Fitzgerald Reveals New Information on Valerie Plame Wilson's Covert CIA Status

May 27 (LPAC)--Cutting through the clouds of obfuscation generated by backers of Vice President Dick Cheney and his former chief of staff Lewis Libby, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has publicly released documentation proving that Valerie Plame Wilson was, at the time of her exposure, a covert CIA officer whose status was covered by the Intelligence Identities Protect Act.

Libby's defenders, including GOP Presidential candidate and former Senator Fred Thompson, still continue to claim that Mrs. Wilson was "not a 'covered person' under the statute," and that there was no violation of the law when her identity was revealed, and therefore Fitzgerald's prosecution of Libby was just a political witch hunt. Fitzgerald blows this argument apart in his memorandum, and he shows that, even though the court excluded evidence of Mrs. Wilson's CIA status from being presented to the jury at Libby's trial, such evidence must be taken into account in determining Libby's sentence. That is, in judging the gravity of Libby's obstruction of justice, the court must consider what was the nature of the investigation which Libby obstructed and prevented from being completed.

In an "Unclassified Summary of Valerie Plame Wilson's CIA Employment and Cover History," filed with the court as Exhibit A to the government's memorandum on sentencing guidelines applicable to Libby, and which was reviewed by EIRNS , the CIA acknowledges:

* That Valerie Wilson was "an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO) ... assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) at CIA Headquarters, where she served as the chief of a CPD component with responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq."

* That Mrs. Wilson traveled overseas "at least seven times to more than ten countries" while she was assigned to CPD. "When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity--sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias--but always using cover--whether official or non-official cover (NOC)-- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."

* That as a result of the leak of her identity, "the CIA lifted Ms. Wilson's cover," and subsequently "rolled back her cover effective 14 July 2003, the date of the leak," and eventually to 1 January 2002.

Fitzgerald also attaches, as an official record, the transcript of Mrs. Wilson's testimony to a March 16 hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, an event which was ridiculed at the time by news media such as the Washington Post. In her testimony, Mrs. Wilson stated that breaches of security such as the leak of her identity, have "jeopardized and destroyed entire networks of foreign agents ... Lives are literally at stake."

Fitzgerald also emphasizes that the FBI and the grand jury were also investigating violations of the Espionage Act, which pertains to improper disclosure of national defense information, and that Libby "knew it" when he lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury.

Fitzgerald repeats in this memorandum, that Libby's disclosure of information regarding Mrs. Wilson "may have been sanctioned by the Vice President."