the big news fluttering around the blogisphere these days is the story about how the c.i.a. has asked for an investigation of the white house to find out who outed valerie plame as a c.i.a. agent. for those of you who are not political blog junkies, here's a recap:
plame is the wife of joseph wilson. wilson is the guy who caused the "niger yellowcake" controversy over the summer, when he revealed that: (1) he was the one who investigated whether iraq sought to obtain uranium from niger, (2) his investigation revealed that the story was false, and (3) the bush administration was informed of his conclusions before bush's state of the union address that cited the niger story as a reason to invade iraq. the obtaining-uranium-from-niger story has previously been revealed to be bogus, but wilson showed that the bush administration knew it was bogus before the president delivered the state of the union address, but he put it in anyway.
shortly after the story broke, conservative columnist bob novak revealed that wilson's wife, valerie plame, was a c.i.a. agent. i briefly commented on the matter last july in this post, noting that outing a c.i.a. agent was a federal crime.
that's the recap.
so on friday, the c.i.a. concluded its own investigation of the matter and determined that it was likely that someone in the administration had committed a federal crime by outing plame. the c.i.a., however, does not have prosecutorial power, so it referred the matter to the justice department for investigation and possible prosecution. in a washington post story about the matter it says that "a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife." in other words, the bush administration made several efforts to out plame before they were successful with novak. the washington post story quotes that same senior official as saying "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge." i.e. outing plame was retaliation against her husband for going public with the niger yellowcake story.
this whole thing is a really big deal, and potentially very serious. i have no idea who leaked what, but as atrios notes, a "senior administration official" is someone pretty high up in the administration--cabinet level or higher. serious heads could roll if this is taken seriously by the justice department and thus several news organizations have picked up on it aside from the washington post, such as nbc, cbs, and even fox news has brought it up. you know it's a big story if even fox runs something that is so potentially damaging to the administration.
but i just finished reading the new york times this morning and this is nothing about this story. i realize as a national paper, the nyt goes to press pretty early to get its sunday edition out, but this story broke on friday and it is disturbing that it does not merit any mention anywhere in the paper. this is especially true when you consider that the c.i.a. is referring the matter to the justice department, which is run by john ashcroft. ashcroft, as a senior member of the administration himself, has everything to gain by not prosecuting the matter. it's cases like these that are the reason that the independent prosecutor office was created in the 70s. however the independent prosecutor law has lapsed and unless a new one is passed, we must rely on ashcroft to do the right thing. the only way he will do that is if there is enough public interest in this story to keep him honest. which is why i am so bothered by the fact that it goes unmentioned in today's times.
UPDATE: the above was referring to the print edition of the sunday times. there's a story on the new york times web site right now. it was apparently posted at 12:24 this afternoon. i look forward to seeing how prominent the story is in the print edition tomorrow morning.
