use of the word "operative" was a common throw-away line of is for political hacks. He may want us to believe that Plame was just a political hack (what "operative" means to him) but the fact remains he lacks credible evidence in his own writing of this sort of Novak-ian quirk for that word's use.
All that we can point to with verifiable evidence are his columns. And in these writings, we are presented de facto with Novak's own columns, Novak's own words, and Novak's own conclusions which are based on specific statements of Wilson, the CIA, Administration officials, peers, and his "unnamed sources" and what they told him.
Even if he can't see the whole mess coming full circle to where he was in 2001, I certainly can. As I see it, the choice now for Novak is crystal clear -- Novak should follow his own counsel from 2001 and name his sources, especially those officials who stated Plame was an analyst. He should reveal his source(s) now since his credibility is on the line, the same way it was on the line with the 1997/2001 Hanssen case.
Things now are as (if not more) extraordinary in terms of our political environment. If in 2001 Novak believed that it was incumbent upon himself to reveal his source "...to be honest to my readers..." circumstances now would indicate that he has all the more reason to practice that same logic now.
This is about international security in the midst of a war on terror. If the media can not be trusted and the Administration is riddled with leaks and double-crossers and if the lives of our covert intelligence staff are in constant jeopardy of being revealed and if the pursuit of justice is hampered by stonewalling, lying and caprice, then Novak's naming of his sources which discredit Plame's role as an operative would be the act of a hero, a defining moment which would help correct our errors, reinforce our success and get us back on track.
That is unless these sources are non-existent or would dispute Novak.
My gut says that Novak is guilty of knowingly participating in the outing of Valerie Plame. All the attempts to bluster and blunder his way into convincing us to ignore the exact and careful wording of his first column in this whole mess I find unconvincing, self-serving and rather angering. That his hubris leaves him believing that he is above not just the law but the sort of collective memory of the American populace is truly spectacular and truly abhorrent. I so wish this case could be finalized and completed. The longer Novak walks the streets of punditry, the more damage he does to what little shred of optimism some if us have in the MSM to perhaps awake from their catatonia.
A tangential issue and letting someone else have the last word:: I have one question/point of investigation that I am again going to try to get some clarity on, namely whether Novak did in fact knowingly use Ambassador Wilson's wife's work name when he outed her, instead of using her married name (Mrs. Wilson). I forget where I saw this raised, but if she did have a "real name" and a "work name" (the work name for security, covert activities, protection, etc.) it really does highlight maliciousness on Novak's part that heretofore has been acknowledged but not really emphasized. I'll post if I find anything - but if anyone has information or a debunking or whatever on this one tangent, I'd love to know/see/read it.
I'll close with the John Dean's final say on the matter in his incorporation of the Matthew Cooper/Judith Miller twist in this case from his column Friday:
But there is one other event that could - and should - save them: It is time for anyone who leaked information to either of these reporters to step forward and reveal themselves.
This is particularly true if the person (or persons) who leaked information to Miller and Cooper was also the person (or persons) who leaked Valerie Plame's CIA identity to Novak and others. For that source to watch Miller and Cooper go to jail for their principles, would be craven indeed: A case of the innocent suffering to benefit the guilty, for as I have explained in a prior column, the leak certainly appears to be a federal felony.
Only Miller and Cooper's source(s), by stepping forward, can prevent a potential miscarriage of justice. He or she must do so forthwith.
And there you have it.