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For detail on the political scandal, see Plame Affair Valerie Elise Plame Wilson (born April 19 1963 in Anchorage , Alaska ) was a United States Central Intelligence Agency officer, who was identified as a CIA operative in a newspaper column by Robert Novak on July 14 , 2003 . The ensuing political controversy, commonly referred to as the Plame Affair , or the '''CIA leak scandal''', led, in late 2003 , to a Justice Department investigation into possible violation of criminal statutes, including the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 . Resulting from the October 2005 investigation, one of President George W. Bush's closest assistants on national security, and Chief of Staff for the Vice President Dick Cheney , Lewis "Scooter" Libby , is now indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice. BACKGROUND On April 3 , 1998 , Plame became the third wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV . Plame met Wilson, her second husband, at a Washington D.C Party in early 1997 . She was able to reveal her CIA role to him while they were dating because he held a Security Clearance . At the time, Wilson was Separated from his second wife Jacqueline, a former French diplomat. Wilson and Plame are the parents of five-year-old twins. Education Plame is a 1985 graduate of the Pennsylvania State University , the London School Of Economics And Political Science , UK, and the College Of Europe , an international-relations school in Bruges , in 1995. Soon after graduation, she started working for the U.S. Government in Washington D.C. During her time at Penn State, she had worked on the business side of PSU's student newspaper, '' The Daily Collegian .'' According to an October 9 , 2003 ''Collegian'' article, she previously attended Lower Moreland High School in Huntingdon Valley, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania . Career Little is known of Plame's professional career. While undercover, she had described herself as an "energy analyst" for the private company " Brewster Jennings & Associates ," which the CIA later acknowledged was a Front Company for certain investigations. "Brewster Jennings" was first entered into Dun And Bradstreet records on May 22 1994 , but D&B would not discuss the source of the filing. D&B records list the company as a "legal services office," located at 101 Arch Street, Boston, Massachusetts. David Armstrong, an Andover researcher for the ''Public Education Center'', believed that the Brewster Jennings & Associates Cover had not been done convincingly and that other covers would have been established for her by the CIA . Former CIA official Larry C. Johnson , who left the CIA in 1989, indicated Plame had been a "non-official cover operative" ( NOC ). He explained: "...that meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed." Later, he wrote that "The law actually requires that a covered person 'served' overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby." {Link without Title} Valerie Plame Wilson was identified in the ''New York Times'' as a N.O.C. by Elisabeth Bumiller, who wrote (5 October 2003): But within the C.I.A., the exposure of Ms. Plame is now considered an even greater instance of treachery. Ms. Plame, a specialist in non-conventional weapons who worked overseas, had "nonofficial cover," and was what in C.I.A. parlance is called a NOC, the most difficult kind of false identity for the agency to create. While most undercover agency officers disguise their real profession by pretending to be American embassy diplomats or other United States government employees, Ms. Plame passed herself off as a private energy expert. Intelligence experts said that NOCs have especially dangerous jobs. An investigation by the Chicage Tribune in 2006 revealed that in the early 1990s, Plame's address was once listed as "AMERICAN EMBASSY ATHENS ST, APO NEW YORK NY 09255". A former senior American diplomat in Athens who remembered Plame told the ''Tribune'' "he had been aware that Plame, who was posing as a junior consular officer, really worked for the CIA." The former senior diplomat also recalled "that she served as one of the 'control officers' coordinating the visit of President George H.W. Bush to Greece and Turkey in July 1991." The ''Tribune'' also reported that "after the completion of her Athens tour, the CIA reportedly sent Plame to study in Europe." According to ''Tribune'' sources, intelligence officers serving in American embassies would have "diplomatic cover", and their indentities would be known to both "friendly and opposition intelligence services alike". This information has lead some to question whether or not Plame was a "genuine NOC". A CIA veteran with 20 years of service was quoted in the ''Tribune'' article as saying "the key is the address. That is completely unacceptable for an NOC. She wasn't an NOC, period."[http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-060311plame-story,1,2504459.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&coll=chi-news-hed Plame is known to have served in a classified position as a CIA officer. At his October 28, 2005, press conference, Special Counsel Fitzgerald noted: Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life. The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well-known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security. Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003. A controversy continues to surround the question of whether Plame was a covert agent. According to . During the press conference, Fitzgerald was asked if he knew whether Libby revealed Plame's covert status knowingly; he responded: Let me say two things. Number one, I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond this: that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward. I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. And all I'll say is that, look, we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent. We have not charged that. And so I'm not making that assertion. On February 3, 2006, court papers were released to the public pertaining to arguments held a year earlier before the United States Court of Appeals for the Distict of Columbia regarding the need for testimony from Judith Miller and Matt Cooper . Also released was a August 27, 2004 affidavit of Patrick Fitzgerald . In the addidavit, Fitzgerald states " Miller's testimony is essential to determining whether Libby is guilty of crimes, including perjury, false statements, and the improper disclosure of national defense information."[http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/libby-fitzgerald-affidavit-20060203.pdf] In a footnote to that argument, Fitzgerald writes: If Libby knowingly disclosed information about Plame's status with the CIA, Libby would appear to have violated Title 18, United States Code, Section 793 Espionage Act if the information is considered "information respecting the national defense." In order to establish a violation of Title 50, United States Code, Section 421 Intelligence Identities Protection Act , it would be necessary to establish that Libby knew or believed that Plame was a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years. To date, we have no direct evidence that Libby knew or believed that Wilson's wife was engaged in covert work. In the February 15, 2005 ruling on the issue, the court's opinion stated: As to the leaks’ harmfulness, although the record omits specifics about Plame’s work, it appears to confirm, as alleged in the public record and reported in the press, that she worked for the CIA in some unusual capacity relating to counterproliferation. Addressing deficiencies of proof regarding the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the special counsel refers to Plame as “a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years”—representations I trust the special counsel would not make without support. (8/27/04 Aff. at 28 n.15.) A Newsweek article published for the week of February 13, 2006 interpreted the information in the released documents to mean that Fitzgerald had indeed determined Valerie Plame was a covert agent. A National Review article published the same week had a differing opinion. {Link without Title} {Link without Title} : "In an interview Friday, Wilson said his comment was meant to reflect that his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand. His wife's 'ability to do the job she's been doing for close to 20 years ceased from the minute Novak's article appeared; she ceased being a clandestine officer,' he said." {Link without Title} A and Matt Cooper from going to jail for not disclosing their sources to Patrick Fitzgerald and the federal grand jury investigating her exposure by Robert Novak . {Link without Title} . The '' Boston Globe '' also editorialized: "Once before, Plame was caught up in a case illustrating how costly it can be for a CIA officer to be in danger of having her cover exposed. The agency called Plame home in 1997 in fear that Aldrich Ames, the notorious Soviet mole inside the CIA, had revealed her true identity to his KGB handlers.... Such betrayals might have been expected in the Cold War. They should not occur because political operatives in the White House want to tarnish the reputation of a critic or settle scores with a CIA they may regard as too reluctant to tailor its analyses to the talking points of a vice president or a president." {Link without Title} ''Washington Post'' reporter Dana Priest notes that these possible compromises of her identity did not change her undercover status: "Plame's case is different in that she was burned -- not once, but twice. The first time was by Aldrich H. Ames, the CIA turncoat who is believed to have given the Russians the name of every covert operative in the Soviet/East European Division over 10 years beginning around 1985. Not knowing exactly whom he had outed, the CIA recalled hundreds of operatives, including Plame, for their safety. Still, her undercover status remained intact until July, when syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak identified her by name as a CIA 'operative' in a column about her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, whom the CIA had sent to Niger to check on allegations that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium oxide there." {Link without Title} PLAME AFFAIR See Also: Plame affair In one of his first statements on the plan to invade Iraq, Joseph C. Wilson — Plame's husband and a George H. W. Bush Administration official — was quoted in the March 3, 2003, edition of magazine '' The Nation '' that "America has entered one of its periods of historical madness" in regards to the Iraq War. Wilson later wrote an said it should "never" have permitted the " 16 Words " relating to alleged Iraqi uranium purchases to be used in President Bush's 2003 State Of The Union address, and called it a "mistake" that the CIA allowed such a reference to be used in the speech. The Senate Intelligence Committee Report of July 2004, however, indicates that Wilson's piece prematurely decided on what seems to be an open question about whether an Iraqi envoy attempted to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. Syndicated Columnist Robert Novak described Plame as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction" in a column published eight days after Wilson's Op-Ed. Other journalists have also mentioned her identity. The revelation of Plame's identity by Novak is the basis for the " Plame Affair " (aka. "CIA leak scandal"). US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating the events surrounding the naming of Valerie Plame to determine what crimes, if any, were committed in the process. In October 2005, the Vice President's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby was indicted on 5 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. Court papers released on told reporters that "We don't want to try to get into kind of selective declassification" of the NIE, adding "We're looking at what can be made available." [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12228726/site/newsweek/] A "sanitized version" of the NIE in question was officially declassified on July 18, 2003, ten days after Libby's contact with Miller, and was presented at a White House background briefing on weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq[http://www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/iraq-wmd.html]. The NIE contains no references to Valerie Plame or her CIA status, but the special counsel has suggested that White House actions were part of "a plan to discredit, punish or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson."[http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/04/11/MNG3NI70TI1.DTL] Bush had previously indicated that he would fire whoever outed Plame. [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12228726/site/newsweek/] A court filing by Libby's defense team argues that Valerie Plame was not foremost on the minds of administration officials as they sought to rebut charges made by her husband, Joseph Wilson, that the White House manipulated intelligence to make a case for invasion. The filing indicates that Libby's lawyers don't intend to say he was told to reveal Plame's identity. {Link without Title} The papers also said that "Mr. Libby plans to demonstrate that the indictment is wrong when it suggests that he and other government officials viewed Ms. Wilson's role in sending her husband to Africa as important," His lawyers also plan to call Karl Rove, who remains under investigation, to the stand. EXTERNAL LINKS
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