Citizenspook: Is David Corn Feeling Fitzgerald's Heat?

Did David Corn publish intentionally misleading quotations from Fitzgerald's press conference?

BACKGROUND

My report of August 19, 2005, "TREASONGATE: IN CAHOOTS -- How The White House, Wilson, Novak, Corn and Plame Conspired for Treason" accuses DC and JW of being part of a broad double agent conspiracy to out Plame and Brewster Jennings.

One of the most interesting aspects of that report concerns the fact that it was David Corn who was the first person in the media to out Plame's "covert" status as a CIA officer. Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 but it wasn't until two days later, July 16, 2003, that DC was the first person to publish that she was an undercover CIA agent working on WMD. His source may have been JW.

It was Clifford May at The National Review who first brought this to our attention in a July 2005 column.

From my report:

Clifford May's article, Who Exposed Secret Agent Plame?published in National Review online, July 15th 2005, makes a strong case that, while Novak was the first person to expose "Wilson's wife", Corn is actually the journalist responsible for first publishing Plame's undercover/covert status:

"This just in: Bob Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA.

Much Much more....
http://citizenspook.blogspot.com/2005/10/treasongate-is-david-corn-feeling.html



http://citizenspook.blogspot.com/

Novakula clearly stated she was an "operative".

used in reference to the CIA. Look in a decent dictionary and one of the definitions of "operative" is "secret agent."

As regards the CIA, The Directorate of Operations is where the spooks or "operatives" are. Does it take a great leap of logic to surmise that a CIA "operative" is an undercover agent?

And that if Wilson's wife is publicly known in Wash DC as an energy consultant for some private firm, as she was, but actually works for the CIA that she then has covert or Nonofficial Cover status?

Yes, citizenspook is right, no one would have ever figured out that Wilson's wife was a CIA NOC if David Corn hadn't told them. :sarcasm:

How come Novak publishes "Wilson's wife was an agency operative" and two days later Cornholio publishes her tied to the word 'covert'?

There is only two days there, now you might be making the assumption that everyone picked up the hint of her outing on the first round of disclosures.

Though that wouldn't be accurate because a month later Novak mentions the name Brewster Jennings. The message not clear enough the first time? Additional disclosures of classified information is still a totally different crime right? Or am I too far out of the box...


From the CS Blog...

One of the most interesting aspects of that report concerns the fact that it was David Corn who was the first person in the media to out Plame's "covert" status as a CIA officer. Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 but it wasn't until two days later, July 16, 2003, that DC was the first person to publish that she was an undercover CIA agent working on WMD. His source may have been JW.

Though that wouldn't be accurate because a month later Novak mentions the name Brewster Jennings.

It was almost 3 months later before B-J was named.

and it was the same pattern ...one bit by Novakula on 10/03

and another bit by Finkus on 10/04

so much for people being able to put 2 and 2 together....

September 26 2003 DoJ begins formal investigation

September 29 2003 Novak CHANGES HIS STORY. He now says that he did not know that Plame was NOC (tailored to a defense against the IIPA)

October 3 2003 Novak broadcast on CNN that Plame had listed BREWSTER-JENNINGS on her W-2 (signed April 1999)

October 3 2003 Two "Bush administration officials" told Pincus and Allen that all the leaks were true - especially the W-2.

October 4 2003 Pincus and Allen published that information for all the world to see.


Though it can be argued that enough information was put out in July to OUT B-J ...It wasn't confirmed publicly till October.

was more than that. Just the ones who mattered. What was the target audience for the leak? IMO the target audience wasn't primarily the average guy in New Jersey or Kansas or California who likely doesn't make NYT or Novak regular daily reading. Or if he did would go "damn" and go on about his business.

Who was the main target audience for the leak? Likely those who would need no additional helpful "hints." Gov't circles, DC insiders, politicians, corporate media and others. The opinion makers and shapers. (And of course the intel community, especially those in the CIA, whose members had not all fallen in line with the Administration. But Porter Goss would take care of that later.)

But you, following May and CS, apparently still ignore that "operative," defined in the dictionary as "secret agent," by definition means the agent is "covert." No leap of logic and no insider info required. (Yes, Novak could have used the word agent or analyst but he didn't. He used a loaded word like "operative" which has a particularly specific meaning, especially in DC.) Where would an operative likely work within the CIA? The Directorate of Operations? Just for the kiddies here's a bit of info courtesy of your friendly CIA (you too can grow up to be a spy!):



You really can't imagine why anyone, including or especially a Wash DC reporter who covers politics and national security, might read Novak's column identifying Plame as a CIA operative and arrive at the conclusion that Plame was a secret agent, i.e. a covert agent?

An operative working on WMD, as Novak identified her citing senior Administration sources, would work in the Counterproliferation Division in the DO. No CPD for kids site alas. But I imagine a DC reporter who's covered the national security establishment wouldn't have to resort to reading old Tom Clancy novels to have an idea of what that division does.

(And needless to say, any foreign intel outfits wouldn't need assistance to figure things out for themselves.)

Novak "outed" Brewster Jennings on CNN on October 3 (almost three months after his Plame column) while he was disparaging the claim that Plame was covert and claiming that the Wilsons were partisans based on campaign contributions to Gore, as I recall. (This was a week after the DOJ opened a formal investigation. Some interesting stuff was going on at that time in reference to the investigation.) But really it was the identification of Valerie Wilson as a CIA agent that compromised Brewster Jennings.

Anyone with an internet connection motivated by nothing more than idle curiosity could have discovered Valerie Wilson's association with Brewster Jennings. Look up the Wilsons' campaign donations for the 2000 election cycle as I did. Brewster Jennings is listed as her employer. Nothing remarkable about that until she's identified as a CIA operative. (A CIA operative with official cover, rather than nonofficial cover, would have another government agency as his/her employer of record.)

As for CS citing Clifford May and spinning off from there into bizarro world, well May's a problematic source from which to derive inspiration. On the one hand May says Novak didn't blow Plame's cover, Corn and Wilson did. On the other hand May has claimed that he knew Plame worked for the CIA weeks before Novak. It was, he claimed, common knowledge.

Ergo, following May's flexible logic, no one could out Plame because she was already "out."

But all this Clifford May stuff is just specious diversion and distraction. For which, evidently, CS has fallen. Those who actually blew Plame's cover were the Administration officials who played dial a journalist and put classified info, the identity of a CIA operative, (yes that is the correct word) into play. That was when the crime, disclosure, was committed. Novak was just the first pig at the trough to put it in print.

The leaking of classified information is not logically a cascading crime, it's accumulative. Each piece of information is an additional crime.

Second and more importantly...

Wilson only two days after his wifes outing is being interviewed by David Corn who publishes more specific information about Joe Wilsons wife only two days after the offending act.

Novak reports is that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson is 'an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction'


Two days later
Corn publishes on his blog:

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

Including this bit:
Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer. Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=823

So what the Fuck is Cornholio doing, hello it's not rocket science. Wilson is in such a hurry to protect his wife and child that he practically draws a freaking map two days after his wife is revealed; bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Which Corn then implies, let's just assume for kicks that she is a spook. That is about as transparent as a pair of Double D's hanging around a wet t-shirt contest.

Who is he flagging down, they weren't too bright because Novak has to once again publish information that is secret as you pointed out to me that was three months later the name Brewster Jennings. Thanks for correcting me.

I am sorry my bullshit-o-meter tells me that something is not quite right.

to unauthorized individuals, Miller, Cooper, et al, was the crime. Publication is not. Novak's in no legal jeopardy as a result of his column.

Once Plame is linked to the CIA, everything else is compromised. Anything anyone can dig up via internet, LexisNexis, who's who (Novak's alleged fave reading), gossip, neighbors, speculation, etc. is, as Rove told Tweety, "fair game" and no, that in itself is not a crime or even a component of a crime.

Her employment with Brewster Jennings was public information, not classified, it was her cover. But when Plame/Wilson was identified as CIA, BJ was compromised whether Novak had ever said anything or not. Which is why when Novak "outed" it (as anyone else could have done,aeeing it was publicly available info) the CIA noted it was well after it was compromised and the damage was done. They had already rolled up whatever there was left of BJ.

For someone who likes to smugly insult others for not thinking or having an independent mind, you might want to engage in basic due diligence prior to taking others to task for intellectual sloth. It only takes a few moments to find when Novak blathered on about Brewster Jennings.

Simply repeating May's and CS' faux amazement that anyone might construe Novak's reference to a "CIA operative" as a reference to a covert agent doesn't exactly sound like rigorous intellectual exercise but hey, knock yourself out. 'Ta

attacks Wilson and his wife and Corn (a reporter/writer for The Nation??)

August 19, 2005
TREASONGATE: IN CAHOOTS -- How The White House, Wilson, Novak, Corn and Plame Conspired for Treason

....

ANATOMY OF THE ALLEGED "SMEAR CAMPAIGN"

For the last two years, we've all heard about "the smear campaign" hurled upon Joe Wilson by the Bush administration to punish him for writing the New York Times oped concerning the fake Niger documents. Revenge and political payback is the motivation universally attributed to the Bush syndicate.

It's bullshit. Joe Wilson was not smeared. He went from relative obscurity to national fame, book deals, talk show circuit, hero status accepting, freedom fighting, whistleblowing, saintly coronation. None of it is deserved.


Joe Wilson is in cahoots with the Bush Administration along with David Corn, Bob Novak and Valerie Plame Wilson, a cast of spooks who have only just been outed with the writing of this article. They've carefully scripted this entire affair to shield themselves from prosecution for monolithic treasons against US citizens and our military. Treasongate, Rovegate, Leakgate, whatever you want to call it, is, in reality, an intricate version of hide and seek where the "perpetraitors" have been controlling both sides of the game.

more....

total bullshit!!

He owns his voice that is more than I can say for most people.

It is worth a read, it's better than the shit the corporate media whores publish.

CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, etc.

certain it's at least one of the two, possibly both.

Are you educating us ? .. correcting us ? ...

Cmon .... Cliff May ? ...

Chuckles ....

Go away ......

logical point...

The company that owns the patent to the bird flu vaccine has been run by Don Rumsfeld. Oh and they won't open it up to be manufactured by more companies sighting the process is too difficult.

Like what you said this has nothing to do with my post; but at least you learned something.

http://www.secinfo.com/dRqWm.9E5a.htm

You can learn all kinds of interesting stuff in this world for free if you so choose.

Wake me up when the next Tom Flocco newsflash hits the airwaves ;)

who was trying to protect the Bush crime family by saying it was common knowledge that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative. According to him, it was discussed many times at cocktail parties. Which is it? Either David Corn exposed her in his column or it was common knowledge. Pfffttt.

that outed Plame..

But CS is right in this instance here, when he states that Corn is misquoting Fitzgerald...

It was Clifford May at The National Review who first brought this to our attention in a July 2005 column. (Readers -- I am no fan of The National Review and their war propaganda, but a fact is a fact. May raised very legitimate questions which must be answered.)

It's not a right wing conspiracy, David. Citizenspook is not a right wing blog, nor is it a left wing blog. It's an independent analysis of Treasongate. The National Review is certainly a right wing propaganda rag but that doesn't color the facts. It's a fact that Corn's column was the first to publish that Plame/Wilson was an undercover spy.

It's also a fact that his October 28, 2005, report of Fitzgerald's press conference terribly misquotes him in a manner which is intended to divert attention from those questioning Corn and Wilson's roles in this conspiracy.

Corn: Fitzgerald...did declare that "the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified...but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community" and that "her cover was blown" by the Novak column.

Fitz:"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."

They both state it was blown when Novak published his column.

why include the qualifier "The first sign" if he didn't mean to imply that other signs followed?

Corns creative reproduction of Fitz's quote clearly leaves out the qualifier...

but Novak's column was the first sign that it was, which actually would contradict Joe Wilson's statement at the National Press Club speech that it was blown "the minute after" Novak's column came out.

What do you think of this scenario:

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?noframes;read=80832

http://tinyurl.com/dw4vy

Read on:
Jacqueline, (Wilson's second wife), was a French diplomat and may have provided the connections for Wilson to see the forged documents that were supplied by the French through the Italians. It has been reported that she was a "cultural counselor" for the French Embassy, which some say is code for she was doing undercover work.

In other words it is possible that Wilson knew that the docs were forged because he was privy to the information that French wanted to discredit the British info on Saddam shopping for yellowcake and that Wilson's objective was the same. The French just happen to manage the yellowcake production in Niger.

IOW, he didn't lie in his first statement...he saw the documents

{snip}

French intelligence soon began a campaign to discredit the US case for war against Iraq. In 1999, French intelligence had begun investigating the security of uranium supplies in Niger, where uranium production was controlled by a consortium led by the French mining company COGEMA, a division of the French state-owned nuclear energy firm AREVA. At that time, Italian businessman Rocco Martino provided French intelligence with genuine documents revealing that Iraq was planning to expand trade with Niger. French intelligence took an interest in the documents and asked Martino to provide more information. In 2000 he used a contact in the Niger embassy in Rome to provide French intelligence with documents purporting that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. These documents were later exposed as forgeries;

snip...

Since it is now also known that French intelligence was trying to push Martino’s forgeries on US and British intelligence, as simultaneously the Democratic National Committee was planning to discredit President Bush’s Iraq policy by accusing his administration of manufacturing evidence against Hussein’s regime, heightened suspicion is cast on Wilson’s use of the Niger investigation to discredit the Bush administration’s case for war.

Wuli also just posted a timeline thread asking the question about how Joe Wilson saw the documents before they were turned over to the CIA and other questions. It also validates the theory that he saw them in advance:

Then if you connect the dots between the article,Was the Joe Wilson Valerie Plame Affair a CIA Plot? http://www.nationalledger.com/artman/publish/article_27261263.shtml

and the article New York Times: CIA Leaked Plame's Name, http://newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/10/25/120424.shtml
you come away with all the makings of French/CIA coup attempt. George Tenet was Novak's first source, he was the administration official that was described as "no partisan gunslinger" by Novak.

{snip}

Within two months of the Plame outing, Clifford May was floating the story that "it wasn't news to me" and he "learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of. Two years later he writes a piece stating David Corn outed Plame two days after Novak's column. But how could that be if as he stated two years ago "it was something that insiders were well aware of?"

Please explain these obviously two conflicting stories.

I don't give a shit about Cliff May

How is that?

Novak reports is that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson is 'an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction'


Two days later
Corn publishes on his blog:

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

Including this bit:
Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer. Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does.


http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=823

So what the Fuck is Cornholio doing, hello it's not rocket science. Wilson is in such a hurry to protect his wife and child that he practically draws a freaking map two days after his wife is revealed; bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. Which Corn then implies, let's just assume for kicks that she is a spook. That is about as transparent as a pair of Double D's hanging around a wet t-shirt contest.

Who is he flagging down, they weren't too bright because Novak has to once again publish information that is secret a month later the name Brewster Jennings.

Just so you know--I wasn't being a smartass.

I just didn't know the "particulars" here and thought maybe Clifford May (and I'm no fan) was lying.

But this is indeed odd and does fit with an hypothesis that there may have been some kind of setup by the CIA.

crazy.

So let's add to it:

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4656

is the guilty one. None of the journalists--even Judy-as or Douchebag Novak--are guilty of the crime of REVEALING the covert agent's identity. The person(s) who had access to the classified information and gave it out--that's who is guilty here.

No journalist has access to classified information. Therefore, no journalist can break the IIPA law.

It was at the exact point that the secret passed from the GOVERNMENT person to the NON-GOVERNMENT person--that is the exact point at which the crime was committed. Not the point at which whatever journalist published it!

National Review: lame apologists for the murderers Bush/Cheney.

What you have to understand is at the time of Cornholio's work, he would have to have a source. Why so much more on Plame then Novak?

If you read carefully Corn acts to throw salt into the wounds of the CIA by two days later revealing 5 times what Novak did...

What most people still don't get is that controling only half the story will get you caught?

When you control what both sides think and know, pit them against each other you can out CIA agents and likely the source will never be found. Especially when the source is the guy calling for blood.

I see he cites his own report--looks to me like he's citing himself as a source--and I also see that he's got a burr up his butt because Corn published a "watered down" account of one of his articles and didn't provide a link to him or something.

I think the whole thing sounds like a Roveian trick to divide and conquer Junior's critics.

.... strikes again :)

Thank you my friend for making me laugh out loud. :D

How come Novak publishes "Wilson's wife was an agency operative" and two days later Cornholio publishes her tied to the word 'covert'?

There is only two days there, now you might be making the assumption that everyone picked up the hint of her outing on the first round of disclosures.

Though that wouldn't be accurate because a month later Novak mentions the name Brewster Jennings. The message not clear enough the first time? Additional disclosures of classified information is still a totally different crime right? Or am I too far out of the box...

On Edit:
Opposing forces are least likely to be tied as conspirators in a crime, especially a crime done in fractions.


From the CS Blog...

One of the most interesting aspects of that report concerns the fact that it was David Corn who was the first person in the media to out Plame's "covert" status as a CIA officer. Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 but it wasn't until two days later, July 16, 2003, that DC was the first person to publish that she was an undercover CIA agent working on WMD. His source may have been JW.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Well, at least he put the White House first in that list. LOL!

operation mockingbird has been in effect since the 1950s

reporters or journalists tow the corporata line or get demonized..kinda like what this thread is doing to CS..

MM has been worshippin at the bushevik altar of HATE for way too long


CS is what offering his thoughts about mr. corn..

Nobody is above criticism not corn, CS ..me, you and certainly not the MM who helped bring on the era of 1984 bushevik amerika.

MM will lie til the last moments when /IF the TRUTH about bushco and their many crimes becomes acceptable.

Truth is a process

debunked as total trash..stop passing this shit around..thats all we are asking..its bullshit!

fly

you know for sure its all lies cuz I will beat the drums if it is

til then no thanx on your comments and /or insults

IMHO, Anything is possible. All these people will do what they have to do to protect themselves. Isn't that what spys do? They think ahead and they always look for an out. No one wants it to be true, but you just never know...especially these days...who can we really trust anymore? :shrug:

Why so much hostility? This used to be a place where people could discuss their views in the open and at least be shown some respect for differing opinions. 80,000 people here can't all be of the same mind. I came here 4 years ago with an open mind and have learn alot.

of the election. It is interesting he fanned the flames of Plame's outing 2 days later. Pretty fast footwork. Was it to blast Snowvak? What was the tone of the article?

Unfortunately the only thing I'm hearing from people who disagree with your theory is that they have a severe constipation complex.

Lots of angry comments on this thread. CS is hitting an exposed nerve, huh? :)

it's a country of what we are willing to question...

I hope we would all be opened to the possibilities.

Our role as citizens is not believe, it is to question those who believe they have all the answers.

The topic was the CIA Leak and he did a bang up job. He was awesome. I really don't know where this is coming from.

This is from a post above..

How come Novak publishes "Wilson's wife was an agency operative" and two days later Cornholio publishes her tied to the word 'covert'?

There is only two days there, now you might be making the assumption that everyone picked up the hint of her outing on the first round of disclosures.

Though that wouldn't be accurate because a month later Novak mentions the name Brewster Jennings. The message not clear enough the first time? Additional disclosures of classified information is still a totally different crime right? Or am I too far out of the box...

On Edit:
Opposing forces are least likely to be tied as conspirators in a crime, especially a crime done in fractions.


From the CS Blog...

One of the most interesting aspects of that report concerns the fact that it was David Corn who was the first person in the media to out Plame's "covert" status as a CIA officer. Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 but it wasn't until two days later, July 16, 2003, that DC was the first person to publish that she was an undercover CIA agent working on WMD. His source may have been JW.

If David Corn or anyone else was the first to out Ms. Plame, Fitzgerald would have called them as a witness. He didn't. Nice try.

that is not how the process works.

In all Fitzgerald's glory he can't make up the story he needs evidence to tell him the story...

He can only work within the framework of the evidence, outside of that he can't link people by making leaps. Even if there is evidence...

Classified information was leaked have we gotten any further than that?

As CS points out Fitzgerald never said that the Novak column was the source of the leak.

But David Corn does.... for Fitzgerald

From Corn:

Fitzgerald...did declare that "the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified...but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community" and that "her cover was blown" by the Novak column. (So much for the goofy right-wing conspiracy theory that I colluded with Joseph Wilson after the Novak column to out Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA operative. If you don't know about that, don't ask.)

Now to what he Fitzgerald did say:

"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."

Is a sign of her being outed the same as being the vehicle of her outing? Corn is rather definitive don't you think?

Corn is a good guy. York is an asshat.

post this crap disinformation. And, to quote Cliff May? He has no credibility here.

If there was any merit to this author's speculations that serve to protect the White House, Fitzgerald would not have reached the conclusions he reached to indict Libby and determine that it was Novak's column that 'outed' Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. The fact that two days later David Corn used the word undercover instead of operative does not signify that Corn rather than Novak blew her cover. This basic premise that Corn, not Novak first revealed her CIA identity does not hold water, hence his entire argument cannot hold up under scrutiny.