Somebody better be indicted


Let's run the chronology:
Ambassador Wilson criticizes Bush Administration for lying of uranium from Niger, which he had debunked for the CIA.

Source inside White House leaks Ambassador Wilson's wife's name, says she's an operative for CIA on Weapons of Mass Destruction, implies Wilson only got Niger assignment out of her connections.

Robert Novak publishes her name in his column.

CIA askes Justice Department to investigate this. This gets leaked to the press last week.

White House takes "Slime and defend" stance, to sully the name of Ambassador Wilson.

Robert Novak announces the name of the company that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked for on CNN last night, in connection with his and her donations to Al Gore in 2000. The company was a CIA front. Thanks, Bob. Fucking Prince of Darkness. This guy's a one-man intelligence destruction agent. I thought columnists were supposed to add to our discourse somehow.

(As an aside, why would anyone think that getting an assignment to investigate uranium from Niger would be such a joyride? Sounds like the thrill of going to Toledo to investigate the maker of the scales.)

Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm (washingtonpost.com)

The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign.

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons."

(snip)
The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."

"There is no such firm, I'm convinced," he continued. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery."

In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates.

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