BUCHANAN: Our next guest knows Joe Wilson’s wife. They worked together at the CIA. Larry Johnson is a former agency analyst and State Department counterterrorism expert who claims the outed agent was undercover for decades and not an analyst as reported.
Welcome, Larry.
LARRY JOHNSON, FMR. CIA ANALYST: Good to be with you, Pat.
BUCHANAN: Thanks for joining us. Now, you worked apparently right near this lady, and you said I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She’s been undercover for three decades, or thereabouts.
JOHNSON: That means 18 years.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: The decades of the ’80’s, the ’90’s...
BUCHANAN: Oh I see...
JOHNSON: ... and now entering the 2000.
BUCHANAN: OK...
JOHNSON: Some have interpreted that-there’s 30 years...
BUCHANAN: Exactly and I think some people did. Now let me ask you this. Tell us-I mean, you worked with her. We don’t need-want to know anything. You know we don’t want you-you are not going to divulge any secrets anyhow. Tell us the kind of work, quality of work she did. Did she travel abroad? Did she need this cover? Did she need, you know, some other I.D? Because she did appear in situations where her life might be at risk.
JOHNSON: I met her the day-we walked into what’s called the career trainee program. It’s a select program. Not everybody goes into-that comes into the agency goes into that program. Everyone in that program was undercover because we had folks who were both case officers and analysts. I was an analyst for four years there. Until the day I left, I was undercover. I was-you know as Bob Novak said just an analyst. I couldn’t even tell my parents where I worked. They thought I worked at another government agency.
BUCHANAN: Tell us why would she have to be-why couldn’t she say if she was an analyst working at a desk that she worked for the CIA? Why couldn’t she say that? Why did she need the cover?
JOHNSON: You put people under cover for one of two reasons. Either they’re going to be involved with clandestine operations, as she was...
BUCHANAN: Clandestine operations...
JOHNSON: Clandestine operations or you’ve got people who are going to work with others who are under clandestine operations so you can help protect their identity. But the notion that she was just an analyst and sitting there pushing paper is sheer utter nonsense.
PRESS: Larry, aside from those of us who just tingle every time we hear word of a possible another White House scandal...
JOHNSON: Yes.
PRESS: ... right, why should average American Joe lunch bucket out there watching this show or any other show care about this?
JOHNSON: You know, it’s OK for Democrats and Republicans to mix it up on politics, but when you allow the intelligence services and the law enforcement services of this country to be drug into the political arena and to be used as a political football, you are putting in place a system that’s very dangerous, and this-because what it does is it-I’ve got several other friends who are in a similar position to val. What happens if they make a statement or their spouse makes a statement that an administration-it doesn’t matter whether it’s Republican or Democrat doesn’t like. Are they also going to be outed?
PRESS: Well, who or what could be compromised by this leak?
JOHNSON: You both compromise the people that they have worked with overseas in terms of in the embassy. You’ve also compromised the people that they’ve worked with outside who are foreigners. They could be put at risk.
BUCHANAN: Right. Now, the-our network, NBC, used-when the first night Bill and I were doing this-used the phrase for this lady secret CIA agent. Is that overdrawn?
JOHNSON: Well, it’s incorrect. Agents are foreign spies who are recruited and paid by the United States to tell us secrets about their governments. She’s an intelligence officer.
BUCHANAN: All right...
JOHNSON: Now, whether she’s an analyst or a case officer...
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: All right. Now, is she the kind...
JOHNSON: She’s covered. She’s under...
BUCHANAN: Is she an intelligence-you say undercover-is she the kind of intelligence officer who traveling under an assumed identity might go abroad and speak to other folks to get information for the CIA who would need a cover and who would-they definitely would not want her name known...
JOHNSON: Oh absolutely.
BUCHANAN: ... because she might be in some kind of danger?
JOHNSON: Yes. Absolutely. Without getting into the details of what she’s doing...
BUCHANAN: Right.
JOHNSON: ... and without drawing the distinction whether she’s under official cover or unofficial cover, the bottom line is she is under cover. She does not reveal where she really works to people unless-except for her husband.
BUCHANAN: What should happen to the guy that leaked this?
JOHNSON: I think Joe Wilson had it right. Frog-marched out in handcuffs.
PRESS: Let me ask-do you believe that part of this is what looks to be as a contest or friction between the White House and the CIA?
JOHNSON: There’s a little bit of that. You know, CIA became the scapegoat for the whole uranium fiasco and at the end of the day the problem was at the White House, not at the Central Intelligence Agency. My friends still on the inside tell me they’ve spent years-you know, the last couple of years trying to tell this administration that the threat was not as they were seeing it, and they kept getting shut down.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESS: Are we-I want to ask you, are we over blowing this in the media?
JOHNSON: Over blowing-no, not over blowing this. The person that did this at the White House-it was in the old executive office buildings, so that’s why...
BUCHANAN: How do you know that?
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: I...
BUCHANAN: How do you know it’s in the EOB where I worked?
JOHNSON: I’ve got a name.
BUCHANAN: What name?
JOHNSON: I’m going to let the FBI...
BUCHANAN: Do you have a name of an individual...
JOHNSON: Let’s...
BUCHANAN: ... that did what? That leaked it or that pushed it?
JOHNSON: Yes. The person-I know the name of the person that spoke with Bob Novak.
BUCHANAN: And they work in the EOB...
JOHNSON: Yes...
BUCHANAN: ... and not the White House.
JOHNSON: ... old executive office...
BUCHANAN: Second floor...
PRESS: Which is part of the White House compound.
BUCHANAN: Is it on the second floor?
JOHNSON: I’m not sure which floor.
BUCHANAN: Because I know the-that EOB very, very well.
JOHNSON: When the name...
BUCHANAN: Was it the president’s staff?
JOHNSON: When the name comes out people will have heard this name before in connection with past...
PRESS: The office of the vice...
BUCHANAN: With past scandal...
PRESS: ... president...
BUCHANAN: ... wait a minute.
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: ... will have heard the name in connection with past scandals?
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: Correct.
PRESS: All right. Could it-is it anyone connected with the vice president’s office?
JOHNSON: There is a name I’ve heard in connection with that as far as an individual that was making calls to the press.
BUCHANAN: Making calls from...
JOHNSON: Yes.
BUCHANAN: ... the vice president’s office...
BUCHANAN: ... in the EOB to the press and saying this woman is a CIA operative and she’s the one that got Ambassador Wilson the job.
JOHNSON: This is-I got this from a friend of mine who is also a former intelligence operative who is in a position to know.
PRESS: Do you-have you talked to the FBI yet?
JOHNSON: Not yet, no.
PRESS: Larry, I think you’ll be talking to them soon.
BUCHANAN: Probably right...
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: ... when you get outside the door.
(LAUGHTER)
BUCHANAN: But let me follow up...
(CROSSTALK)
BUCHANAN: ... let me follow up because I worked in the EOB and to be honest, the president of the United States had his hide-away office on the first-you know the first floor where he goes up the steps. Right above him in that magnificent office up there are the suite of offices of the vice president of the United States whose chief of staff is Mr. Libby...
PRESS: Scooter.
BUCHANAN: ... Scooter Libby. Now, is Scooter Libby the name you heard?
JOHNSON: I’m not going to comment on that.
PRESS: Let me ask you this. Today at the White House gaggle they
call it, press secretary Scott McClellan was pushed about have-you know
” have you talked to people, are the White House staff cooperating? And remember the other day he said he talked to Karl Rove, and Karl Rove said I had nothing to do with it. So a reporter said have you talked to Scott-
Scooter Libby the same-in the same fashion, and are you willing to say right now, ready to say right now that Scooter Libby had nothing to do with this? Scott McClellan closed the briefing, didn’t answer the question, and walked away. What does that tell you?
JOHNSON: That’s very telling. I think if I’m the FBI, I start by having a discussion with Mr. Libby.
PRESS: All right Larry Johnson...
(CROSSTALK)
PRESS: ... important stuff. We want to ask you to stay with us.
(CROSSTALK)
PRESS: OK. And we’ll be back. Pat and I with Larry Johnson. More questions about who might have leaked the identity of Joe Wilson’s wife here on BUCHANAN & PRESS. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWSBREAK)
BUCHANAN: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Christy. Pat Buchanan and Bill Press back here. Our guest, again, is Larry Johnson, formerly with the Central Intelligence Agency who was himself undercover there and worked very closely with Ambassador Wilson’s wife, and we were discussing who leaked this when Larry Johnson said they’re working right on the executive office building, not the West Wing. Karl Rove’s office is in the West Wing, isn’t it?
JOHNSON: That’s correct.
BUCHANAN: All right. So it’s not Karl Rove. Now, let me follow up and tell you we’ve been trying to figure out what in heaven’s name is the motive of outing as a CIA agent the wife of Ambassador Wilson even if you don’t like him. Now, my thesis-and you tell me where I’m wrong because you know all this. Vice president of the United States has been said he got this guy to go to Niger. And the guy comes back and he reports they don’t have the yellowcake, they’re not selling it. Then he writes an article that dumps on the president State of the Union and everybody is saying, you know, Cheney’s guys were the guys that sent this guy and so somebody from Cheney’s office goes out and said we didn’t send that guy out there. That was the clowns out at the agency, and the guy that chose him happened to be his wife who works there. Is that a valid theory?
JOHNSON: I think you got a winner there, Pat. I think that’s exactly what happened. It is the perception that the CIA was disloyal, and this was to fire a shot and send a message, you know, because having heard some of these individuals that I think are going to wind up as targets talk, they believe that the CIA is like an enemy within, that they are not really supporting the Bush agenda.
PRESS: Well let me follow up on that. If that is a valid theory and this person who works in the executive office building, maybe in the vice president’s office, is putting out word that Wilson’s wife was an undercover agent, in a sense of basically dirty politics either toward Wilson or toward the CIA, would that person have known that he was not supposed to reveal the identity of Valerie...
JOHNSON: Yes, I...
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: Yes. Well, I don’t say her name.
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: I think they-in their enthusiasm I don’t think they realized that they were compromising someone who was undercover. I think...
PRESS: So they could have done it without intentionally...
BUCHANAN: Right.
PRESS: ... trying to identify a CIA agent.
JOHNSON: I think that’s ultimately what will save them from jail, that...
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: ... they did not intentionally...
BUCHANAN: Stupid thing going after Wilson and inadvertently let out the name. The individual in the EOB you’re talking about is, you believe, Novak’s source, the senior administration official?
JOHNSON: There are at least two individuals in EOB.
BUCHANAN: Two in the EOB.
PRESS: Two EOB.
BUCHANAN: Is Novak’s senior administration official and the two White House aides who are supposed to have called six correspondents-I mean, there’s not three, there’s only two.
JOHNSON: No. No. I think there may be three. There’s at least two.
PRESS: In...
BUCHANAN: At least two and maybe three.
JOHNSON: Yes.
PRESS: In the...
BUCHANAN: Are they...
PRESS: ... executive office building?
BUCHANAN: ... any in the West Wing? Any in the West Wing?
JOHNSON: I have not heard West Wing other...
(CROSSTALK)
JOHNSON: ... than what, you know, Joe Wilson said last night on “Nightline” where he reported that reporters would call him up and said Karl Rove...
BUCHANAN: ... condoned it.
JOHNSON: ... said your wife is fair game.
BUCHANAN: Fair game...
PRESS: Now, Larry, I’ve got to ask you this because people are going to say that you’re just another critic of the war in Iraq...
(CROSSTALK)
PRESS: You’re just another Bush critic. You’re just another partisan hack.
JOHNSON: Registered Republican, gave several hundred dollars to the George Bush presidential campaign.
BUCHANAN: Do you admire Bush, the president?
JOHNSON: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) started off admiring him. I’ve...
BUCHANAN: Were you pro-war or anti-war?
JOHNSON: I was-I felt we should have gotten rid of Hussein, but I think we were getting rid of Hussein under the wrong reasons.
PRESS: Larry Johnson...
BUCHANAN: OK. Thanks very much for coming over.
PRESS: ... thank you for coming...
JOHNSON: Gentlemen, good to be with you.
PRESS: OK...
(CROSSTALK)
http://www.msnbc.com/news/974968.asp
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