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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SiouxPal who wrote (172813)	10/18/2005 8:57:35 PM
From: mistermj	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

GOOD NEWS FOR SCOOTER – BUT MORE MSM CONFUSION [Andy McCarthy] In talking on Sunday about Judy Miller’s revelations and their possible fallout under the espionage act (which generally prohibits leaking classified information), Mark Levin and yours truly batted around whether the “fact” that Valerie Plame worked in CIA’s WINPAC unit could have been classified information. The question seemed important because Judy Miller says that’s what Scooter Libby told her. Well, it looks like the fact was not a fact. AP reports that Plame, according to agency sources, never worked in WINPAC at all. Obviously, for something to be classified information, it has to be information that the government (a) possesses and (b) has classified. If Plame didn’t work where Scooter said she worked, his saying it cannot have been an illegal communication of classified information. Could the information still be relevant? Sure. But here is where the media again sows confusion. AP – wishfully relying on a Democrat who worked on the Senate Whitewater Committee – relates: “The incorrect information about where Plame worked in the CIA could be a significant lead for investigators. Accurate information presumably can come from any number of sources, while inaccurate information might more easily be traceable to a single document or a particular meeting.” In other words, since it’s usually easier to track down an error, it may help identify which officials were gathering information about Joseph Wilson, and whether there was – as the Washington Post put it yesterday – “a conspiracy within the Bush administration to discredit Wilson[.]” (See my post on that here.) The only problem with that is that it is not a crime in this country to discredit Joseph Wilson – if it were, we’d have to lock up every member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Nor is it a crime to put out unflattering information about Joseph Wilson. Or to observe that he got the Niger boondoggle not because he was especially suited to the task but because his wife, who – it was no secret – worked at the agency, recommended him for the gig. It is a crime to leak classified information. If classified information is not at issue, a leak might be hardball politics, but it’s not a crime. Now, the inaccurate information could be pertinent if people were not straight with investigators. That is, if the FBI asked whether there was an effort to discredit Wilson, and there was but involved officials denied it, a piece of erroneous information traceable from person to person could unravel such a lie. But assuming people were forthright with investigators, the erroneous WINPAC information could be helpful to the subjects of the leak investigation. corner.nationalreview.com