WHITE HOUSE PROCEDURES FOR SAFEGUARDING CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
MARCH 16, 2007
__________
Serial No. 110-28
__________
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSISGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
TOM LANTOS, California TOM DAVIS, Virginia
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York DAN BURTON, Indiana
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts CHRIS CANNON, Utah
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
DIANE E. WATSON, California MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts DARRELL E. ISSA, California
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
Columbia BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BILL SALI, Idaho
JIM COOPER, Tennessee ------ ------
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
Phil Schiliro, Chief of Staff
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
David Marin, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on March 16, 2007................................... 1
Statement of:
Knodell, James, Director, Office of Security, Executive
Office of the President, the White House; and William
Leonard, Director, Information Security Oversight Office,
National Archives and Records Administration............... 43
Knodell, James........................................... 43
Leonard, William......................................... 44
Wilson, Valerie Plame, former employee, Central Intelligence
Agency..................................................... 17
Zaid, Mark, esquire; and Victoria Toensing, esquire.......... 72
Toensing, Victoria....................................... 74
Zaid, Mark............................................... 72
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Davis, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress from the State
of Virginia, prepared statement of......................... 15
Leonard, William, Director, Information Security Oversight
Office, National Archives and Records Administration,
prepared statement of...................................... 46
Toensing, Victoria, esquire, prepared statement of........... 77
Waxman, Chairman Henry A., a Representative in Congress from
the State of California, prepared statement of............. 4
WHITE HOUSE PROCEDURES FOR SAFEGUARDING CLASSIFIED INFORMATION
----------
FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 2007
House of Representatives,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:16 a.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Henry A. Waxman
(chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Waxman, Cummings, Kucinich,
Watson, Yarmuth, Van Hollen, Sarbanes, Davis of Virginia, and
Westmoreland.
Staff present: Phil Schiliro, chief of staff; Phil Barnett,
staff director and chief counsel; Kristin Amerling, general
counsel; Karen Lightfoot, communications director and senior
policy advisor; David Rapallo, chief investigative counsel;
Roger Sherman, deputy chief counsel; Theo Chuang, deputy chief
investigative counsel; Michael Gordon, senior investigative
counsel; Susanne Sachsman, counsel; Molly Gulland, assistant
communications director; Earley Green, chief clerk; Teresa
Coufal, deputy clerk; Caren Auchman, press assistant; Zhongrui
``JR'' Deng, chief information officer; Bonney Kapp, fellow;
David Marin, minority staff director; Larry Halloran, minority
deputy staff director; Jennifer Safavian, minority chief
counsel for oversight and investigations; Anne Marie Turner and
Steve Castor, minority counsels; Christopher Bright, minority
professional staff member; Nick Palarino, minority senior
investigator and policy advisor; Patrick Lyden, minority
parliamentarian and member services coordinator; Brian
McNicoll, minority communications director; and Benjamin
Chance, minority clerk.
Chairman Waxman. The meeting of the committee will come to
order. Today the committee is holding a hearing to examine how
the White House handles highly classified information.
In June and July 2003, one of the Nation's most carefully
guarded secrets, the identity of a covert CIA agent, Valerie
Plame Wilson, was repeatedly revealed by White House officials
to members of the media.
This was an extraordinarily serious breach of our national
security. President George W. Bush's father, the former
President Bush said, ``I have nothing but contempt and anger
for those who exposed the names of our sources. They are, in my
view, the most insidious of traitors.''
Today we'll be asking three questions. One, how did such a
serious violation of our national security occur? Two, did the
White House take the appropriate investigative and disciplinary
steps after the breach occurred? And three, what changes in
White House procedures are necessary to prevent future
violations of our national security from occurring?
For more than 3 years Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald
has been investigating the leak for its criminal implications.
By definition, Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation had an extremely
narrow criminal focus. It did not answer the broader policy
questions raised by the release of Mrs. Wilson's identity. Nor
did it seek to ascribe responsibility outside of the narrow
confines of the criminal law.
As the chief investigative committee in the House of
Representatives, our role is fundamentally different than Mr.
Fitzgerald's. It is not our job to determine criminal
culpability. But it is our job to understand what went wrong
and to insist on accountability, and to make recommendations to
avoid future abuses. We begin that process today.
This hearing is being conducted in open session. This is
appropriate, but it is also challenging. Mrs. Wilson was a
covert employee of the CIA. We cannot discuss all of the
details of her CIA employment in open session. I have met
personally with General Hayden, the head of the CIA, to discuss
what I can and cannot say about Mrs. Wilson's service. And I
want to thank him for his cooperation and help in guiding us
along these lines.
My staff has also worked with the Agency to assure these
remarks do not contain classified information.
I have been advised by the CIA that even now after all that
has happened, I cannot disclose the full nature, scope, and
character of Mrs. Wilson's service to our Nation without
causing serious damage to our national security interests.
But General Hayden and the CIA have cleared these following
comments for today's hearing.
During her employment at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was
undercover.
Her employment status with the CIA was classified
information, prohibited by disclosure under Executive Order
12958.
At the time of the publication of Robert Novak's column on
July 14, 2003, Mrs. Wilson's CIA employment status was covert.
This was classified information.
Mrs. Wilson served in senior management positions at the
CIA in which she oversaw the work for other CIA employees and
she attained the level of GS-14, step 6 under the Federal pay
scale. Mrs. Wilson worked on some of the most sensitive and
highly secretive matters handled by the CIA. Mrs. Wilson served
at various times overseas for the CIA.
Without discussing the specifics of Mrs. Wilson's
classified work, it is accurate to say that she worked on the
prevention of the development and use of weapons of mass
destruction against the United States.
In her various positions at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson faced
significant risks to her personal safety and her life. She took
on serious risks on behalf of our country. Mrs. Wilson's work
in many situations had consequences for the security of her
colleagues, and maintaining her cover was critical to
protecting the safety of both colleagues and others.
The disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's employment with the CIA had
several serious effects. First, it terminated her covert job
opportunities with the CIA. Second, it placed her professional
contacts at greater risk. And third, it undermined the trust
and confidence with which future CIA employees and sources hold
the United States. This disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's classified
employment status with the CIA was so detrimental that the CIA
filed a crimes report with the Department of Justice.
As I mentioned, Mrs. Wilson's work was so sensitive that
even now, she is still prohibited from discussing many details
of her work in public because of the continuing risks to CIA
officials and assets in the field and in the CIA's ongoing
work.
Some have suggested that Mrs. Wilson did not have a
sensitive position with the CIA or a position of unusual risk.
As a CIA employee, Mrs. Wilson has taken a life-long oath to
protect classified information even after her CIA employment
has ended. As a result, she cannot respond to most of the
statements made about her.
I want to make clear, however, that any characterization
that minimizes the personal risk of Mrs. Wilson that she
accepted in her assignments is flatly wrong. There should be no
confusion on this point. Mrs. Wilson has provided great service
to our Nation and has fulfilled her obligation to protect
classified information admirably and with confidence and she
will uphold it again today.
That concludes the characterizations that the CIA is
permitting us to make today. To these comments, I want to add a
personal note. For many in politics, praising the troops and
those who defend our freedom is second nature. Sometimes it is
done in sincerity and sometimes it is done with cynicism, but
almost always we don't really know who the people are. We don't
know they're out there, we don't know who those people are that
are out there. They are our abstract heroes, whether they are
serving in the armed services or whether they're serving in the
CIA.
Two weeks ago this committee met some real heroes face-to-
face when we went to visit Walter Reed. Every Member was
appalled at what we learned. Our treatment of the troops didn't
match our rhetoric. Fortunately, Mrs. Wilson hasn't suffered
physical harm and faces much more favorable circumstances now
than some of the soldiers that we met last week. But she too
has been one of those people fighting to protect our freedom,
and she, like thousands of others, was serving our country
bravely and anonymously. She didn't ask that her identity be
revealed but it was, repeatedly. And that was an inexcusable
breach of the responsibilities our country owes to her.
Once again our actions did not match our rhetoric. I want
to thank Mrs. Wilson for the tremendous service she gave to our
country and recognize the remarkable personal sacrifices that
she and countless others have made to protect our national
security.
You and your colleagues perform truly heroic work and what
happened to you not only should never have happened, but we
should all work to make sure it never happens again. Thank you
very much.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Henry A. Waxman
follows:]
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Chairman Waxman. I want to yield to Mr. Davis, the ranking
member of our committee. And in doing so, I want to thank him
for his cooperation in this hearing. This has been a
complicated hearing. It is much more complicated than most of
our hearings. We had to decide what we could and what we
couldn't say, what we could and couldn't ask, whether it would
be an open session or closed session, etc. And I want to thank
Mr. Davis for the tremendous cooperation he has given and I do
recognize him at this point.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you, Chairman Waxman. I want
to first start by congratulating you on your passage of
important reform legislation this week. We adopted bipartisan
bills crafted in this committee to strengthen the Freedom of
Information Act, disclose donors to Presidential libraries,
expand access to Presidential records and to fortify most of
all protections. Given those accomplishments, it is ironic that
we in Sunshine Week of the annual observance of open
government--with a more partisan hearing on how to best keep
secrets.
Let me state at the outset that the outing of Mrs. Wilson's
identity was wrong, and we have every right to look at this and
investigate it. But I have to confess, I'm not sure what we're
trying to accomplish today, given all the limitations that the
chairman has just described that have been put on us by the
CIA.
I ostensibly called to examine White House procedures for
handling and protecting classified information. The hearing's
lead witness never worked at the White House. If she knows
about security practices there, she can't say much about them
in a public forum. We do know that she worked at the CIA. That
now well-known fact raises some very different questions about
how critical and difficult it is to protect the identity of
individuals with covert status.
But, again, those are questions we probably can't say much
about in a public forum without violating the various security
safeguards the majority claims to be worried about at the White
House. Under these circumstances, perhaps a hypothetical case
is the best way to describe the futility of trying to enforce
the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in this decidedly
nonjudicial venue.
Let's say, for example, a committee staff is told to
identify a CIA witness for a hearing on security practices. He
or she calls the Agency and asks to speak with official A.
Official A is not in so the call is routed to official B, who
identifies him or herself by name and title and answers the
staffer's question. Thinking official B would be a fine
witness, the staff then calls the Congressional Research
Service or a friend at another committee to find out more about
official B, but official B happens to be a covert agent. In
passing the name, title and CIA affiliation around, has the
staff member violated the law against disclosure? Probably not.
But you would have to be looking through a pretty thick
political prism to see an intentional unauthorized disclosure
in that context, and that happened.
In the case of Mrs. Wilson, the majority stresses the fact
the disclosure of her status triggered a crimes report by the
CIA and the Justice Department. Allegations against White House
officials and reporters were thoroughly vetted, but after
spending 6 months and millions of dollars, the special counsel
charged no one with violations of the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act. The lack of prosecution under the act show
those disclosures probably occurred in a similarly
nonintentional context, lacking the requisite knowledge of
covert status or the intention to disclose that status without
authorization.
No process can be adopted to protect classified information
that no one knows is classified, just as no one can be
prosecuted for unauthorized disclosure of information that no
one ever said was protected. So this looks to me more like a
CIA problem than a White House problem. If the Agency doesn't
take sufficient precautions to protect the identity of those
who engage in covert work, no one else can do it for them.
The same law meant to protect secret identities also
requires an annual report to Congress on the steps taken to
protect the highly sensitive information. But we're told few if
any such reports exist from the CIA. Who knows what information
needs to be protected and how they are told. Is there a list
officials can check against? Do CIA briefers know when material
given to executive branch officials references a covert agent,
or are they cautioned not to repeat the name? How is it made
known, and to whom, when the 5-year protection period for
formerly covert agents has elapsed?
Those are the questions that need to be asked about the
safeguards and classified information, but we won't hear from
the CIA today because this is an open forum.
Given all that, I suspect we're going to probably waste
some time talking about things we can't talk about. And that is
unfortunate. Unfortunate an individual possibly still in a
covert status was publicly identified, unfortunate executive
branch officials got anywhere near this media maelstrom rather
than focus on more serious problems. That is a disappointment
to me. And unfortunate that this has become so politicized.
On this side, we're not here to defend or attack anyone. In
an open session, we hope to shed some sunshine on the workings
of government. I have to say, I am not sure that's going to
happen today, but I thank our witnesses for trying. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Tom Davis follows:]
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Chairman Waxman. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis.
Our first witness is Mrs. Valerie Plame Wilson. She is a
former covert CIA employee whose service to this country
included work involving the prevention of the development and
use of weapons of mass destruction against our Nation. Her
employment status was publicly disclosed in July 2003,
effectively terminating her covert job opportunities within the
CIA.
Mrs. Wilson, it is the practice of this committee that all
witnesses are administered an oath, and I would like to ask you
to stand and raise your right hand.
[Witness sworn.]
Chairman Waxman. The record will reflect the fact that the
witness answered in the affirmative. Before we begin the
questioning period, I wanted to underscore to members of the
committee that while it is important that Mrs. Wilson have the
opportunity to provide testimony that will help us understand
the significance of the disclosure of her CIA employment
status, we should not be seeking classified information from
Mrs. Wilson in this open forum, and we need to respect that she
may in some cases have to decline to respond on the grounds of
doing so would risk disclosure of sensitive information.
Mrs. Wilson, we're pleased to have you here. Thank you very
much for coming to our committee today. And I want to recognize
you for an opening statement. There is a button on the base of
the mic. Be sure to press it in and pull it closely enough to
you so you can be heard.
STATEMENT OF VALERIE PLAME WILSON, FORMER EMPLOYEE, CENTRAL
INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members
of the committee. My name is Valerie Plame Wilson and I am
honored to be invited to testify under oath before the
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the critical
issue of safeguarding classified information.
I am grateful for this opportunity to set the record
straight. I have served the United States loyally and to the
best of my ability as a covert operations officer for the
Central Intelligence Agency. I worked on behalf of the national
security of our country, on behalf of the people of the United
States, until my name and true affiliation were exposed in the
national media on July 14, 2003, after a leak by administration
officials.
Today I can tell this committee even more. In the run-up to
the war with Iraq, I worked in the Counterproliferation
Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose
affiliation with the CIA was classified. I was to discover
solid intelligence for senior policymakers on Iraq's presumed
weapons of mass destruction programs. While I helped to manage
and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target
from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign
countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence.
I loved my career because I love my country. I was proud of
the serious responsibilities entrusted to me as a CIA covert
operations officer, and I was dedicated to this work. It was
not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit that
everyone knew where I worked. But all of my efforts on behalf
of the national security of the United States, all of my
training, all of the value of my years of service were abruptly
ended when my name and identity were exposed irresponsibly.
In the course of the trial of Vice President Cheney's
former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, I was shocked by the
evidence that emerged. My name and identity were carelessly and
recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the
White House and the State Department. All of them understood
that I worked for the CIA, and having signed oaths to protect
national security secrets, they should have been diligent in
protecting me and every CIA officer.
The CIA goes to great lengths to protect all of its
employees, providing at significant taxpayer's expense
painstakingly devised covers for its most sensitive staffers.
The harm that is done when a CIA cover is blown is grave, but I
can't provide details beyond that in this public hearing. But
the concept is obvious. Not only have breaches of national
security endangered CIA officers, it has jeopardized and even
destroyed entire networks of foreign agents who, in turn, risk
their own lives and those of their families to provide the
United States with needed intelligence. Lives are literally at
stake.
Every single one of my former CIA colleagues, from my
fellow covert officers to analysts to technical operations
officers to even the secretaries, understand the
vulnerabilities of our officers and recognize that the travesty
of what happened to me could happen to them. We in the CIA
always know that we might be exposed and threatened by foreign
enemies. It was a terrible irony that administration officials
were the ones who destroyed my cover. Furthermore, testimony in
the criminal trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of
staff, who has now been convicted of serious crimes, indicates
that my exposure arose from purely political motives.
Within the CIA it is essential that all intelligence be
evaluated on the basis of its merits and actual credibility.
National security depends upon it. The trade craft of
intelligence is not a product of speculation. I feel
passionately as an intelligence professional about the creeping
insidious politicizing of our intelligence process. All
intelligence professionals are dedicated to the idea that they
would rather be fired on the spot than distort the facts to fit
a political view, any political view or any ideology.
As our intelligence agencies go through reorganizations and
experience the painful aspects of change and our country faces
profound challenges, injecting partisanship or ideology into
the equation makes effective and accurate intelligence that
much more difficult to develop. Politics and ideology must be
stripped completely from our intelligence services or the
consequences will be even more severe than they have been and
our country placed in even greater danger.
It is imperative for any President to be able to make
decisions based on intelligence that is unbiased. The Libby
trial and the events leading to the Iraq War highlight the
urgent need to restore the highest professional standards of
intelligence collection and analysis and the protection of our
officers and operations.
The Congress has a constitutional duty to defend our
national security and that includes safeguarding our
intelligence. That is why I am grateful for this opportunity to
appear before this committee today and to assist in its
important work.
Thank you. And I welcome any questions.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you very much, Mrs. Wilson. We'll
now proceed with 10 minutes on each side managed by the Chair
and the ranking member of the committee. For our first round, I
want to yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky, Mr.
Yarmuth, to begin the questioning.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for being
here today, Mrs. Wilson. Our country owes you a great debt of
gratitude for your service, and I think you are continuing that
service today by appearing.
I would like to start by asking you about July 14, 2003,
the day that Robert Novak wrote the column in the Chicago Sun
Times, identifying you as an Agency operative on weapons of
mass destruction.
But before I get to that, I want to ask you about the day
before, July 13. My understanding is that on that date, you
were covert. Is that correct? On July 13?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I was a covert officer, correct.
Mr. Yarmuth. Without destroying--or disclosing classified
information, what does covert mean?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I'm not a lawyer. But my understanding
is that the CIA is taking affirmative steps to ensure that
there are no links between the operations officer and the
Central Intelligence Agency. I mean, that is simple.
Mr. Yarmuth. And as you said and my understanding is that
your work was classified for purposes of many regulations in
the laws, and we're talking about your work was classified on
that day, July 13.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. That's correct.
Mr. Yarmuth. Did the July 14 column destroy your covert
position and your classified status?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, it did. I could no longer perform
the work for which I had been highly trained. I could no longer
travel overseas or do the work for which--my career which I
loved. It was done.
Mr. Yarmuth. And this may be a simplistic question, but the
information that was disclosed in Robert Novak's column, is it
correct to say that is information that you would not have
disclosed yourself?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. That is correct.
Mr. Yarmuth. How did you react when you learned that your
identity had been disclosed?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I found out very early in the morning
when my husband came in and dropped the newspaper on the bed
and said, ``He did it.'' And I quickly turned and read the
article, and I felt like I had been hit in the gut. It was over
in an instant, and I immediately thought of my family's safety,
the agents and networks that I had worked with, and everything
goes through your mind in an instant.
Mr. Yarmuth. What effect did the leak have on you
professionally?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Professionally? Well, I could no longer
do the work which I had been trained to do. There was--after
that, there is no way that you can serve overseas in a covert
capacity. And so that career path was terminated.
Mr. Yarmuth. Did the leak make you feel that your entire
career had been thrown out the window essentially, it had been
wasted at all?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Not wasted, but certainly terminated
prematurely.
Mr. Yarmuth. You talked a little bit about your concern
about the effect of the leak on your professional contacts. Did
you have any contact with those people who weren't--expressed
their concern about the effect on their professional career?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No, I did not. But I do know the Agency
did a damage assessment. They did not share it with me. But I
know that it certainly puts the people and the contacts I had
all in jeopardy, even if they were completely innocent in
nature.
Mr. Yarmuth. And what effect do you think it had at the
broadest level? I'm talking about for future CIA employees and
future sources.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I think it was--it had a very negative
effect. If our government cannot even protect my identity,
future foreign agents who might consider working with the
Central Intelligence Agency and providing needed intelligence
would think twice. Well, they can't even protect one of their
own. How are they going to protect me? As well as the Agency is
working very hard to attract highly talented young people into
its ranks, because we do have profound challenges facing our
country today. And I can't think that helped those efforts.
Mr. Yarmuth. I can't see the clock, Mr. Chairman. I don't
know whether my time has expired or not.
Chairman Waxman. You have 9 seconds.
Mr. Yarmuth. Well, I will yield back the balance of my
seconds to you, Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Mrs. Wilson.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you Mr. Yarmuth.
The Chair would now like to yield time to Mr. Hodes, the
gentleman from New Hampshire.
Mr. Hodes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mrs. Wilson, thank you
for coming today. What happened to you is deadly serious. You
were the victim of a national security breach. If this was a
law enforcement context, something I am familiar with, it would
be equivalent to disclosing the identity of an undercover
police officer who has put his life on the line and the lives
of all those who helped that officer.
Our job on this committee is to find out how the breach
happened. Now, I would like to show you a chart that we
prepared on the committee. You will see it up on the screens,
and we're putting it up here on paper. That chart is a graphic
depiction of all the ways that your classified CIA employment
was disclosed to White House officials and then to the press.
Every colored block on that chart is an individual, and every
arrow shows a disclosure of classified information. That
classified information was your CIA employment status. And the
arrows are based on the testimony in Mr. Libby's criminal case
and press reports. This chart shows over 20 different
disclosures about your employment.
Let me ask you, looking at this chart, are you surprised
that so many people had access to the classified information
about your CIA employment?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I am, Congressman. And I am also
surprised at how carelessly they used it.
Mr. Hodes. What was your expectation about how the
government would handle the classified information about your
work and status?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. My expectation, Congressman, was that--
as of all CIA operations officers, every officer serving
undercover, that senior government officials would protect our
identity. We all take oaths to protect classified information
and national security. So----
Mr. Hodes. Prior to the time that you learned that your
status had been disclosed, you never authorized anyone to
disclose your status, did you?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Absolutely not.
Mr. Hodes. And no one ever approached you and asked for
permission to disclose any classified information about you?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No.
Mr. Hodes. Vice President Cheney never approached you and
asked if he had your permission to disclose your status, did
he?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No.
Mr. Hodes. Karl Rove never approached you and asked whether
he had your permission to disclose your status, did he?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No.
Mr. Hodes. Now, this isn't even a complete picture because
as you can see on this chart, we don't know, for example, who
told Karl Rove your status. There is a black box up there, and
it says unknown. And there are two arrows from that. One
pointing to Vice President Cheney and one pointing to Karl
Rove. So that is an unanswered question right now.
Now, I can imagine that you have followed the proceedings
and the press pretty closely over the past few years, have you
not?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes.
Mr. Hodes. Do you have any theories about who told Karl
Rove about your status?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No, I do not. There was much evidence
introduced in the Libby trial that provides quite a bit, but I
have no--it would just be guesses.
Mr. Hodes. Well, that is what this committee's
investigation is all about, following all the links in the
chain from their sources to their destination. Now, it has been
reported that Mr. Rove had a discussion with Chris Matthews
about you, and the report was that Mr. Rove told Mr. Matthews,
Valerie Plame is fair game. Do you recall that?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I do.
Mr. Hodes. I'd like to ask you to forget for a moment that
he was talking about you. Imagine that he was talking about
another undercover agent working on sensitive issues, and that
undercover agent, that undercover agent's life was on the line.
Do you have a reaction to that?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Absolutely. This happened to me, but I
would like to think I would feel just as passionately if it had
happened to any of my former colleagues at the CIA.
Mr. Hodes. One final question. Is there any circumstance
that you can think of that would justify leaking the name of an
undercover agent?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No, Congressman.
Mr. Hodes. Thank you very much. I yield back.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Hodes.
Before we yield our time, we have a long list of people
that seem to have either intentionally or advertently passed on
your status and your name as a CIA agent, and that included the
President, Vice President, Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Ari
Fleisher, just to name a few.
Did any of those people, the President, the Vice President,
Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Ari Fleisher, did any of them ever
call you and apologize to you?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No, Chairman.
Chairman Waxman. None of them ever called you to express
regrets?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Plame.
It's clear that administration officials knew you worked
for the CIA, but did they know that your status was that of a
covert agent?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I have no way of knowing, but I can say
I worked for the Counterproliferation Division of the
Directorate of Operations. And while not all, many of the
employees of that division are, in fact, in covert status.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. But you don't have--I think one of
the issues here was not that you worked for the CIA, because
that was obviously widely known in the administration, but for
the crime to have been committed, they had to have known you
were covert, and you don't have any direct linkage that they
knew you were covert at that point.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Again, Congressman. I am not a lawyer,
but as I said----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. You don't have any direct knowledge.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No. But as I said in my opening
comments, the fact that they knew that I worked for the CIA,
that alone should have increased their level of diligence.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Look, we all agree that everybody
needs to protect national security and protect the identities
of undercover and covert agents. But should the CIA have done
more to adequately protect people as well and say these covert
agents shouldn't be outed? Did the CIA have a responsibility
here as well?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I think that Congress might think about
reviewing the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and seeing
what went wrong and where it needs to be perhaps rewritten.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I mean,--look, the CIA is supposed
to report to Congress each year on the steps taken to protect
this highly sensitive information. And I am told few, if any,
reports are even filed. So I think there is a responsibility
from the CIA, and I think what is missing and I think from--at
least from a criminal perspective, not from a policy but from a
criminal perspective, that the special prosecutor in this case
looked at that and found that the people who may have been
saying this didn't know that you were covert, and you didn't
have any evidence to the contrary?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. That, I think, is a question better put
to the special prosecutor, Congressman.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Shouldn't the CIA have made sure
that anyone who knew your name and your work be told of your
status? Would that have been helpful in this case? That would
have made it very clear if anyone leaked it at that point they
were violating the law at least.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. The CIA does go to great lengths to
create and protect all kinds of covers for its officers. There
is a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of energy that
goes into that. And the onus also--the burden falls on the
officer himself or herself to live that cover, but it is not a
perfect world.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. The Intelligence Identities
Protection Act makes it a crime to knowingly disclose the
identity of a covert agent, which has a specific definition
under the act. Did anyone ever tell you that you were so
designated?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I'm not a lawyer.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. That's why I asked if they told you.
I'm not asking for your interpretation.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No. But I was covert. I did travel
overseas on secret missions within the last 5 years.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I'm not arguing with that. What I am
asking is, for purposes of the act--and maybe this just never
occurred to you or anybody else at the time, but did anybody
say that you were so designated under the act, or was this just
after it came to fact?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No. No one told me that.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. How about after the disclosure?
After the disclosure did anyone then say, gee, you were
designated under the act. This should not have happened. Did
anyone in the CIA tell you at that point?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. Since the disclosure of your
identity, have you been offered other positions within the CIA?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes. I went on to other jobs with
commensurate responsibility.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. No demotion or anything? You didn't
experience any demotion?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Did anyone at the CIA tell you your
career path was damaged by the disclosure?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Now, you were a senior manager, a
GS-14, step 6, eligible for a GS-15 at the time. Did anyone
ever tell you that you could not advance in a normal career
path after this exposure?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. It was very clear that I could not
advance as a covert operations officer.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. And would that then--your upward
career path in terms of getting a GS-15 then was impaired in
your opinion?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No. But that was the career for which I
had been trained, for which I wanted to do. My husband and I,
after our children were born, discussed going overseas again
when they were a little bit older, and all of that came to an
abrupt end, obviously.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Do you know if any of the CIA
colleagues--like Robert Grimere who testified at the Libby
trial, that he told administration officials that you were
involved in sending your husband to Niger--do you know if he
ever told any of these officials that you were involved?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I have no idea other than what he
testified.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. When you introduced yourself and
your husband to the group of IC analysts at the February 19,
2002 meeting at CIA headquarters, did you tell anybody present
then you were undercover?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No, I did not. I was in CIA
headquarters. I introduced them and left the meeting,
Congressman.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. Would they have known that you
were--would they have had any reason to have known you were
undercover or----
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I believe that they would have assumed
such.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. We're limited in what we can ask. So
we're trying to stay in the confines that the CIA has----
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I understand.
Let me just ask, try to put some of the speculation to rest
and give you an opportunity to answer. In January 2004, Vanity
Fair published an article, not always known for great accuracy,
touching on your role in the Niger uranium affair. It said--
this is what they said: In early May, Wilson and Plame attended
a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy
Committee at which Wilson spoke about Iraq--one of the other
panelists was New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof--over
breakfast the next morning. It was Kristof and his wife Wilson
told about his trip to Niger and said Kristof could write about
it but not name him. Is that account accurate?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I think it is. I had nothing--I was not
speaking to Mr. Kristof, and I think my husband did say that he
had undertaken this trip but not to be named as a source.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. Just to be clear, the article
says that your husband met for breakfast with Kristof and his
wife. Just to be clear, were you at the breakfast?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Briefly. Yes, Congressman.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. On June 13, Kristof wrote a
column about the Niger uranium matter. He wrote that he was
piecing the story from two people directly involved and two
others who were briefed on it. Do you know if you were one of
those people that he was referring to?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I can't imagine that I would be. I did
not speak to him about it.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. What about your husband? Would
he have been one of the sources?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I think he was speaking to Mr. Kristof
at that point.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. OK. Was any of that information
classified to your knowledge?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Not that I am aware of.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I yield back at this point.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you very much.
Mr. Cummings for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much.
Mrs. Wilson, first of all, let me thank you for your
service. Mrs. Wilson, even today your work for the CIA is so
highly classified that we're not permitted to discuss the
details. But we can clarify one crucial point, whether you
worked under cover for the CIA. You said that your position was
covert, but I have heard others say that you were not covert.
In fact, one of the witnesses who will testify a little bit
later, Victoria Toensing, is making that same argument.
In an op-ed that appeared in the Washington Post on
February 18, she says it quite bluntly, she says, ``Plame was
not covert. She worked at CIA headquarters and had not been
stationed abroad within 5 years.'' I know there are
restrictions on what you can say today, but is Ms. Toensing's
statement correct?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Congressman, thank you for the
opportunity. I know I am here under oath, and I am here to say
that I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Just like a general is a general whether he is in the field in
Iraq or Afghanistan, when he comes back to the Pentagon, he is
still a general. In the same way, covert operations officers
who are serving in the field, when they rotate back for a
temporary assignment in Washington, they too are still covert.
Mr. Cummings. Is it possible that Ms. Toensing had more
information than you do about your work or had access to secret
documents that you don't?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I would find that highly unlikely,
Congressman, because much of that information about my career
is still classified.
Mr. Cummings. On Wednesday night, I know Mr. Waxman, our
Chair, and Congressman Reyes, the chairman of the House
Intelligence Committee, spoke personally with General Hayden,
the head of the CIA. And Chairman Waxman told me that General
Hayden said clearly and directly, ``Mrs. Wilson was covert.''
There was no doubt about it.
And by the way, the CIA has authorized us to be able to say
that. In addition, I understand that Chairman Waxman sent his
opening statement over to the CIA to be cleared and to make
sure that it was accurate. In it he said, ``Mrs. Wilson was a
covert employee of the CIA.'' ``Mrs. Wilson was under cover.''
The CIA cleared these statements. I emphasize all of this
because I know that there are people who are still trying to
suggest that what seems absolutely clear isn't really true and
that you weren't covert. And I think one of the things we need
to do in this hearing is make sure there isn't any ambiguity on
this point.
Just three more questions. Did you hold this covert status
at the time of the leak, did you? The covert status at the time
of the leak?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I did, Congressman. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. No. 2, the Identities Protection Act refers
to travel outside the United States within the last 5 years.
Let me ask you this question. Again, we don't want classified
information, dates, locations or any other details. During the
past 5 years, Ms. Plame, from today, did you conduct secret
missions overseas?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I did, Congressman.
Mr. Cummings. Finally, so as to be clear for the record,
you were a covert CIA employee and within the past 5 years from
today, you went on secret missions outside the United States;
is that correct?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. That is correct, Congressman.
Mr. Cummings. I want to thank you, and I hope this
committee now has cleared up the issue of covert, whether Ms.
Plame was a covert agent. And I yield back.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you very much Mr. Cummings. Mr.
Westmoreland.
Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am glad
Mr. Cummings asked those questions because I was going to ask
them, too.
Mrs. Wilson, I want to thank you for your service to our
country. If I seem a little nervous, I have never questioned a
spy before, and so----
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I have never testified before.
Mr. Westmoreland. I'm sorry?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I have never testified under oath
before.
Mr. Westmoreland. And I was here during the steroid
hearings too, and I don't think any of those baseball stars got
this kind of media attention that you are getting today.
But when the chairman had his opening statements, he used
three different terms: covert, undercover and classified. Were
you one of those in particular? Or all of them? Or three
different terms to categorize, I guess, your service to the
country?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. For those of us that were undercover in
the CIA, we tended to use covert or undercover interchangeably.
I am not--we typically would not say of ourselves we were in a
classified position. You are kind of undercover or covert
employee.
Mr. Westmoreland. Now, did you just discuss this among
yourself if you were classified or covert? Because I am
assuming that you couldn't discuss it with anybody outside the
Agency. So was it kind of like y'all sat around the break room
and said, I am covert or I am classified? Or if I was going to
tell somebody, what I would tell somebody?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes. Within your colleagues, either
within the field or at headquarters here in Washington, if you
were working on a project, sometimes you did need to know, are
you under cover or are you overt? Let me know. And then you
know how to treat them accordingly in the sense of how careful
to be and your association and so forth.
Mr. Westmoreland. Right. So your fellow CIA employees would
have known that you were covert or classified or whatever.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.
Mr. Westmoreland. Did you ever tell anyone that you worked
for the CIA or was that commonly known that you worked for the
CIA or did you tell them that you were something else?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No, Congressman. I could count on one
hand the number of people who knew where my true employer was
the day that I was--my name was and true affiliation was
exposed in July 2003.
Mr. Westmoreland. OK. And I'm assuming one of those was
your husband.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. That's--yes, he did know.
Mr. Westmoreland. Did he know if you were covert or
classified or----
Mrs. Plame Wilson. He did understand. As a former
Ambassador and having held security clearances and worked with
many Agency employees, he understood that world to a certain
point, and he certainly understood that I was undercover, and
he protected that diligently.
Mr. Westmoreland. OK. And this is the one last--are we
going to have another round of questions, Mr. Waxman, do you
think? Or----
Chairman Waxman. Well, we do have other panels. I guess if
Members wish them.
Mr. Westmoreland. I mean, I'm just trying----
Chairman Waxman. You have a minute and 48 seconds.
Mr. Westmoreland. OK. Ms. Plame, on October 5, 2003, being
interviewed on Meet the Press, your husband stated that my wife
will not allow herself to be photographed. In response to the
picture you took for Vanity Fair, your husband was quoted in
the Washington Post, the picture should not be able to identify
her and are not supposed to. She is still employed by the CIA
and has obligations to her employer. So I guess this was after
the incident where everybody knew that you worked for the CIA,
that this was done?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, Congressman. At the time that
picture came out, my covert status was long gone. And I will
say this: Having lived most of my life very much under the
radar, my learning curve was steep, and it was more trouble
than it was worth.
Mr. Westmoreland. But when the photograph was actually
taken in Vanity Fair, nobody that was not--that was not public
knowledge? I mean, all of this was not out then?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Oh, Congressman, the picture came out in
late 2003. My covert status was blown.
Mr. Westmoreland. OK. If your status was either covert or
classified and if you did, in fact, meet with the Senate
Democratic Policy Committee, Mr. Kristof, did you view as part
of your covert or classified work to meet with political groups
and a columnist from The New York Times to discuss matters
within your purview at the CIA? And, you know, I don't know if
you saw the list of things that we could or could not ask you.
Did this Democratic Policy Committee and the columnist from the
New York Times have these same rules that they could or could
not ask you? Or did you volunteer other information?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Congressman, I attended that conference
simply as a spouse of my husband, who was invited to speak. He
had been invited to speak because he had quite a bit of
experience on Iraq, having served the first President Bush as
the Charg D'Affairs at our Embassy in Baghdad during the first
Gulf war and negotiated the release of the hostages with Saddam
Hussein and so forth. And he was asked to attend in that
capacity. I had no discussions other than purely social in
nature.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Westmoreland. Your time has
expired. Mr. Kucinich.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much, Mrs. Wilson, and thank
you for your service to our country. Briefly, I want to pick up
on my colleague Mr. Hodes's question. When you look at this
chart and you see the extraordinary efforts that were made to
disclose your identity, and most of this information came out
of the Libby trial, what were you thinking when you saw the
effort? This wasn't just a leak, was it, in your estimation--
was this simply just a leak of an ID?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Quite a bit of evidence came out in the
course of the Libby trial, and I really was deeply dismayed
because it just showed a recklessness and a political path that
is very, very unfortunate.
Mr. Kucinich. In your judgment, when you look at the chart,
does it show a fairly organized approach to disclose your
identity?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Well, it certainly is wide-reaching.
Mr. Kucinich. Because, Mr. Chairman, you know, do leaks
occur of agents' identities? It does happen?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I'm sorry, Congressman?
Mr. Kucinich. Have there been in the past leaks of an
agent's identity?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. None that I am aware of by their very
own government.
Mr. Kucinich. And you have never in your experience as an
agent seen this kind of a coordinated effort by one's own
government, in this case our government, to disclose the
identity of an agent?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No, Congressman. I am not aware of any.
Mr. Kucinich. To what extent does the agency go to to
protect the identities of its agents?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Significant effort. And, again,
taxpayers' money, particularly in this day and age of Google
and Internet. The efforts have to be even more vigilant and
ever more creative, because it is extremely easy to find out a
lot of information about someone if you really want to. So we
are constant--the CIA constantly needs to be one step ahead to
protect their operations officers.
Mr. Kucinich. So when there is an extraordinary effort made
to disclose the identity of an agent, it is destructive of the
Agency and it is destructive of the taxpayers' investment in
the Central Intelligence Agency; is that correct?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Absolutely.
Mr. Kucinich. And one of the things that keeps running
through my mind is why, why did this happen to you? Was it an
unintentional mistake or is it part of a larger pattern? In
recent weeks we've learned that U.S. attorneys in all parts of
the country were fired despite exemplary service, and several
of these attorneys testified to Congress that they were being
pressured to pursue cases against Democratic officials. Others
believe that they were fired because they were pursuing cases
against Republican officials. Have you followed this issue?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I have, Congressman.
Mr. Kucinich. And when I think of what's happened to these
attorneys, I can't help but think of your case, because these
could be isolated instances, but they seem to be part of a
larger pattern. Do you know what happened, for example, with
the former Treasury Secretary, Mr. O'Neill, when he wrote his
book The Price of Loyalty?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I am aware of that.
Mr. Kucinich. And then after Secretary O'Neill wrote that
the Bush administration was planning to overthrow Saddam
Hussein in a much earlier timeframe than anyone knew, Secretary
O'Neill was falsely accused of leaking classified information.
Did you know that Secretary O'Neill was investigated by the
Treasury Department for a groundless accusation?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I believe I have read that. Yes, sir.
Mr. Kucinich. Now another instance, General Shinseki warned
that the United States would need several hundred thousand
troops in Iraq. Ms. Wilson, do you remember what happened to
General Shinseki?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I do, Congressman. He was
dismissed.
Mr. Kucinich. I will also remind you of the case of Richard
Foster, the government's chief Medicare actuary. He was
actually told he would be fired if he told Congress the truth
about how much the administration's proposed drug benefit would
cost. Were you aware of that, Ms. Wilson?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I was.
Mr. Kucinich. Now, again, these could all be isolated
instances, but they seem to be part of a larger pattern. And I
am struck by what your husband, Joe Wilson, was quoted as
saying in the book Hubris.
Now according to the book, Joe Wilson was upset and said he
regarded the leak as a warning to others. ``Stories like this
are not intended to intimidate me, since I have already told my
story. But it is pretty clearly intended to intimidate others
who might come forward. You need only look at the stories of
intelligence analysts who say they've been pressured. They may
have kids in college who may be vulnerable to these types of
smears.'' Is this what you think was going on here?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. When you look at--and I can speak only
to the realm of intelligence, and you have the politicizing of
that. Certainly Vice President Cheney's unprecedented number of
visits to CIA headquarters in the run-up to the war might be
one example.
Mr. Kucinich. That's exactly the point. What happens when
someone is working at the Agency level that people are working
at when the Vice President visits, the Vice President of the
United States comes over and starts looking over their
shoulder. Is that intimidating?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, it is.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Kucinich, your time has expired.
Mr. Kucinich. Thank you very much.
Chairman Waxman. Ms. Watson.
Ms. Watson. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for this
hearing. It shows our determination to bring out into the open
the malfeasance in office. I am an ambassador. I have gone
through the training. I have been blindfolded, put on a C-130,
taken to a site, taken into a room with my colleagues, just
like Galactica 3,000, handed a red folder ``highly classified''
with a general standing over my shoulder, ``Read it and give it
back to me.'' Any information that came out of that folder and
was made public had to come from two sources, the general or
myself. I was the only woman in the room.
The men, if their wives asked them said, I could tell you
but I would have to kill you. So I am very sensitive to how it
works. And I am furious that your classified information was
exposed. And Robert Novak of all people.
Now, I am going to ask you some questions. They might
appear repetitive. But you are sworn, and I want this for the
record. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that at the
time of Robert Novak's July 14, 2003 column, your employment
status was classified and that your affiliation with the CIA
was not common knowledge outside the Intelligence Community.
The CIA has confirmed to this committee that at the time of Mr.
Novak's article, your employment status was covert and that
information was classified.
But some people are still trying to minimize your service
by suggesting you really weren't at risk and that your position
was not classified because you worked at a desk job at the CIA
headquarters at Langley, Virginia.
Let me give you an actual example.
Representative Roy Blunt said on the television program
Face the Nation, you know, this was a job that the Ambassador's
wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think
many people in Washington understood that her employment was at
the CIA and she went to that office every day.
Mrs. Wilson, is it fair to say that based on your service
for our government, you are well versed in the rules governing
the handling of classified information?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Absolutely, Congresswoman. And I would
like to just add that when operations officers, when they are
posted in the field or back at headquarters, we are given
training to understand--surveillance detection training so that
we understand very carefully that we are not being followed and
that we feel very comfortable that our status can be protected.
Ms. Watson. That is the reason why I started off with my
own scenario.
Is it your understanding that the Executive order governing
the safeguarding of classified information prohibits the
disclosure of classified information to persons who are not
authorized to receive this information?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes. Correct.
Ms. Watson. ``Yes'' is the answer?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, Congresswoman.
Ms. Watson. And is it your understanding that when an
employee at the CIA is undercover, that individual's employment
status at the CIA is considered classified information?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, it is.
Ms. Watson. Are you aware of any desk job exception to the
rules prohibiting the release of--release on information on the
employment status of a CIA employee?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No, Congresswoman.
Ms. Watson. So I think your testimony underscores the
efforts to minimize the significance of the disclosure of your
employment status or, in effect, minimizing the importance of
the classified information, rules designed to protect our
national security. And I am infuriated to continue to hear,
``She just had a desk job,'' because I understand, I have been
there, I have had the training, and I want to thank you
sincerely for the work that you have done in regards to the
protection of Homeland Security and showing the love for this
country.
Thank you very much.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Ms. Watson.
Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you. First of all, I want to thank you,
Ms. Plame, for coming before this committee and helping us with
our work, and for your service to our country. I have to say
this hearing has been a long time in coming. The chairman and I
and the members of this committee have signed five or six
requests over the last 4 years to try to get you before us and
to get to the bottom of this.
What has happened to you needs to be taken in a wider
context, however. The two issues, two of the major issues here
are, one, the process by which Congress receives information
relative to national security. And as you know, your outing, if
you will, or the disclosure of your covert status was, I think,
a deliberate attempt to discount the statements of your husband
with respect to the supposed attempts by Saddam Hussein to
purchase uranium or plutonium through Niger. And, evidently
from this chart, there were 20 occasions in which people
deliberately, I think, attempted to destroy your credibility
and also to destroy your effectiveness within the organization,
within the CIA.
And I know you have been very careful with your words. Once
or twice might be a careless disclosure. Five or six times
might be reckless, but 20 times--I will say it, 20 times is a
deliberate attempt to destroy your status as a covert agent.
And the only other major case in which we have had the
outing of CIA agents, such as the Supreme Court in Haig v.
Agee, said ``It is obvious and inarguable that no governmental
interest is more compelling than the security of the Nation.''
And going to those couple of issues, first of all, the
integrity of the process by which we get our information was
affected greatly, I think, in the terms of other agents may
have been very disheartened and troubled by what happened to
you. And in an effort to discount your husband's credibility,
the question was raised, and it has been continually raised, of
whether you were involved in the decision by the CIA to
actually send your husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, to Niger
in February 2002 to obtain information on the allegations that
Iraq sought uranium from Niger--they sort of said, ``Oh, her.
His wife sent him,'' like my wife sends me out to put out the
trash, you know--tried to discount the import of that. At least
I admit it.
Now I want to ask you, the suggestion that you were
involved in sending your husband seemed to drive the leaks in
an effort to discount his credibility. I want to ask you now
under oath, did you make the decision to send Ambassador Wilson
to Niger?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. No. I did not recommend him. I did not
suggest him. There was no nepotism involved. I didn't have the
authority. And, Congressman, if you will allow me briefly to
just lay out the sequence of events.
Mr. Lynch. That was my next question, if you would. I sort
of doubted this. If I was going to send my wife somewhere, it
wouldn't be Niger. But--nobody goes to Niger.
But, please, if you could lay out, walk us through
everything you did that may have been related around the time
of the decision to send Ambassador Wilson to Niger.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Thank you, Congressman. I am delighted
as well that I am under oath as I reply to you.
In February 2002, a young junior officer who worked for me
came to me very concerned, very upset. She had just received a
telephone call on her desk from someone, I don't know who, in
the Office of the Vice President, asking about this report of
this alleged sale of yellow cake uranium from Niger to Iraq.
She came to me, and as she was telling me this, what had
just happened, someone passed by. Another officer heard this.
He knew that Joe had already--my husband had already gone on
some CIA missions previously to deal with other nuclear
matters. And he suggested well, why don't we send Joe?
He knew that Joe had many years of experience on the
African continent. He also knew that he had served, and served
well and heroically, in the Baghdad Embassy, the Embassy in
Baghdad during the first Gulf war.
And I will be honest, I was somewhat ambivalent. At the
time, we had 2-year-old twins at home, and all I could envision
was me by myself at bedtime with a couple of 2-year-olds. So I
wasn't--I wasn't overjoyed with this idea.
Nevertheless, we went to my branch chief, our supervisor.
My colleague suggested this idea, and my supervisor turned to
me and said, ``Well, when you go home this evening, would you
be willing to speak to your husband, ask him to come in to
headquarters next week and we will discuss the options? See if
this--what we could do.'' Of course. And as I was leaving, he
asked me to draft a quick e-mail to the chief of our
Counterproliferation Division letting him know that this was--
might happen. I said, ``Of course.''
And it was that e-mail, Congressman, that was taken out of
context, a portion of which you see in the Senate Select
Committee on Intelligence report of July 2004 that makes it
seem as though I had suggested or recommended him.
Mr. Lynch. If I could followup because--just 30 seconds.
Chairman Waxman. Without objection.
Mr. Lynch. And I want to go back to that Senate
Intelligence Committee hearing.
There were three Republican Senators who included a more
definitive statement, it said, ``The plan to send the former
Ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former Ambassador's
wife, a CIA employee.''
What is your reaction to that statement in the Senate
report about the genesis of your husband's trip to Niger in
2002?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Congressman, it is incorrect. It has
been borne out in the testimony during the Libby trial. And I
can tell you that it just doesn't square with the facts. Those
additional views were written exclusively by three Republican
Senators.
Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Lynch.
Mr. Yarmuth.
Mr. Yarmuth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to yield
my time to Mr. Van Hollen.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Van Hollen is recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you very much, Mr. Yarmuth and Mr.
Chairman.
Ms. Plame, thank you for your service to our country and
your testimony here today.
Just to remind us all of the larger context in which this
happened and the lead-up to the war, we remember many
statements from the President of the United States, the Vice
President of the United States, Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, others, about mushroom clouds and invoking the image that
Saddam Hussein was going to be obtaining nuclear weapons and
using them in terrorist attacks.
So when Ambassador Wilson wrote his article in the New York
Times that began with this statement, ``Did the Bush
administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's
weapons program to justify invasion of Iraq,'' and answered
that question in the following sentence, ``Based on my
experience with the administration, in the months leading up to
the war, I have little choice but to conclude some of the
intelligence relating to Iraq's nuclear intelligence program
was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. That posed a direct
threat to the administration's credibility.'' And clearly they
understood the danger of that because it undercut one of the
main underpinnings and justifications the administration gave
for the war.
And we see from the chart here that the White House did
spring into action and begin to try and discredit your husband,
and that is how you were drawn into this web.
Mr. McClellan, then-White House spokesman, said, ``On
behalf of the administration, on behalf of the President, if
any one in this administration was involved in it,'' meaning
the leaks and the dissemination of information, ``they would no
longer be in this administration.''
Do you believe there continue to be people, individuals in
this administration, who were involved in leaking information
about you?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, Congressman. As we know, again,
from the evidence that was introduced at the trial of the Vice
President's former chief of staff, for one, Karl Rove clearly
was involved in the leaking of my name, and he still carries a
security clearance to this date, despite the President's words
to the contrary that he would immediately dismiss anyone who
had anything to do with this.
Mr. Van Hollen. And the CIA spokesman made a statement, and
other intelligence officers have made the statements that we
have today, that the failure to hold people accountable for
leaking this kind of information sends a very terrible message
to others in the intelligence field.
Do you think the failure of the President to fire the
people in his administration who were involved with this
message sends a chilling message to those in the intelligence
agencies, that the White House is not willing to stand up
behind those people who are putting their lives at danger every
day?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes. I believe it undermines the
President's words.
Mr. Van Hollen. Let me ask you this. And I would just say
on the record, with the statements that were made at trial with
respect to Karl Rove's involvement, I would just state the
testimony given by Mr. Cooper of Time Magazine, who said that
he was told by Karl Rove, ``Don't go too far out on Wilson.''
That Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the, ``Agency.'' And at the
conclusion of the conversation, according to Mr. Cooper, Mr.
Rove said, ``I have already said too much.''
Can you think of any reason that Mr. Rove would make that
statement if he did not know that he was engaged in wrongdoing?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Congressman, I cannot--I cannot begin to
speculate on Mr. Rove's intent. I just know what his words were
and the effects.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you.
Let me followup briefly on Mr. Lynch's line of questioning
regarding the Senate report and who really had Ambassador
Wilson sent to Niger and who was the instigator of that.
The unclassified Senate report asserts that the
Counterproliferation Division report officer told the committee
staff that the former Ambassador's wife, you, offered up his
name. Are you familiar with that statement in the
unclassified----
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I am.
Mr. Van Hollen. Now, we don't want to reveal, and we don't
want you to reveal any classified information or anyone's
identity, but have you talked with that CPD reports officer who
was interviewed by the Senate committee?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, Congressman. And I can tell you
that he came to me almost with tears in his eyes. He said his
words had been twisted and distorted. He wrote a memo, and he
asked his supervisor to allow him to be reinterviewed by the
committee. And the memo went nowhere, and his request to be
reinterviewed so that the record could be set straight was
denied.
Mr. Van Hollen. Just so I understand, Mr. Chairman, if I
could.
So there is a memo written by the CPD officer upon whose
alleged testimony in the Senate report that contradicts the
conclusions in that report.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Absolutely. Yes, sir.
Mr. Van Hollen. Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that this
committee should ask for that memo. It bears directly on the
credibility of the Senate report on this very, very important
issue that they have attempted to use to discredit Ambassador
Wilson's mission.
Chairman Waxman. I think the gentleman makes an excellent
point, and we will insist on getting that memo.
Mr. Van Hollen. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Hodes, you are next.
Mr. Hodes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I reserve my time. I
yield back.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Sarbanes.
Mr. Sarbanes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Wilson, thanks for being here today. I know this can't
be easy for you.
If you put this affair in context, what has happened with
you, with all of the other abuses, frankly, Mr. Chairman, that
we have been investigating over the last 7 weeks--and I thank
you for the diligence of your inquiry and fairness of your
inquiry into a number of the things that have occurred--it
paints a picture of an administration of bullies, in my view.
The things that--in order to achieve whatever the ends they are
seeking, any means can be justified and that people can just be
pushed around.
We saw it when we had testimony of people in the White
House who bullied the scientific community by altering
testimony on global warming. We have seen it in terms of the
investigations you have done, Mr. Chairman, with respect to the
treatment of our Civil Service. Now we see it in context of our
Intelligence Community.
And to me what you have experienced is really the result of
the syndrome that has developed in this administration which
reflects the arrogance of power run amok.
I have just a couple of questions that I wanted to ask you
in that vein.
First of all, I gather you believe that the outing of your
status, the blowing of your covert status, was as a result of
some of the statements that your husband was making and the
challenges that he was bringing; is that right?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes. I believe that was one of the
consequences.
Mr. Sarbanes. OK. But at the point that they were prepared
to surrender your covert status to the public, I mean, what was
to be gained by that? I mean, can you--was it to apply further
leverage? I mean, really it was sort of after the fact at that
point, right?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. My thinking, Congressman, is that by
continuing to assert falsely that I somehow suggested him or
recommended him for this mission, it would undercut the
credibility of what he was saying. And that is--that is what I
think has happened. And it just got a little out of hand.
Mr. Sarbanes. It strikes me as petulant behavior on their
part.
Second, there is a suggestion being made that your status
could have been divulged sort of accidentally. But you have
described efforts, structural efforts, that are designed to
make sure that this doesn't happen accidentally. And so could
you comment on that?
I mean, it seems to me that in order for your status to
have been disclosed, somebody had to want that to happen. In
other words, the way things were set up, it is highly unlikely
that your status would be disclosed by accident. It had to be
as a result of an orchestrated effort that somebody wanted to
put it out there.
Can you talk about sort of structurally, whether that is
the case?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I can't speak to intent, but I can speak
to simply what the actions that we can observe, and that,
again, they all knew that I worked in the CIA. They might not
have known what my status was. But that alone, the fact that I
worked at the CIA, should have put up a red flag that they
acted in a much more protective way of my identity and true
employer.
Mr. Sarbanes. And then last, again, I'm trying to get--
because this is more than--it's more than a story about Valerie
Plame Wilson and what happened to you, as devastating as it has
been to your life over these last period of months. It's about
our Intelligence Community. And you spoke yourself to how this
kind of conduct can affect the integrity and effectiveness of
our intelligence apparatus.
Can you comment on the chilling effect, if you will, on
what the message it sends to people, to those, for example, who
would be sent on a mission to collect intelligence about a
subject that the White House might already have a very strong
opinion about. How would it affect the way that agent, the way
that person would check that information and get that
information back up the chain?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Intelligence collection is certainly
more an art than a science, but if there is any taint of bias,
then it undermines its usefulness. The primary customer of our
intelligence is, of course, the President of the United States.
And if the President of the United States thinks somehow--or
doesn't believe that his intelligence that he receives on his
desk, he or she receives on his desk every morning, is free of
ideology, politics, a certain viewpoint, how then can that
President make the most important decisions of all about the
security of our country? I mean, that is--I do feel
passionately about that. You have to get the politics out of
our intelligence process.
Mr. Sarbanes. I appreciate that. I appreciate the passion
that you brought to your job. And you represent hundreds of
thousands of people that go to work and try to make a
difference for this country and I think are being bullied by
this administration. You won't get the policy from them that
you deserve. But I want you to know that everyone here
appreciates your service.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Waxman. We have gone back and forth, and, rather
than a second round, Mr. Davis and I have agreed that we will
have 5 minutes wrap-up on each side; 5 minutes will be
controlled by the chairman and the ranking member.
And I would yield 5 minutes to Mr. Davis at this point.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I yield to Mr. Westmoreland such
time as he would consume.
Mr. Westmoreland. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I hate it that we are not going to stay here
to get all of our questions answered by Ms. Wilson, because I
have so many to ask, because there is so many conflicting
reports. And I think that with something of this importance,
that we should have made a little more time for it.
But Ms. Wilson, the Counterproliferation Division of the
CIA, that seems like a pretty important place where a bunch of
smart people would work and keep good records. Would that--
would I be OK in thinking that?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, Congressman.
Mr. Westmoreland. But in the Senate Intel report that I
have that says some CPD officials could not recall how the
Office decided to contact the former Ambassador, was this a
voluntary lack of memory or were there no notes kept on it? Is
it--how could they forget how they came about a name that they
were fixing to send to a foreign country to check on the
intelligence of Iraq getting material to build nuclear bombs?
That seems a little bit far-fetched to me.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Congressman, please remember that in
this period in the run-up to the war, we in the
Counterproliferation Division of the CIA were working flat-out
as hard as we could to try to find good, solid intelligence for
our senior policymakers on these presumed programs.
My role in this was to go home that night without revealing
any classified information, of course, and ask my husband would
he be willing to come into CIA headquarters the following week
and talk to the people there. At that meeting, I introduced him
and I left, because I did have a hundred and one other things I
needed to do.
Mr. Westmoreland. But what I'm trying to say is do you
think there would not have been a paper trail of how his name
came about, who would have--who would have mentioned it first
or--I mean, to me that is a pretty important assignment to give
somebody; and, you know, maybe somebody would want to say
``Hey, that was my idea. That was my guy that I was sending
over there,'' and want to take credit for it. But it seems like
everybody is running from it.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Congressman, I believe one of the pieces
of evidence that was introduced in the Libby trial was an INR
memo of that meeting where it states, in fact, my husband was
not particularly looking forward to--he didn't think it was
necessary. There had been, I believe, at least two other
reports, one by a three-star general and one by the Ambassador
there on the ground who said there wasn't really much of this
allegation. And the INR folks that attended the meeting also
said well, we are not sure that this is really necessary.
But it was ultimately decided that he would go, use his
contacts, which were extensive in the government, to see if
there was anything more to this. It was a serious question
asked by the Office of the Vice President and it deserved a
serious answer.
Mr. Westmoreland. Are you familiar with a Charles Grimere
that was the former Iraq mission manager for the CIA?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I know of him, sir, yes.
Mr. Westmoreland. He testified in the Libby trial that all
he had heard is that you were working for this
Counterproliferation Division, and it could have been a number
of things that different people, I guess, look at this, some
covert, some classified, some undercover, some different names.
Is that true that there are different classifications of
people that work at this Counterproliferation Division?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. What I would say that's most accurate is
most of the employees at the Counterproliferation Division are
undercover of some sort.
Mr. Westmoreland. But he did work for the CIA so he should
have known that you were undercover or classified or----
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I am saying that the fact was that most
people in the Counterproliferation Division were undercover. I
can't speak to what he should have or should have not known--
were probably cognizant of that, yes, sir.
Mr. Westmoreland. And you mentioned taking politics out of
intelligence. And your husband--would you say he was a Democrat
or a Republican?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Although my husband comes from a
Republican family with deep roots in California, I would say he
is a Democrat now, Congressman.
Mr. Westmoreland. OK. And just to kind of keep score, not
that you would put yourself in any political category, would
you say you are a Democrat or a Republican?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Congressman, I am not sure that is----
Mr. Westmoreland. I know. But I gave a list of questions I
couldn't ask you, and that wasn't one of them, so I didn't know
if you would be willing to----
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, Congressman. I am a Democrat.
Mr. Westmoreland. You are a Democrat.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, I am.
Mr. Westmoreland. So the Vice President, who is a
Republican, who evidently thought from his CIA briefing that he
had gotten 1 day, felt like that this needed to be looked at
further, the report that Niger was selling this yellow cake
uranium to Iraq, that he would get some further intel on it.
They called the Counterproliferation--or at least somebody in
the CIA--and then we had a Democrat or at least supposedly
someone who may be affiliated on the Democratic side--represent
her, or present or supposedly present or at least vouch for her
husband who was--who had come from a good Republican family
that had lost his way and became a Democrat.
But my point is, in his piece titled, ``What I Didn't Find
in Africa,'' he disputes the Bush administration's claims of
there was no evidence that Niger was selling it. But you,
coming from an intelligence background, you don't just depend
on one report from one country or one source to base all your
intelligence on, do you? Wouldn't you gather it from a bunch of
different sources and then kind of put it together and look at
it and not just one from----
Mrs. Plame Wilson. That is correct, Congressman.
Chairman Waxman. The gentleman's time has expired.
Do you have a last question that you want to ask?
Mr. Westmoreland. No.
I guess, Mr. Chairman, my last comment would be to you that
I still think it is a shame that--we have Ms. Wilson here and
all of the press came and all of these good people came to
witness all of this, and it's been quite a spectacle--that we
wouldn't get to ask all of the questions that we had.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I think what is clear here is, first
of all, it is a terrible thing that any CIA operative would be
outed. But what is difficult, I think, what we haven't been
able to establish is who knew who was undercover and who was in
a covert status. And I think we would have to look at that. But
if there is no evidence here that the people that were outing
this and pursuing this, had knowledge of the covert status--And
so I just wanted to make that point.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Thank you, Congressman.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
I want to yield to Ms. Norton for 5 minutes.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much. And thank you, Ms. Wilson,
as others have thanked you for your extraordinary service to
our country.
I am trying to understand the effect of the Executive
order, because there is an Executive order that is Executive
Order 12958. It is an Executive order, a Presidential Executive
order, that indicates what authorized--what the requirements
are to prevent unauthorized disclosures.
And in summary, they are background checks, official need
to know. I am particularly interested in the official need to
know.
And I ask you to look at the middle chart, the middle part
of the chart on there where the White House and other
officials, State Department officials, are listed.
Can you think of any reason that any of those officials
would have had a reason to know your identity, in particular,
as a covert agent?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Congresswoman, there was no need to know
my specific identity other than I was a CIA officer, according
to that chart. None whatsoever.
Ms. Norton. Could I ask you whether there is any difference
in your review between disclosing the identity of a covert
agent and disclosing classified information, what if any
difference would there be?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I think damage in either case could be
equally devastating. It would simply depend on what the
classified information was. But certainly revealing an
operative's true identity is devastating. In my case, I was
working on trying to find the Iraq weapons of mass destruction
programs and what they were up to.
Ms. Norton. I suppose we could all think of classified
information involving our country that would have a devastating
effect on all of us.
Disclosing the name of a classified agent might have a
devastating effect on more than that agent's career; is that
not the case?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Absolutely, Congresswoman.
The ripple effects go outward in quite wide circles. There
are all of the contacts through the years as either innocent or
in a professional manner. The agents, the networks. Much is
taken out.
Ms. Norton. Are there circumstances under which disclosing
the identity of a covert agent could result in the death of
that agent, and hasn't that occurred before in our country's
history?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, it has.
Ms. Norton. If, in fact, an official of any kind did not
have an official reason to know your status, in your view would
that be a violation of the Executive order which lists official
need to know as a reason for having classified information?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, Congresswoman. I would think so.
Ms. Norton. So you think it would be.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. It would be a violation.
Ms. Norton. One of my colleagues questioned you regarding
the accusation that over and over again was repeated in the
press, and, for that matter, by a number of public officials,
that it was you who was responsible for your husband's being
selected to go on the controversial trip at issue.
As I understand it, that person has indeed said that he was
not the person who indicated that you had been responsible for
the selection of your husband to go to Niger.
If that is the case, would you say that it would be
inappropriate for us or others to rely on the information that
a CIA official had said that you were responsible for the
selection of your husband to go to Niger?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. That is incorrect. A senior Agency
officer said she had nothing to do with his trip. And I would
just like to add that certainly I had no political agenda at
the time of my husband's trip. Joe had no political agenda. We
were both looking to serve our country.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, I understand that the CIA
official to which I refer has in fact said that in writing, and
I ask that you try to get the memorandum of that official that
would make it clear that he or she was not responsible for this
information.
Chairman Waxman. We will try to get that information and
hold it for the record.
Ms. Norton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Let me clarify one thing. You noted
that when you learned about this, your husband picked up the
paper and said, ``He did it.'' Do you remember your testimony
today? ``He did it.'' Was he referring to Novak? Was he
referring to the administration? And did you know this was
percolating?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Yes, sir. He was referring to Mr. Novak.
We had indications in the week prior that Mr. Novak knew my
identity and my true employer. And I, of course, alerted my
superiors at the Agency, and I was told don't worry, we will
take care of it. And it was much to our surprise that we read
about this July 14th.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Do you know if your superiors at the
Agency did anything at that point to stop the outing of a CIA
agent? It would seem to me they would have picked up the phone
to say this is a serious matter, this is a crime. Do you have
any idea?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Absolutely. This is what I believe and
this is what I read, that then-spokesman Mr. Harlow spoke
directly to Mr. Novak and said something along the lines of,
``Don't go with this. Don't do this.'' I don't know exactly
what he said. But he clearly communicated the message that Mr.
Novak should not publish my name.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. And you don't know if he said this
could be a violation of law, she is a covert operator or
anything like that.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. I have no idea.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. One of the long-term concerns
outside of the--I mean, the outing of an agent is very serious
business which I think has been underscored by both sides. But
if no one knows that you're covert, it's hard at that point to
show any violation of law and the like. But if you have notice,
that's a different issue.
And so you did the appropriate thing in notifying your
superiors that this was percolating, and they were not able to
stop it. Is that your testimony?
Mrs. Plame Wilson. That is correct.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Thank you.
Chairman Waxman. Mrs. Wilson, you can be a Democrat, you
can be a Republican. No one asks our servicemen or CIA
operatives what they believe in in terms of their politics to
go out and serve their country. They are not acting as
Democrats or Republicans. They and you were acting as
Americans.
Facts are not Republican or Democratic. Your husband
revealed the falsehood of the reason the President gave to go
to war against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And the reason he gave,
even in his State of the Union address, was that the weapon of
mass destruction that Saddam Hussein had, or would soon have,
is a nuclear bomb. That was very sobering, but it was false.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Uh-huh.
Chairman Waxman. And when your husband wrote the article,
that went right to the heart of this claim.
So one could see why they wouldn't like what your husband
wrote. But they made you collateral damage. Your career was
ended. Your life may have been in jeopardy. And they didn't
seem to care, even to this point, because you said they haven't
even called to apologize.
Now, whether they knew it and intentionally gave out this
information about your status is the reason for this
investigation. If they knew it then, that you were a covert
undercover agent, and they disclosed that fact, that is a big
deal. That is a serious jeopardizing of our national security.
If they didn't know you were an undercover covert agent,
then I have to wonder in my mind what was their thinking. That
this guy couldn't be right because his wife had something to do
with the mission? Boy, is that sort of silly.
Either way, I don't think it speaks well for all of those
people in the White House to have gone out of their way to let
the press know this information which was the only, I guess,
the only thing they had to say.
The President has finally acknowledged the statement that
your husband pointed out was factually incorrect. The President
has acknowledged it was factually incorrect. The Secretary of
State said the CIA didn't tell her, but it turned out that her
chief deputy did get informed, Mr. Hadley, that the statement
was not correct; that they were putting it into the State of
the Union address, the most vetted speech a President ever
makes. They acknowledged the validity of your husband's
statement. And what do we have for you? Well, just collateral
damage.
I find that troubling that in the zeal for their political
positioning, that there are a lot of collateral damage around,
including a war that didn't have to be fought.
I want to thank you very much for your presence here. I
think it has been helpful, and we are going to continue this
investigation.
Ms. Watson. A question to the Chair.
Chairman Waxman. Yes.
Ms. Watson. The first, I think, most of us knew about
Valerie Plame as being an undercover agent was through Robert
Novak's July 14, 2003 column. Is it possible, as we continue
our oversight function, to have Mr. Novak under oath come in
and testify to the fact that he did print that information?
Chairman Waxman. Well, I think we know that he did print
that information and that we know now she was a covert agent. I
have many--I will give it some thought. But I want to
underscore that we need an investigation. This is not about
Scooter Libby, and it's not just about Valerie Plame Wilson. It
is about the integrity of our national security and whether it
is being jeopardized.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I think if you do that, we--you need
to involve the CIA, because there is no evidence here that
anyone out there had any idea that she was an undercover agent,
that she was a covert agent at this point.
Chairman Waxman. You may well be right. But the CIA did.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. And, in fact, she did the
appropriate thing in going to her superiors when she found out
that she was about to be outed.
I would have thought at that point, if the CIA felt one of
their operatives were going to be outed, they would have gone
to great lengths to try to kill the story and let them know
what the law was.
Chairman Waxman. That is a very good point, and I think we
need to get----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. In the President's speech--and I
have to say this--in the President's speech when he mentioned
the uranium, those words were cleared by the CIA. It may not
have been in accordance with what Mr. Wilson found, but Ms.
Plame's boss approved that. And I think the record should
reflect that.
Chairman Waxman. Before I call on anybody else.
Yes, Mr. Hodes.
Mr. Hodes. Just very briefly. The suggestion about what we
don't know cannot be finally determined until we pursue the
investigation that we need to pursue and find out what the
people on this chart knew and when they knew it, who the
unknown person or persons are, and we need an investigation.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. We had a special prosecutor who did
this, Mr. Hodes. The special prosecutor looked at this and
spent 2 years on this.
Chairman Waxman. This is a hearing to get information from
witnesses, not to debate, although it is inevitable. But let
us, I think, move on with our hearing.
I thank all of the Members for their participation. I wish
we had all of the Members here to participate, but all of those
Members were invited and had adequate notice, but this is a
Friday.
Thank you so much for being here.
Mrs. Plame Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Waxman. We are going to recess for 4 or 5 minutes
just so we can settle down and get the next witnesses up and
take care of whatever pressing matters that need to be attended
to.
[Recess.]
Chairman Waxman. The committee will come back to order.
I am pleased to welcome our next two witnesses. Dr. James
Knodell is the security officer for the Executive Office of the
President. According to GAO, this position is, ``responsible
for formulating and directing the execution of security policy,
reviewing and evaluating Executive Office of the President
security programs, and conducting security indoctrinations and
debriefings for agencies of the Executive Office of the
President.''
Mr. Bill Leonard is the Director of the Information
Security Oversight Office at the National Archives and Records
Administration. This office is charged with developing security
classification policies for classifying, declassifying, and
safeguarding security information generated in government and
industry, and evaluating the effectiveness of the security
classification programs developed by government and industry.
And I want to welcome both of you to our hearing today.
Your prepared statements are going to be in the record in
its entirety, and we are going to ask you to keep your oral
presentation to around 5 minutes or try to keep it under 5
minutes.
It is the practice of this committee to swear in all
witnesses, so if you will please rise.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Chairman Waxman. The record will indicate that the
witnesses answered in the affirmative.
Mr. Knodell, why don't we start with you?
STATEMENTS OF JAMES KNODELL, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF SECURITY,
EXECUTIVE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT, THE WHITE HOUSE; AND WILLIAM
LEONARD, DIRECTOR, INFORMATION SECURITY OVERSIGHT OFFICE,
NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION
STATEMENT OF JAMES KNODELL
Mr. Knodell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
My name is James Knodell. I am the Chief Security Officer
for the Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness, Office
of Administration, Executive Office of the President.
The Office of Security and Emergency Preparedness is
commonly referred to as OSEP, which provides personnel security
and physical security and emergency preparedness for the
Executive Office of the President and Office of the Vice
President.
OSEP works closely with the U.S. Secret Service, National
Security Council, and the White House Military Office as well
as EOP managers and all personnel assigned to the EOP to ensure
their security measures are well coordinated and that required
controls are consistently and fully implemented.
OSEP provides a variety of services that ensure the proper
protection of EOP resources including information, people, and
facilities. These services include prescreening candidates for
employment based on security guidelines, monitoring the
background investigation process, briefing employees on
requirements and guidelines for the handling and storage of
classified material.
In reference to the committee's request that I provide
information on White House procedures for safeguarding
classified information, OSEP follows guidelines set forth in
various Executive orders that deal with classified information.
For example, Executive Order 12968, Access to Classified
Information, dated August 2, 1985, established a uniform
Federal personnel security program for employees who will be
considered for initial or continued access to classified
information.
Executive Order 12958, Classified National Security
Information, dated April 17, 1995, prescribes a uniform system
for classifying, safeguarding, and declassifying national
security information.
OSEP staff members brief all new EOP employees on the
responsibilities for handling and securing classified
information consistent with these Executive orders.
Additionally, mandatory annual refresher security briefings are
provided to those EOP employees holding security clearances. In
the event that an EOP employee fails to follow applicable
guidelines resulting in a security violation, a member of the
EOP office to which the individual's assigned should report the
matter to OSEP.
OSEP then refers the matter and it follows procedures
consistent with the guidelines in Executive Order 12968 to
ensure that a determination is made to whether the person
should continue to hold a security clearance and if the
incident involves a risk to classified information controlled
by an organization outside the EOP, that organization is
notified.
Mr. Chairman, I am not able to discuss individual cases or
investigations. I would be happy to answer questions related to
the procedures for handling classified information or
corresponding to the unauthorized release of classified
information.
Thank you.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Leonard.
STATEMENT OF J. WILLIAM LEONARD
Mr. Leonard. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Waxman, Mr. Davis, and members of the committee, I
wish to thank you for inviting me to testify here today.
I direct the Information Security Oversight Office [ISOO].
Under Executive Order 12958, as amended, we have substantial
responsibilities with respect to the classification,
safeguarding, and declassification of information by agencies
within the executive branch. Included is the responsibility to
develop and promulgate a directive implementing the order.
It is the order that sets forth the basic framework and
legal authority by which executive branch agencies may classify
national security information. Pursuant to his constitutional
authority and through the order, the President has authorized a
limited number of officials to apply classification to certain
national security-related information.
In delegating classification authority, the President has
established clear parameters for its use and certain burdens
that must be satisfied.
Specifically, every act of classifying information must be
traceable back to its origin as an explicit decision by a
responsible official who has been expressly delegated original
classification authority. In addition, the original
classification authority must be able to identify or describe
the damage to national security that could reasonably be
expected if the information was subject to unauthorized
disclosure. Furthermore, the information must be owned by,
produced by or for, or under the control of the U.S.
Government. And, finally, it must fall into one or more of the
categories of information specifically provided for in the
order.
The President has also spelled out in the order some very
clear prohibitions and limitations with respect to the use of
classification. Specifically, for example, in no case can
information be classified in order to conceal violations of
law, inefficiency, or administrative error.
It is the responsibility of officials delegated original
classification authority to establish at the time of the
original decision the level of classification as well as the
duration of classification.
The order and directive go on to establish requirements for
access to classified information, such as the need for a
favorable access eligibility determination by an agency, as
well as the execution of an approved nondisclosure agreement.
The order and directive also promulgates minimum standards
for the safeguarding of classified information, including such
issues as storage, reproduction, transmission and destruction.
We also establish actions to be taken in the event of a
loss, possible compromise, or unauthorized disclosure of
classified information. This includes the prompt reporting and
investigation of such instances in order to implement
appropriate corrective actions and to ascertain the degree of
damage to national security.
While I stated earlier it is the responsibility of the
original classification authority to determine the duration of
classification, a fundamental principle of the order is that
classified information shall be declassified as soon as it no
longer meets the standards for classification.
In addition, while the order presumes that information that
continues to meet the standards for classification requires
continued protection, it provides for exceptional cases in
which the need to protect such information may be outweighed by
the public's interest in disclosure of the information.
In such circumstances, an agency head or designated
official may, as an exercise of discretion, declassify the
information.
In addition to the above, information can be declassified
in one of three ways: first, by implementing the instructions
set forth in a classification or declassification guide;
second, by following a view by an authorized official, or
third, automatically, without benefit of review.
Finally, the order establishes specific responsibility for
agencies in establishing an effective classification management
program.
Again, I want to thank you for inviting me here today, Mr.
Chairman. I would be happy to answer your questions and any
questions any members the committee might have.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Leonard follows:]
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[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T8579.012
Chairman Waxman. The Chair will recognize himself to start
off the questions.
Mr. Knodell, you are the one charged at the White House for
safeguarding classified information; isn't that correct?
Mr. Knodell. That is correct.
Chairman Waxman. And in doing so, you have an Executive
Order 12958 that implements the regulations for the protection
of this information. I want to ask you about that and, of
course, we are looking at the context of Mrs. Wilson's identity
being disclosed.
Federal regulations require that any person who has
knowledge of the loss or compromise of classified information
has an obligation to report to the White House Security
Officer.
I want to read to you 5CFS section 1212.30. ``Any White
House employee who has knowledge of the loss or possible
compromise of classified information should report the
circumstances to the EOP security officer.'' Is that accurate,
Mr. Knodell?
Mr. Knodell. Yes, it is.
Chairman Waxman. And the White House officials who know
about the disclosure of classified information have an
obligation to report what they know to you.
Mr. Knodell. Yes, sir.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Leonard, you are one of the Nation's
experts on protection of classified information. Do Federal
officials who learn of the possible breach of classified
information have an obligation to report it to the security
officer at the White House?
Mr. Leonard. Any individual that becomes aware of a
security violation, especially one in which may involve an
unauthorized disclosure, has the obligation to promptly report
that matter to the designated official to receive that.
Chairman Waxman. That's whether it was intentionally
disclosed or unintentionally disclosed?
Mr. Leonard. Yes, sir, that's correct.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Knodell, I want to ask you about
whether the White House officials complied with this
requirement after the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's identity. Let
me start with the former White House Press Secretary Ari
Fleischer, Mr. Fleischer's conversations with Walter Pincus of
the Washington Post and David Gregory of NBC News about Ms.
Wilson's identity. These conversations took place in July 2003.
Almost immediately it was clear that Ms. Wilson's identity was
classified information.
Mr. Knodell, the regulations require Mr. Fleischer to
report what he knew about this disclosure to you. Did he do
that?
Mr. Knodell. Mr. Chairman, I thought the agreement here for
me today was I would not discuss specific investigations.
Chairman Waxman. As I understood it, we wouldn't discuss
the Libby case. That was a concern, that we were going to
rehash the Libby case. This is the Valerie Plame Wilson case,
and it is a question Congress is exploring to fine out whether
our security laws and regulations are working.
One way to find that out is to find out whether you were
told that there was a violation and the rules were upheld and
followed in the requirement and obligations to report it to
you.
Mr. Knodell. Mr. Chairman, that happened before my tenure
in this current position. I began this position in August 2004.
Chairman Waxman. Well, do you--are you aware of whether the
report was made by Mr. Fleischer to your predecessor?
Mr. Knodell. I'm not, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Waxman. Are you aware if there's any investigation
that ever took place in the White House about the release of
this classified information?
Mr. Knodell. I am not.
Chairman Waxman. Do you know whether Carl Rove, the
President's senior political adviser, came forward and reported
what he knew about the breach of Ms. Wilson's identity. After
all, we learned that Mr. Rove talked about her identity with at
least two journalists, a Robert Novak and Matthew Cooper of
Time Magazine.
Mr. Knodell. Mr. Chairman, I have no knowledge of any
investigation within my office.
Chairman Waxman. How long have you been in this office?
Mr. Knodell. Since August 2004.
Chairman Waxman. Two and a half years. Were you aware in
the last 2\1/2\ years that this was an issue for which there
was a lot of concern?
Mr. Knodell. Yes, Mr. Chairman, I was.
Chairman Waxman. Did you learn that from people in the
White House?
Mr. Knodell. Through the press.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Leonard, the regulations seem clear,
it says that officials like Mr. Rove have an obligation to
report security violations.
Mr. Knodell, wouldn't there have to be a report that would
have been filed in your office?
Mr. Knodell. If we were notified, there would be, sir, yes.
Chairman Waxman. So if you were notified, a report would be
on file. Is that right?
Mr. Knodell. Correct.
Chairman Waxman. You don't know if there's one on file. Is
that correct, you don't even know there's one on file?
Mr. Knodell. There is not one on file.
Chairman Waxman. There is not one on file. You know that
there is no report on file that classified information was
disclosed and that report was about Fleischer or Rove or all
the other names.
Mr. Knodell. Mr. Chairman, not within the Office of
Security and Emergency Preparedness.
Chairman Waxman. Mr. Leonard, just to clarify the point,
isn't there an obligation under the law to have that
information filed by the person who learns that he disclosed
classified information even inadvertently?
Mr. Leonard. Again, Mr. Chairman, the requirement is for
anyone who becomes aware of a violation, the person who may be
involved in committing it or someone who is otherwise aware of
it, to promptly report that to the designated official so that
an appropriate inquiry and investigation can be conducted.
Chairman Waxman. Well, these people may not have known at
the time they disclosed this information to the press but they
certainly learned afterwards. Did they have an obligation even
then to report?
Mr. Leonard. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Again, the purpose of the
notification is to allow for the conduct of an investigation or
an inquiry in order to at the very least determine what the
causes were so as to provide for corrective action to assess
the possibility of damage to national security.
Chairman Waxman. Last question to Mr. Knodell. Was there
any corrective action taken, was any disciplinary action taken
against Mr. Rove for failing to report his knowledge of the
breach of Mrs. Wilson's identity?
Mr. Knodell. No, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Waxman. No, no action was taken, or no, you don't
know?
Mr. Knodell. No action was taken.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Knodell, you just found out you
were coming here yesterday, is that correct?
Mr. Knodell. Actually had word of it earlier in the week
but found out definitively yesterday, yes, sir.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Generally committee rules about
advance notice and consultation to protect both the majority
and minority rights, we get notice of these, and requires that
Members be informed in writing of witnesses and the likely
scope of their testimony 3 days prior to a hearing.
We were informed only yesterday of the addition of two
witnesses to today's, which doesn't generally allow us the time
to prepare that we would ordinarily like.
Do you know, was the possibility of a subpoena discussed
with you or with Mr. Fielding in terms of your coming here
today?
Mr. Knodell. I understand that there was talk of a
subpoena.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Just for the record, the minority
was not consulted on that at all.
Chairman Waxman. Would the gentleman yield? As I understand
it, Mr. Knodell was expected to come here and that information
was out there a week prior to today and it was shared with the
minority staff. We found out yesterday that Mr. Knodell was not
going to be permitted to testify. I called the White House
Counsel and suggested that we might have to issue a subpoena
unless Mr. Knodell was made available. I was told the subpoena
would not be necessary. Mr. Knodell is here.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. My understanding was that the
invitation had come but we weren't notified until yesterday he
would appear.
Let me just start. When an agency creates classified
material, let's say the CIA, and then shares it with another
agency, what obligations and responsibilities does the
originator have to convey the classification status to the
recipient?
Mr. Knodell. If it's a document, it will be clearly marked
on that document.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. How about an individual?
Mr. Knodell. They should be told that it's classified
material that's being passed.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. To your knowledge there was no
knowledge at the White House of Mrs. Plame's covert status. Or
can you not comment on that?
Mr. Knodell. I can't comment, I don't have any knowledge of
it.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Mr. Leonard, let me just ask this,
does the burden generally fall on the agency that has the
classification or that would have an employee in a covert
status to convey that? How else would another agency know?
Mr. Leonard. With respect to conveying classification
status, the burden or the responsibility--clearly the preferred
way is immediate notice to the recipient of classified
information. That can happen either by markings on a document
if it's written notification, or if it's oral notification, it
would be something along----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. In this case there were briefings;
there were briefings from individuals and names on briefings
but there would not be any documentation, would there, to say
this person is covert or not covert, as a general rule?
Mr. Leonard. When disclosure is oral, normally it would be
preceded by something along the lines what I'm about to tell
you is classified such and such a level. Another way to
disclose or the provide classification guidance is to again
have a written classification that have would provide specifics
as to what's classified at what level or to convey the
substance of a classification guide through the course of
briefings and whatever. And then last, all cleared individuals
have an affirmative responsibility by virtue of signing a
nondisclosure agreement that if there is any question in their
mind as to the true classification of status of information
they are provided, they are obligated to seek clarification
before the disclosure.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Is there an obligation to ask?
Mr. Leonard. If there was uncertainty in the mind of the
recipient by virtue of the nondisclosure agreement.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. The difficulty we have in this
situation is there are a lot of people that work for CIA and
are not under cover or in a covert operation. In fact, they
fill it out on applications publicly. Everybody knows they work
there.
I'm just wondering what is the obligation of a recipient
agency at that point to ask appropriate questions, or should
the obligation be on the CIA affirmatively to protect their
employees. That's really the question here. Because we have
heard no testimony in the first panel that there was any
knowledge on the part of anybody who was passing this
information that Mrs. Plame was in a covert status. Had there
been, I think we would have seen the investigation turn out
differently at this point.
Mr. Leonard. There is an affirmative obligation on the part
of the party who's disclosing the information. If there is
uncertainty in the mind of the recipient, there is likewise an
affirmative responsibility.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Let me ask you both this, this was a
situation it's clear Mrs. Plame appeared to have handled this
appropriately, but if a newspaper is getting ready to out an
operative or a top secret memo or something and there are
penalties attached, what do you do at that point to let them
know they are violating the law, to let them know that they are
going out with top secret information or in this case outing an
agent? What would be the obligation at that point of the CIA to
go forward and notify the individuals that are suspected of
outing or on the verge of doing this that are exploring this?
Mr. Knodell. I think clearly if they know the classified
information is going to be released it's incumbent upon them--
--
Mr. Davis of Virginia. How would they do it; say don't do
this? Because when you say don't do this to the press----
Mr. Knodell. Because they have the classified information,
they can have them sign a nondisclosure agreement barring them
from----
Mr. Davis of Virginia. Would it be appropriate to say this
is classified information, will hurt national security? They
should do that, shouldn't they?
Mr. Leonard. They do.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. We don't know what the facts were in
this, but I hope to work with Mr. Waxman to get the facts in
this particular case.
Mr. Leonard, would you agree with that?
Mr. Leonard. It's a judgment call, Mr. Davis. There
certainly will be circumstances where it is prudent to
intercede along those lines. There will be other circumstances
where it may not be because they could serve to confirm
something that we don't want to confirm, and quite frankly,
just because something is in the media doesn't mean it's
accurate.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. But if you're the CIA or with an
agency that has that and you know they have the information and
they are going to come out with it, at that point that argument
goes out the window.
Mr. Leonard. Again, it depends upon what the nature.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. If it's true.
Mr. Leonard. Right. It depends on what the nature of the
information. Your example of the identity of a covert officer,
that would be prudent.
Mr. Davis of Virginia. I think one of the issues here,
aside from all the political sideshow, is the fact that once
the agency knew one of their operatives, covert operatives were
going to be outed, what steps did they take at that point they
knew a story was pending. Mrs. Plame has testified here under
oath that they knew this story was coming, in fact her husband
said he did it. Obviously there were some conversations. And
exactly what did the CIA do to protect their operative? At that
point the obligation doesn't go to the White House who we
weren't even sure was in that particular chain with the outing
of that story, but what do they or should they have done? I
hope that we can explore that further.
Thank you.
Chairman Waxman. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to
thank the gentlemen for testifying.
Mr. Knodell, let me--is it Knodell?
Mr. Knodell. Yes.
Mr. Cummings. Let me ask you a few questions because in
answering some of the chairman's questions you left me shocked.
I want to make sure I heard you right.
Are you saying with regard to this case; that is, the
outing of Valerie Plame Wilson, there is no report?
Mr. Knodell. Not in my office, there is not.
Mr. Cummings. Are you also saying that there was no
investigation?
Mr. Knodell. Not by my office.
Mr. Cummings. Not by your office. And so I could conclude
then that there were no sanctions, is that correct? No
sanctions within your office?
Is it one of your jobs, part of your job to recommend
sanctions where you find that there has been a breach?
Mr. Knodell. Correct. But there was already an outside
investigation that was taking place, criminal investigation.
That's why we took no action.
Mr. Cummings. Now one of your main objectives for being in
the White House is to make sure that you--make sure that these
kinds of things don't happen, is that right?
Mr. Knodell. Correct.
Mr. Cummings. I would assume if anyone took the job you
took, that one of--and considering what happened before you got
there, that this would be something that would be on the minds
of everybody because, again, this is like bells ringing, alarms
going off. This is the kind of thing that you don't want to do
because this could end up in your lap. Is that right?
Mr. Knodell. In this particular case you're absolutely
right. This started long before my tenure in this position. By
the time I took the position, the criminal investigation was
already under way.
Mr. Cummings. But did you look into it at all, just so that
you could make sure you did your job right and didn't allow
this to happen again?
Mr. Knodell. We didn't want to have collateral
investigations going on at the same time, sir.
Mr. Cummings. So if there is a criminal investigation and
you have--and you're trying to make sure it doesn't happen
again, so you don't even look into it at all. In other words,
you are the guy who is responsible for guarding all this and
making sure that everything goes right. So it sounds to me like
we had a breach on top of a breach. We had one situation where
Mrs. Valerie Plame Wilson's identity and covert status was
disclosed and then within the very office within the White
House there is no report, there is no investigation, and there
are no sanctions?
Mr. Knodell. Sir, again, any reporting would have taken
place prior to my arriving into the office.
Mr. Cummings. Now----
Chairman Waxman. Will the gentleman yield because I just
want to pin this point down.
Do you know whether there was an investigation at the White
House after the leaks came out?
Mr. Knodell. I don't have any knowledge of an investigation
within my office.
Chairman Waxman. Ever.
Mr. Knodell. I do not.
Chairman Waxman. Because the President said he was
investigating this matter, was going to
