Former Ambassador Joe "Yellowcake" Wilson repeatedly refused to say yesterday whether his CIA employee wife Valerie Plame had been stationed overseas in the five years prior to having her named revealed in the press in 2003 - a stipulation necessary for the Intelligence Identities Protection Act to have been violated.
Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," Wilson was asked by Chicago Tribune reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg:
"Ambassador, I am just not clear on something. The law actually covers and protects covert agents who served abroad within the last five years. So if these conversations took place in 2003, does that law protect your wife? Did she serve abroad as an agent since 1998?"
Rather than answer Greenburg's query directly, Wilson responded:
"Well, I'm not a lawyer, first of all. But the CIA would not have frivolously referred this to the Justice Department if they did not believe a possible crime had been committed."
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Not satisfied, Greenburg pressed: "But had she served abroad in the time period from [1998 through 2003]?"
Wilson dodged the question again, saying: "I would just tell you that she was covered according to the CIA, and the CIA made the referral."
At that point "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer stepped in and changed the subject. But a few moments later, Greenburg returned to the topic, offering Wilson one more chance to clear up the mystery:
"Well, could we go back to the ambassador in this? You declined to say whether she served abroad within five years of those conversations, but did anyone know that she was working at the agency or driving to Langley? Did her friends or neighbors? Did anyone know that your wife worked for the CIA." Wilson answered that his wife's friends had no idea about her CIA employment, but refused to offer any information about when she last stationed abroad. |