Valerie Plame Wilson, the woman at the center of the CIA-leak investigation, says she played no role in sending her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger in 2002 to investigate reports of Iraqi attempts to buy uranium.
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“She vehemently denies that she had anything to do with suggesting Joseph Wilson do this,” says Erwin Chemerinsky, the Duke University law professor who is representing the Wilsons in their recently filed lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney, top White House adviser Karl Rove, former vice-presidential chief of staff Lewis Libby, and ten unidentified co-defendants. “She has said to me that she had nothing to do with sending Joseph Wilson to do the investigation.”
Although her husband has often made that claim, Valerie Plame Wilson has never commented publicly on the issue. The statement from her lawyer is the closest she has come to making a declaration of her own.
Her assertion conflicts with a conclusion reached by Republicans on the Senate Intelligence Committee. In a 2004 report, Republicans on the committee wrote that
interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that [Wilson’s] wife, a [Counterproliferation Division, or CPD] employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife ‘offered up his name’ and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador’s wife says, ‘my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’
Although committee chairman Sen. Pat Roberts wrote that there was “no dispute with the underlying facts,” the conclusion that Valerie Plame Wilson played a role in her husband’s trip was not part of the committee’s unanimous findings because Democratic members would not agree to it. It was included in a separate comment signed by Roberts, Sen. Christopher Bond, and Sen. Orrin Hatch.
Mrs. Wilson’s assertion also conflicts with one key statement in the indictment charging Lewis Libby with perjury. In his chronology of events leading up to the publication of Mrs. Wilson’s name, CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald writes, “On or about June 11, 2003, Libby spoke with a senior officer of the CIA to ask about the origin and circumstances of Wilson’s trip, and was advised by the CIA officer that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip.”
The Plame/Wilson lawsuit alleges “a conspiracy among current and former high-level officials in the White House…to violate the constitutional and other legal rights of Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.” In an interview with National Review Online, Chemerinsky pointed to statements made by prosecutor Fitzgerald alleging “concerted” action on the part of White House officials. “Our allegation is that there was a concerted effort by the vice president and his men to punish Joseph Wilson by outing his wife as a secret operative for the CIA,” Chemerinsky told NRO. “Those are the words of Fitzgerald…He said there was a concerted effort by those at the top of the administration.”
Joseph Wilson stressed the same point when he addressed reporters in Washington on July 14, after the lawsuit was filed. “Some officials and their allies launched what the special prosecutor has called a concerted effort to use classified information to, quote, discredit, punish or seek revenge, unquote, against my wife, Valerie, and myself,” Wilson said.
But it appears that the Wilsons and their legal team are basing their claim of a “concerted effort” not so much on the statements of Patrick Fitzgerald but on a Washington Post report on the statements of Fitzgerald. In a front-page story published April 9, the Post reported that Fitzgerald had “for the first time described a ‘concerted action’ by ‘multiple people in the White House’ — using classified information — to ‘discredit, punish or seek revenge against’ a critic of President Bush’s war in Iraq.” The quotes came from a government court filing, dated April 5, in the Libby perjury case. But a look at the actual document shows that Fitzgerald’s statements are less definitive than the Post, or the Plame/Wilson legal team, suggest.
Fitzgerald used the phrase “concerted action” once, in a footnote on page 30, in which he made the point that whatever the White House did or did not do in the CIA-leak matter would not affect the question of whether Libby lied to a grand jury. “The existence vel non of concerted action by White House officials is not dispositive of whether defendant committed perjury…” Fitzgerald wrote.
The Latin phrase vel non means “or not.” A legal dictionary defines it as “a term used by the courts in reference to the existence or nonexistence of an issue for determination.” So rather than making a straight assertion of fact, Fitzgerald was saying, in effect, “The existence, or not, of concerted action” by the White House would not affect the question of Libby’s truthfulness. (Wilson’s lawyers undoubtedly know what vel non means; they use the phrase, in another context, in the Plame complaint itself.)
As far as the phrase “multiple people in the White House” is concerned, that is taken from a sentence in which Fitzgerald wrote that there were documents and conversations in the case “that reveal a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate Mr. Wilson” — a statement that few people familiar with the matter would deny, but that also does not suggest the conspiracy alleged by the Wilsons. And as far as the phrase “discredit, punish or seek revenge against” is concerned, Fitzgerald wrote that “some documents produced to [Libby] could be characterized as reflecting a plan to discredit, punish, or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson” [emphasis added]. Or, perhaps, the documents might not be characterized that way. Or, perhaps, they could be characterized as reflecting a White House plan to defend itself against Joseph Wilson’s public criticisms.
In the lawsuit, Plame and Wilson echo the phrase “discredit, punish, or seek revenge,” but they take away the quotation marks and change it to “discredit, punish and seek revenge” [emphasis added].
Meanwhile, it appears that recent events do not support the theory that there was a conspiracy in the CIA-leak affair. Columnist Robert Novak has said that he was first told about Joseph Wilson’s wife during a wide-ranging interview in which Novak asked the question that elicited the information that Wilson’s wife played a role in his trip to Niger. Although Novak has not named his original source, it is widely thought to be former State Department official Richard Armitage, who was not part of the Cheney inner circle. Novak later called Karl Rove to ask him about Wilson’s wife; after Novak brought it up, Rove briefly confirmed it. Novak then called the CIA for comment. Since it appears that information about Plame became public as a result of Novak’s initiative, as opposed to the administration’s initiative, and since it appears that the information originally came from a source who was likely not part of any “concerted effort,” it seems difficult to suggest that the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity was the result of a conspiracy. White House officials clearly didn’t like Joseph Wilson after he began attacking the administration, but claims of “concerted” action appear shaky.
Just don’t say that to the Plame/Wilson legal team. “No matter how many times you and I go around,” says Erwin Chemerinsky, “it’s our position that there was a concerted effort by Cheney, Rove, and Libby to punish Joseph Wilson.”
— Byron York, NR’s White House correspondent, is the author of the book The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy: The Untold Story of How Democratic Operatives, Eccentric Billionaires, Liberal Activists, and Assorted Celebrities Tried to Bring Down a President — and Why They’ll Try Even Harder Next Time.
