Category Archives: Valerie Plame

Let’s See How the Righties Bury This One

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Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story reports that the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson “caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad.”

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame’s work. Their accounts suggest that Plame’s outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran’s burgeoning nuclear program.

I’d like to see this corroborated by other news sources before filing it away as “proven fact.” But we already know, even if righties won’t admit it, that the disclosure of Plame Wilson’s status as a CIA agent damaged American intelligence gathering efforts. Dafna Linzer reported in the Washington Post (October 29, 2005):

More than Valerie Plame’s identity was exposed when her name appeared in a syndicated column in the summer of 2003.

A small Boston company listed as her employer suddenly was shown to be a bogus CIA front, and her alma mater in Belgium discovered it was a favored haunt of an American spy. At Langley, officials in the clandestine service quickly began drawing up a list of contacts and friends, cultivated over more than a decade, to triage any immediate damage.

Also,

The CIA has not conducted a formal damage assessment, as is routinely done in cases of espionage and after any legal proceedings have been exhausted.

This is significant, because Bob Woodward claimed on Larry King Live that the CIA had done a damage assessment and found no significant damage. The Right, of course, accepted Woodward’s word as gospel and has also claimed all along that Plame Wilson’s status wasn’t really classified.

Of course, no evidence is solid enough to persuade righties that their Plame Wilson mythology is wrong. Righties will tell you that Plame Wilson’s CIA status was not classified, even though the CIA itself has been saying all along that it was. In the February 13 issue of Newsweek we read “The CIA Leak: Plame Was Still Covert“:

… special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done “covert work overseas” on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA “was making specific efforts to conceal” her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge’s opinion.

Did that settle anything. Of course not. The rightie Byron York of NRO, for example, questions (in some nicely overpadded prose) if the judge actually knew what he was talking about. This gives the Righties a slim reed of an excuse to hang on to their belief in Plame Wilson’s non-classified status. But they will hang on to that reed with everything they’ve got.

If we get corroboration of Alexandrovna’s, watch to see what excuse the righties dig up to ignore it.

See also “Betrayed by the White House.”

Catching Up

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By now you don’t need me to tell you that THE story today is by Murray Waas, National Journal: “Cheney ‘Authorized’ Libby to Leak Classified Information.”

Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, testified to a federal grand jury that he had been “authorized” by Cheney and other White House “superiors” in the summer of 2003 to disclose classified information to journalists to defend the Bush administration’s use of prewar intelligence in making the case to go to war with Iraq, according to attorneys familiar with the matter, and to court records.

Libby specifically claimed that in one instance he had been authorized to divulge portions of a then-still highly classified National Intelligence Estimate regarding Saddam Hussein’s purported efforts to develop nuclear weapons, according to correspondence recently filed in federal court by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. …

… Libby testified to the grand jury that he had been authorized to share parts of the NIE with journalists in the summer of 2003 as part of an effort to rebut charges then being made by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson that the Bush administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make a public case for war.

Jane Hamsher comments:

Whether it was legal for Cheney to declassify these documents or not for purely propaganda purposes is for legal experts preferably not named Victoria Toensig to debate. Given the fact that Cheney and Libby knew as of June 17, 2003 that the Niger uranium claims were bunk and Libby began this crusade with Judy Miller anyway on June 23, the service to which these documents were put remain safely outside of “ethical” territory.

Steve Soto:

Keep in mind this revelation comes days after Libby’s “faulty memory” defense was neutered when it was revealed that Cheney and Libby were aware in mid-June 2003 that the CIA had discredited the Niger claim, weeks before Libby began talking to reporters. Both of these taken together indicate what we have suspected all along: Cheney and Libby, as well as others in the White House, engaged in a payback campaign to destroy Joe Wilson and his wife in July 2003, even after they knew weeks before that the Niger story was about to unravel, and Congress had been told of such.

Andrew Sullivan:

So some intelligence matters are so important that the administration will not divulge them even to critical members of Congress. But others are leaked to journalists to win a political war. This is a pointed reminder that when the administration says it is withholding information to protect national security, a hefty dose of skepticism is in order. The same goes for their assurance that their wire-tapping has never been abused. Remind me again: at this point, why should we trust them?

Well, hell if I know, Andrew.

In other news, the President today reminded us how scared we’re supposed to be of terrorists by revealing details of a 2002 al Qaeda plot to slam an airplane into a Los Angeles tower. This is, I believe item #1 on the official White House list of foiled terrorist plots released last October. Certain details given by the President — the use of shoe bombs to blow open the cockpit door, for example — have met with some skepticism. But, hey, if some guy could take apart the Brooklyn Bridge with a blowtorch without anyone noticing, then why not shoe bombs?

Finally, this Associated Press story — “Reid Aided Abramoff Clients, Records Show” has been hailed on the Right Blogosphere as the Missing Link between Democrats and Jack Abramoff that they all fervently believed would be found. But Scott Shields at MyDD smells a smear:

The first clue was that Senator Reid has a long history of protecting gambling in Nevada from outside competition. He does, after all, represent Las Vegas. So the fact that he sought to keep Indian casinos from expanding off of their reservations, while I may not necessarily agree, makes sense. He didn’t need lobbyists telling him what to do on the issue, as he’d held that position long before they’d ever come knocking. But still… the article’s a long one. I wasn’t quite ready to dismiss it.

However,

The story totally lost credibility for me when it got to mentioning the Marianas Islands. By now, you’re probably aware of the fact that one of Abramoff’s pet projects was maintaining a low minimum wage in U.S. territories not subject to the federal minimum wage. This was of interest to the Republicans because manufacturers could exploit the territories’ low wages to essentially create a sweatshop environment without completely having to leave America. This AP story tries to imply that Reid was complicit in this plot.

But the AP story, as Josh Marshall notes, leaves out an important detail — there was no quid quo pro. No indication that Reid took any action to support Abramoff’s position. So Abramoff lobbying partners may indeed have billed hours for phone calls and meetings with Reid’s office, but it didn’t get ’em anything from Reid.

Of course, this detail will be lost on the Right Blogosphere. In the next few days they’ll persuade themselves that Senator Reid was Abramoff’s chief accomplice.

More great moments in journalism: MSNBC ran a headline “Top Democrat Reid Met Often With Abramoff” over this same AP story, which makes no claim Reid and Abramoff ever met at all.

Bedfellows

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Viveca Novak’s account of what she told Bob Luskin about the Plamegate investigation is up at Time. And it reveals much about why what passes for “jounalism” is clueless.

Washington “journalists” and Washington “government officials” and their “attorneys” are all one big happy family. They have drinks together. They meet for dinner. They go to the same parties. They bump into each other at posh vacation spots. And loyalty to one’s source-buddies comes first — before employer, nation, or truth itself.

This has been apparent of the television “punditocracy” — Cokie et al. — for years. But after the Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, and now Viveca Novak episode, it is apparent more humble print reporters have crawled into the same compromised bed.

As Jeralyn, Kevin, and Jane point out, the impact of Novak’s testimony on Karl Rove’s future depends a lot on what other information Patrick Fitzgerald might have. But the corruption of journalism is crystal clear. I sincerely hope that every working reporter covering Washington politics — and politics elsewhere — is doing some heavy-duty soul searching right now.

Greg Mitchell writes at Editor & Publisher:

Where will it end, and when will reporters pay with their jobs? First we learn that Bob Woodward failed to tell his editor for years about his role in the Plame/CIA leak case. Today, we find out that Time reporter Viveca Novak not only kept her editors in the dark about her own involvement, but even had a two-hour chat with the special prosecutor about it well before telling her superiors.

At the end of her first-person account at Time online today, we are told in a brief editor’s note that she is by ”mutual agreement” now on a “leave of absence.” Has she been taken to the woodshed and, if not, why not?

Swopa writes,

… as it turns out, just for the sake of stalling Rove’s indictment for a month or two, Luskin has torched Novak’s career with Time (which notes as the end of her article that she is on a mutually agreed “leave of absence”). It seems that Viveca didn’t tell her bosses about her chats with Luskin to begin with, nor even when she first was interviewed by Fitzgerald — and when she did admit her involvement after being asked to testify under oath, they weren’t happy.

There should be an object lesson there for Washington, D.C. reporters playing the “access journalism” game … the sources who you’re covering up for even as they give you lies and personal smears will burn you in the blink of an eye if it helps them in the slightest.

Then again, that seems to be a larger message that the Bushites are all too happy to send to the media. What the latter thought was merely an occasionally distasteful exchange of information was really a blackmail ring. In the Corleone administration, reporters aren’t expected to keep quiet out of duty to the First Amendment — they’re expected to do so because they’ll be destroyed by any means possible if they don’t.

Reporters, please note: “Sources” are not “buddies.” And sources who try to use you to manipulate news, by feeding you lies and smears, are not worthy of protection. Got that?

It’s Hadley

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Or so say Michael Smith and Sarah Baxter in the London Times.

THE mysterious source who gave America’s foremost journalist, Bob Woodward, a tip-off about the CIA agent at the centre of one of Washington’s biggest political storms was Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, according to lawyers close to the investigation.

Are we sure?

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council (NSC) denied that Hadley was the journalist’s source. However, in South Korea on Friday during an official visit with President George W Bush, Hadley dodged the question.

“I’ve also seen press reports from White House officials saying that I am not one of his sources,” Hadley said with a smile. Asked if this was a yes or no he replied: “It is what it is.”

A White House official said the national security adviser’s ambiguity was unintentional and repeated that Hadley was not Woodward’s source. But others close to the investigation insisted that he was.

This is the part that makes no sense to me:

Supporters of Cheney’s disgraced aide are jubilant that this casts doubt on special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s contention that Libby was the first to spread the word about Plame.

Fitzgerald only said that Libby was the first KNOWN administration official to spread the word about Plame, and I don’t see how Libby’s being first, sixth, or twenty-seventh makes a dadblamed difference to any of the charges against him.

If anything, seems to me it looks a lot worse for the Bushies if someone else was in on the word spreading, especially a whole month earlier. Can we say, conspiracy?

In the past few hours we’ve learned that the Source, whoever it was, kind of “forgot” about the conversation and didn’t go to Patrick Fitzgerald to ‘fess up until Bob Woodward “reminded” him about it. Has Hadley offered any testimony to Fitzgerald or other federal investigators before this? I don’t know. What about the email Karl Rove sent to Hadley after his July 2003 conversation with Matt Cooper? Why did Rove email Hadley?

Steve Soto asked,

If Hadley came forward to tell Fitzgerald that he was releasing Woodward from any pledge of confidentiality, what and who prompted Hadley to do this? Did Scooter or Cheney force Hadley’s hand, knowing that Libby wasn’t the first to talk with reporters about Plame’s identity? Remember that just before the Libby indictment, there were stories that Hadley assumed he would be indicted. …

… If Hadley was in fact the first administration official to talk to a member of the media about Plame’s identity, and knowingly revealing that she was a possible covert operative due to her assignment in the Directorate of Operations, how plausible is it that his boss at the time didn’t know about this either. You know, his boss, the current Secretary of State?

Why would Karl Rove have emailed Hadley, in particular? Hmm.

Is Woody Helping Scooter?

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On MSNBC, Chris Matthews is referring to Bob Woodward’s unnamed administration official as “Deep Throat II.” Please…

[Update: John Dean thinks DTII could be Ari Fleischer. He just said this to Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.

Update update: Raw Story says it’s Stephen Hadley.]

(If you’ve not been following the new Woodward/Plame angle, the details are here.)

Matthews speculates that DTII and/or Woodward came forward now in an attempt to take some of the shine off the Libby indictment. I don’t see how Woodward’s revelation makes any difference to the Libby indictment. Whether Libby was the first leaker or not doesn’t seem to me to matter to the charges. And as Maha reader Donna pointed out, Fitzgerald didn’t claim that Libby was the first leaker, just that he was the first official KNOWN to have leaked. The whole reason Libby was indicted is that he obstructed the investigation and prevented Fitzgerald from knowing stuff. So if they’re trying to manufacture a talking point, this seems a pretty lame effort.

On the other hand, righties have certainly based talking points on much less.

Howie Kurtz reports that Woodward apologized today for waiting two years to tell WaPo‘s executive about his connection to the Plame case. The editor, Leonard Downie Jr., has been all CNN and MSNBC today claiming that he was not angry with Woodward and that all was forgiven and he hopes Woodward keeps writing for the Washington Post.

Downie also said that three administration officials talked about Valerie Plame Wilson to Bob Woodward. Two have given releases for Bob to write about their conversation, and those two are Scooter Libby and Andy Card. But the third remains a mystery.

Update: See also first-rate rant by ReddHedd at firedoglake.

Sore Throat

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Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig report in today’s Washington Post that some “administration official” told Bob Woodward about Valerie Plame Wilson a whole month before Scooter Libby blabbed to Judy Miller et al.

In a more than two-hour deposition, Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid-June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released yesterday.

The unnamed official, not Bob Woodward, alerted Patrick Fitzgerald to this conversation on November 3. Woodward testified to a grand jury Monday. (So I guess Fitz got himself another grand jury, huh?) Woodward hadn’t bothered to tell even his editors at WaPo about what the official told him until last month.

WaPo held off reporting about Woodward’s testimony until today because they hoped the official would release Woodward from a confidentiality agreement. I guess that didn’t happen.

A spokesperson for Karl Rove says the official wasn’t Karl. And we have absolutely no reason to believe anything a spokesperson for Karl Rove says, do we?

Of course, there’s not much reason to trust anything Woodward says, either. According to Woodward, back in June 2003 he tipped off Walter Pincus of WaPo about Joe Wilson’s wife, but Pincus says that’s not so.

Woodward’s statement said he testified: “I told Walter Pincus, a reporter at The Post, without naming my source, that I understood Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA as a WMD analyst.”

Pincus said he does not recall Woodward telling him that. In an interview, Pincus said he cannot imagine he would have forgotten such a conversation around the same time he was writing about Wilson.

“Are you kidding?” Pincus said. “I certainly would have remembered that.”

Pincus said Woodward may be confused about the timing and the exact nature of the conversation. He said he remembers Woodward making a vague mention to him in October 2003. That month, Pincus had written a story explaining how an administration source had contacted him about Wilson. He recalled Woodward telling him that Pincus was not the only person who had been contacted.

Ol’ Bob seems confused about many things. As reported by Jane Hamsher at firedoglake:

Woodward isn’t just reluctant to criticize the Administration — he’s become the water carrier of choice. Schanberg doesn’t report the big, fat whopping lie that Woodward went on to tell in that interview, that he had seen the CIA damage report done on the Plame leak:

    They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that Joe Wilson’s wife was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn’t have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone and there was just some embarrassment.

Two days later, the WaPo ran a story saying that no such CIA report was ever done. I guess that was the official answer as to what Woodward’s “news room colleagues” thought of his put-down of their efforts.

Larry Johnson went further:

    I have spoken to some people who are in a position to know. There has been damage. My source, however, declined to share classified information.

As Josh Marshall points out, this story shows that the integrity challenged Woodward, who has been pooh-poohing the Plame Wilson story all along, was part of it from the beginning.

Scooter’s lawyers are now claiming that this disclosure somehow exonerates their client.

“If what Woodward says is so, will Mr. Fitzgerald now say he was wrong to say on TV that Scooter Libby was the first official to give this information to a reporter?” Jeffress said last night. “The second question I would have is: Why did Mr. Fitzgerald indict Mr. Libby before fully investigating what other reporters knew about Wilson’s wife?”

Of course, if ol’ Bob was keeping this disclosure a secret even from his editors, how exactly was Fitz supposed to know about it? But Fitz is still shaking the trees; the Libby indictment is not just a result but is part of his tree-shaking strategy, no doubt.

We are left to wonder who the unnamed official is and why this person waited until after the Libby indictment to reveal the Woodward connection to Fitzgerald. Guesses?

Update–hack sighting: CNN just reported on this story. They exhumed Bob Barr, of all people, to interview about the Energy Task Force. Lame.

It Ain’t Over ‘Til Scooter Sings

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Murray Waas has a new article at National Review Journal explaining that Karl Rove is not free and clear.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald delayed a decision on whether to seek criminal charges against Karl Rove in large part because he wants to determine whether Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, can provide information on Rove’s role in the CIA leak case, according to attorneys involved in the investigation.

Even if Fitzgerald concludes in the near future that he does not have sufficient evidence to charge Rove, the special prosecutor would not rule out bringing charges at a later date and would not finish his inquiry on Rove until he hears whatever information Libby might provide — either incriminating or exculpatory — on Rove’s role, the sources said.

Karl could be under a cloud for many, many months. Heh.

What’d I Say?

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If you are a regular here you have heard me say this before, but I’m going to say it again because repeated lies need repeated correction.

As I wrote a few days ago, righties are trying to confuse the issues surrounding Libby’s Leaks by fudging the distinction between the words covert and classified. I found this again in an article in World Nut Daily, which argues that Valerie Plame Wilson (hereafter VPW) was no longer covert because she hadn’t worked outside the United States for at least five years. And since she was not covert, they’re trying to argue that Scooter et al. could not have committed a crime by leaking her identity as a CIA agent.

It may be that VPW had not taken part in overseas covert operations for some time. However, her status was still classified. The indictments brought against Scooter Libby say that VPW’s status at the CIA was classified. Apparently Patrick Fitzgerald went to great lengths to verify that her status was classified before he brought indictments, including asking her neighbors if they knew she worked at the CIA. Rightie mythology that everybody on the eastern seaboard knew she was an agent is a Big Lie.

The indictment says (page 3):

At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community.


Patrick Fitzgerald stated:

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.

Righties play with words to spread the lie that leaking VPW’s identity did not potentially harm national security. Once again, they show how easily people who call themselves “patriots” can betray their own country.

If VPW wasn’t actively working as an undercover spy, then what difference did it make to out her? Once again, it made a difference to agents who are engaged in covert operations right now. Outing VPW also outed the dummy company that had provided a cover to her and still provided a cover to possibly hundreds of over agents — until the leak.

As explained by two former agents who were interviewed by Rita Cosby:

JIM MARCINKOWSKY, FORMER CIA AGENT WHO TRAINED WITH PLAME: We‘re outraged. Betrayal—I mean, that‘s the—that‘s the lowest description I can put on it. We held this secret for 18 years until betrayed by the White House, whether we were inside the agency or outside the agency. It‘s is simply outrageous.

COSBY: You know, Melissa, do you find it sort of ironic that here you go—I know when you go for your job and your training, you‘re told, Keep these things covert. You don‘t expect the government to be the one doing the outing.

MELISSA BOYLE MAHLE, FORMER CIA SPY: No, you certainly don‘t because you know your cover is what allows to you do your job. And so since the government presumably wants you to do your job, that they‘ll also protect it.

COSBY: You know, Jim, let‘s talk about this company, I found this fascinating, a company called Brewster Jennings and Associates. It‘s been outed now by others, so we can talk about it. But explain (INAUDIBLE) sort of it was sort of a mock company under a cover.

MARCINKOWSKY: Well, that‘s exactly right. There‘s commercial covers. You‘re not protected overseas by governmental immunity, diplomatic immunity. And if you get caught under one of those kinds of covers, non-official cover, you‘re going to suffer the consequences of any other body that may be operating and conducting the espionage in a foreign country.

COSBY: But Jim, with this Brewster-Jennings, it was a business card. It was sort of a pseudo-company that folks who worked for the CIA could pretend that they worked for this company, right?

MARCINKOWSKY: Correct. And it doesn‘t matter whether it‘s just a telephone or a business card. The fact of the matter was, it was sufficient to get in and out of a country safely, and that‘s all that matters in the eyes of an agent.

COSBY: You know, and how detrimental, Melissa, when something like a Brewster Jennings is let out? Because I would imagine a lot of agents use that as their cover.

MAHLE: Well, I tell you, when you start exposing how—what kinds of covers that the CIA uses in whether business or whatever, you start setting a trail that bad guys can follow and say, Hey, let‘s look at these kind of companies and see what—you know, Maybe we can find some more agents.

COSBY: Well, that‘s what I was going to say. There‘s a huge rippling effect, right, Melissa?

MAHLE: Yes, and I think that‘s one of the things that really concerns the CIA because we need to protect our agents and our officers if we‘re going to be able to achieve our mission. …

Righties don’t actually care about the security of the United States. They only care that their tribal leaders in the Bush Regime don’t have to suffer the indignity of being held responsible for anything.

Good Question

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In today’s Washington Post, Jim Hoagland asks why the White House didn’t answer Joe Wilson’s 2003 op ed openly instead of resorting to a smear campaign.

Dear Mr. President,

Wouldn’t a letter to the editor have sufficed?

Seriously. Wouldn’t it have been better if you or Karl Rove or Scooter Libby had just written a letter to the newspapers that got so deep under the official skin by publishing the leaks and articles provided by former ambassador Joe Wilson?

“He’s full of it” would have been one time-honored approach, followed by convincing supporting detail, of which you had some. Why not spring for a stamp and argue your case in public, rather than let Official A (aka Rove) and Libby overreact with anonymous counter-leaks about Wilson’s wife, the CIA officer and Vanity Fair babe?

Mr. Hoagland assumes that the Bush administration could answer Wilson’s charges without lying or subterfuge, which I doubt. But it’s still a good question, and it gets to the heart of what’s fundamentally wrong with the Bush Administration: It doesn’t trust anyone outside its small inner circle.

In the past, presidents have responded to their opposition by writing letters to the editor. Even when he was bogged down by the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln would from time to time fire off a letter to a newspaper to answer some of his critics. If Scooter Libby had composed a counter-op ed to answer Joe Wilson instead of embarking on the secret smear campaign, probably both Wilson’s article and Libby’s answer quickly would have dropped into the memory hole.

Hoagland continues, addressing President Bush,

It is not surprising that your White House distrusts and/or despises the media, the CIA, the State Department’s career officers, the United Nations and a host of other institutions that you could not control, but that you could not accept that you could not control. Like most paranoia, yours is not totally unfounded: People in those institutions were out to defy and/or get you.

But you and yours helped them accomplish the mission. One lesson available in this story is that amateurs are no match for the CIA in disinformation campaigns. The spies are far better at operating in the shadows than you politicians will ever be. They have a license to dissemble. …

It’s not clear to me how the CIA has been “dissembling” in the Plame case, but let’s go on

… But you feared something else more. You feared openness. You feared laying out your fallibilities along with your strengths for others to judge. You feared laying out facts — good, bad and indifferent — for others to judge. You were unable even to acknowledge that the fiefdoms within your administration were at war. So all attacks had to be subterranean.

This leads to a devastating but now inescapable conclusion: You distrusted not only the media but the public at large, which, unlike yourself, does rely on publicly available information that is carried in the media. …

…Telling the public that there was an independent stream of intelligence, with all the problems and counterattacks it would have triggered from the opposition leakers, would have been better for you than aides’ taking it on themselves to plant stealthy suggestions of nepotism at the CIA.

This administration has a pathological fear of openness, even in circumstances that shouldn’t require secrets. This has got to be the least transparent administration ever to take up space in the White House.