How can you know somebody is a CIA agent, and also NOT know they are

[milkyway]

an undercover CIA agent?

The whole point of being undercover is that nobody will know you work for the CIA. If someone knows you actually do work for the CIA, then it seems certain that they would also know that it is undercover. After all, most people believed that Valerie Wilson worked for a private company (Brewster Jennings). If a particular person, let's say Karl Rove, for example, knows this to be false and that she really worked for the CIA, then of course he knew she was working undercover. Otherwise, why would she be faking that she worked for a private company?

Also, it seems many undercover CIA operatives worked for Brewster Jennings. I would assume that at the highest levels of government it was known that this company was a CIA front.

Rove's defense, as his lawyer has already made clear, hinges on the word "knowingly." His lawyer is going to have a difficult time convincing a jury that Bush's Brain, the man behind the curtain, knew enough to know Valerie Wilson was CIA, but somehow did not know she was undercover. It seems quite likely to me that Rove had a complete background check done on both Valerie and Joe Wilson, looking for something to smear them with. If Rove had files showing Valerie Wilson was CIA, then certainly they would have shown that she was undercover CIA.

Rove's other lameass attempt to defend himself--"I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name."--will be laughed at in court. "Wilson's wife" was plenty enough to identify who she was. Also, outing her on superduper triple deep background with his finger crossed behind his back is completely irrelevant. That has no legal standing; it's only an agreement between a reporter and his source about how the reporter can use the information and identify the source.

[GeekMonkey]

1. is it a known unknown or an unknown known or a known known or...

:eyes:

[Igel]

2. There are a lot of assumptions buried in your post.

If any of them saw any reports that she wrote, or if she was sourced for information, would they source her as Plame, working for some private company, or Plame, CIA analyst? I don't see a reason to assume the private company cover would be used with her superiors; I'd think the default would be the latter.

What you say may be true, that the company was widely known as a CIA front, even among recently installed folks in the White house. But there's no reason to assume that it's true, and to nail Rove, it must be provable that it is, and that's how Plame was presented to her. I don't think Fitzgerald would have an easy time proving that. "Innocent until proven guilty" isn't just a nice slogan. Sometimes it's also a pain in the ass.

When I interviewed for the NSA, I was told that even as a linguist I'd be expected to not let people know I worked for the NSA. And I learned that my "uncle Mike" (not really an uncle, a step-cousin's husband), who for 15 years I thought was an accountant for some company, was actually an NSA cryptographer. His mother-in-law didn't even know it for years.

[sam sarrha]

3. this explanesit, Chaney deliberately stopped the investigation.... ..LINK>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x66773

Chaney had to stop the invesitgation because he was involved in distributing WMD's.. plame was going to find out