At What Price?<\/p>\n
In late 2002 and early 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney pressed the case for a war with Iraq.\u00a0His reasoning:\u00a0 Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was building a nuclear weapon, and the security of the United States, and the world, could not tolerate a nuclear Iraq.\u00a0 Cheney, and other members of the Bush administration including Secretary of State Colin Powell; presented a devastating case to prove that Iraq was close to having nuclear bombs.\u00a0 It was clear and convincing; and it was false.<\/p>\n
The evidence included Iraq acquiring \u201cyellow cake\u201d uranium from Nigeria.\u00a0 Yellow cake uranium can be quickly processed into weapons grade uranium.\u00a0Cheney and Powell used the acquisition of yellow cake by Iraq as prime evidence, with Powell sharing it in a high profile presentation to the United Nations.\u00a0 Joseph Wilson, an American diplomat with career experience both in Africa and in Iraq, was sent to Nigeria to investigate.\u00a0 He returned with a clear conclusion:\u00a0 Iraq had NOT acquired yellow cake uranium.<\/p>\n
This did not go along with Vice President Cheney\u2019s program.\u00a0 Wilson followed his conclusions up with an article in the New York Times, \u201cWhat I didn\u2019t Find in Africa.\u201d\u00a0 This was the first chink in the armor of the Bush rationale for the second Iraq War, a war the current President has stated shouldn\u2019t have happened.<\/p>\n
Cheney and his Vice Presidential Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, were \u201chardball\u201d politicians.\u00a0 When Colin Powell began to have doubts about the information he used to make the US case for invasion of Iraq at the United Nations, he was pushed out of the decision-making loop.\u00a0 Powell ultimately resigned, and the more amenable National Security Advisor, Condolezza Rice became Secretary.\u00a0 But what would they do about Wilson?<\/p>\n
He had done some work for Democratic administrations.\u00a0 But his real vulnerability was his wife, Valerie Plame.\u00a0 She was a career CIA agent, but her career and identity were undercover.\u00a0 How to get to Wilson?\u00a0 \u201cOut\u201d his wife, and destroy her career.<\/p>\n
A call was made to syndicated journalist Robert Novak (of the famous Evans and Novak pair that published for forty-five years) from a White House official.\u00a0 While no one was ever convicted of the crime of revealing the covert agent, Scooter Libby was convicted of making false statements, obstructing justice, and perjury.\u00a0 He was fined $250,000 and sentenced to thirty months in jail.\u00a0 His sentence was later commuted by President Bush, and just recently he was fully pardoned by President Trump.<\/p>\n
Novak claimed that while he was given Plame\u2019s name as a CIA operative, he was not told that she was a \u201cNOC\u201d (an agent with Non-Official Cover.)\u00a0 Novak never revealed his source other than saying \u201chigh White House offiicals.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the spring and summer of 2016, the FBI received information that members of the Trump campaign were reaching out to Russian intelligence.\u00a0\u00a0 While we don\u2019t know all of the FBI\u2019s sources of information, we do know how they gained information about two of the four campaign members.\u00a0Foreign policy advisor Carter Page was being wiretapped under a FISA warrant.\u00a0 While the wiretap order is still secret, it is known that Page had been involved with a Russian spy ring in New York in 2013.\u00a0 Page was interviewed by the FBI at that time, and was never charged.\u00a0 However, the information that Page was questioned found it way to Russian intelligence, raising questions about whether Page was still in contact with them.\u00a0This served as one of the grounds for the investigation.<\/p>\n
George Papadoupolos was also an advisor to the campaign.\u00a0 In a drunken evening with the Australian Ambassador in London, Papadoupolos bragged about the Russians having Clinton and Democratic National Committee emails.\u00a0 This is prior to the FBI, Clinton, or the DNC even knowing they\u2019d been hacked, and months before the first emails were released on the web.\u00a0 The Australian Ambassador notified the FBI about the comments, and two FBI agents were sent to interview him.\u00a0 As part of the investigation, the FBI (and CIA) had a confidential informant make contact and gain more information from both Papadoupolos and Page.<\/p>\n
In the current melee, with the FBI and Special Counsel Mueller investigating the Trump campaign and the President; some are making every effort to discredit their results.\u00a0As part of the campaign, identifying information about the confidential informant has been leaked, enough information for some to name him, breaking his \u201ccover.\u201d<\/p>\n
The FBI was investigating to see if a major US Presidential campaign was being infiltrated by Russian Intelligence.\u00a0 They used national security investigative tools, including FISA warrants and National Security subpoenas to find out what, if any, impact Russian Intelligence was having.\u00a0 The confidential informant was part of that investigation.<\/p>\n
Had Russian been trying to infiltrate the Clinton campaign, there would be outrage.\u00a0 Had they gained a foothold, and perhaps even cooperation by the Clinton campaign, there would have been \u201chell to pay.\u201d\u00a0 We would expect law enforcement to do what was needed to find out.\u00a0 But because Trump has created a false narrative about an FBI \u201ccabal\u201d trying to de-legitimatize the Presidency, there is a portion of the American electorate who are allowing them to \u201cget away\u201d with possible Russian cooperation.<\/p>\n
But more importantly, they are getting away with de-legitimatizing the FBI and other intelligence agencies, weakening public trust in their findings and their abilities.\u00a0 And now, there is acceptance of \u201couting\u201d covert agents; without concern about the other investigations that could be compromised.\u00a0The damage done may well last far beyond this administration.<\/p>\n
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