Jim Sinclair
Are Reporters Above the Law?
Sat Jun 26, 2004 15:37
64.140.158.118

Friday, June 25, 2004, 11:22:00 AM EST

Are Reporters Above the Law?
Author: Jim Sinclair
http://www.jsmineset.com/home.asp

Is there a law that protects a reporter when he knowingly reveals the identity of a Secret Agent?

For those of you that haven’t read the article that outed Valerie Plame as a CIA-NOC, thereby revealing the cover company operating in Saudi Arabia, here it is. (See below).

When this happens in the intelligence business, standard operating practice requires that a study be done of every person in the operation and everyone these people had contact with.

It is reasonable to assume that as a result of this outing, many other operations had to be crashed, covers were blown and people and other assets were endangered if not in fact ruined.

So I ask those professional legal experts that might benefit from my work: Is there a law that protects a reporter from prosecution when he knowingly reveals information like this?

The question in my mind is who in fact here committed the crime and did anyone in the White House really out a CIA-NOC. If the law allows a reporter to commit such an act, then any reporter can collapse the intelligence community with total impunity. What a great way for a sleeper agent to operate - although in no way do I believe this reporter is a sleeper agent.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20030714.shtml

Mission to Niger
Robert Novak (archive)

July 14, 2003

Editor's Note: Robert Novak wrote a column on Oct. 1, 2003 in response to the story that began to unfold three months after this column originally ran.

WASHINGTON -- The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a political firestorm that has not yet subsided.

Wilson's report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it. Certainly, President Bush did not, prior to his 2003 State of the Union address, when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to the British government. That the British relied on forged documents made Wilson's mission, nearly a year earlier, the basis of furious Democratic accusations of burying intelligence though the report was forgotten by the time the president spoke.

Reluctance at the White House to admit a mistake has led Democrats ever closer to saying the president lied the country into war. Even after a belated admission of error last Monday, finger-pointing between Bush administration agencies continued. Messages between Washington and the presidential entourage traveling in Africa hashed over the mission to Niger.

Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

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.

After eight days in the Niger capital of Niamey (where he once served), Wilson made an oral report in Langley that an Iraqi uranium purchase was "highly unlikely," though he also mentioned in passing that a 1988 Iraqi delegation tried to establish commercial contacts. CIA officials did not regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report of Wilson's briefing remains classified.

All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat had given the CIA a negative report. Not until Wilson went public on July 6, however, did his finding ignite the firestorm.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Wilson had taken a measured public position -- viewing weapons of mass destruction as a danger but considering military action as a last resort. He has seemed much more critical of the administration since revealing his role in Niger. In the Washington Post July 6, he talked about the Bush team "misrepresenting the facts," asking: "What else are they lying about?"

After the White House admitted error, Wilson declined all television and radio interviews. "The story was never me," he told me, "it was always the statement in (Bush's) speech." The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately ignored Wilson's advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA summary of what their envoy reported. The Agency never before has declassified that kind of information, but the White House would like it to do just that now -- in its and in the public's interest.

=================================

LEAK-GATE: The White House Scandal Page 1
... 17, Bush staff gets CIA leak deadline, APFN, klvnetacom, Sat 10/4/2003.
18, Bush staff gets CIA leak deadline: APFN, klvnetacom, Sat 10/4/2003. ...
HTTP://www.apfn.org/apfn/leakgate.htm

Hunt for CIA-leak clues intensifies
... produce any documents that relate to Wilson or his wife, his CIA-sponsored trip ... LEAK
- GATE: This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale ... APFN Message Board. ...
HTTP://www.apfn.org/LEAK-GATE/clues.htm

Eyebrows up as Bush sees lawyer in CIA leak case
By RON HUTCHESON and STEPHEN HENDERSON
Knight Ridder Tribune News
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2608525

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's decision to line up a defense lawyer indicates he's worried about becoming entangled in a grand jury investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's name to a newspaper columnist, legal experts said Thursday.

Bush, who has put Washington lawyer James E. Sharp on standby, said Thursday that he wasn't sure if he would need legal help. His decision to contact a lawyer raised eyebrows in legal circles and led Democrats to suggest that he has something to hide.

It was the first indication that the grand jury inquiry into the CIA officer's exposure could reach the highest levels at the White House. The panel, working under the direction of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago, is trying to find out whether the Bush administration leaked the name of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame last July to columnist Robert Novak to retaliate for her husband's high-profile opposition to the war in Iraq. Novak won't say where he got the information.

Top aides to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney already have testified before the grand jury. The president has said he has no idea who was behind the leak and has pledged full cooperation with investigators. Deliberately revealing the identity of a CIA operative can be a federal crime in certain circumstances.

"This is a criminal matter. It's a serious matter. I have met with an attorney to determine whether or not I need his advice," Bush said before leaving on a trip to Italy and France. "If I deem I need his advice, I'll probably hire him."

Sharp has declined to discuss his arrangement with the president and didn't return a phone call to his office. In the 1980s, Sharp represented retired Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord during the Iran-Contra scandal.

Criminal-law experts speculated that Bush turned to Sharp after receiving indications that he'll be asked to talk to the grand jury.

Georgetown University law professor Paul Rothstein cautioned against "overstating" the possibility of Bush's personal involvement in the leak. But he said the president's decision suggested, at the very least, that Bush might be anticipating a grand jury appearance.

"My eyebrows went up when I heard about it," said Rothstein, an expert in criminal law. "I think we have to read this move as some kind of feeling that there's some chance, no matter how remote, that there may be some personal liability on the president's part, or that someone might try to suggest there is."

Democrats said Bush's move called into question his pledges of full cooperation. "It speaks for itself that the president initially claimed he wanted to get to the bottom of this, but now he's suddenly retained a lawyer," Democratic Party spokesman Jano Cabrera said. "President Bush should come forward with what he knows and come clean with the American people."
==============================

MSNBC - May 21, 2004
... The grand jury, which was convened after MSNBC.com and NBC News reported in September that the CIA had requested a criminal investigation of the leak, has also ...


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