Valerie Plame testifies before Congress

Former CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson appears at a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington March 16, 2007. The hearing is on on whether White House officials followed appropriate procedures for safeguarding the identity of Wilson. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)

A new twist came about in the Valerie Plame intelligence scandal when the the former CIA officer herself went to Capitol Hill to testify before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Here is the New York Times coverage on the Plame testimony, the Washington Post's coverage, and MSNBC's coverage is here.

There are a couple of interesting details in Plame's testimony. The first is that she said she was a covert agent for the CIA. According to the Washington Post:

Plame calmly but firmly knocked down longstanding claims by administration allies that the disclosure was not criminal because she had not worked in a covert capacity.

"I am here to say I was a covert officer of the Central Intelligence Agency," Plame told House members, journalists and a smattering of antiwar activists. Her work, she said, "was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit."

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, March 16, 2007, before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)

Plame also gave more details regarding her involvement in sending her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, into Niger to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to purchase nuclear materials from that country. According to the WaPost:

Plame also provided the most detailed account to date of her role in a decision by the agency to dispatch her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, to Niger five years ago to assess reports that Iraq had sought to buy nuclear material from the African nation.

Rebutting an assertion by White House officials to reporters that she had sent her husband on the trip, Plame said one of her colleagues broached the idea after a call in early 2002 from Vice President Cheney's office seeking information about Iraqi activity in Niger. Plame said she "wasn't overjoyed" at the suggestion because a trip would leave her alone with their 2-year-old twins.

Still, she said, at the direction of her supervisor, she asked her husband whether he would come to CIA headquarters at Langley to discuss the possible trip and sent a quick e-mail about the prospect to the chief of the agency's counterproliferation division, where she worked.

"I did not suggest him," she said. "There was no nepotism involved. I didn't have the authority."

Now these details regarding the scandal have already been reported. But it is interesting to hear them from the former CIA agent's perspective. The information may not be new, but it does provide a unique historical context on this scandal. If there is any new information regarding this scandal that has yet to be revealed, it is probably in either Dick Cheney's office, or Karl Rove's office.

There are plenty of YouTube videos showing the Plame testimony. There is a three-part YouTube video showing the opening of Plame's testimony.

Here is Part One:



Here is Part Two:



And here is Part Three:



PoliticsTV has highlights of the Plame hearings here and here.

One final interesting note. This is off The New York Times:

The committee’s ranking Republican, Representative Thomas M. Davis III of Virginia, tried at the beginning of the hearing to pre-emptively label the event as meaningless. As if to underscore his point, he was one of only two of the 17 Republicans on the committee who bothered to show up.

Mr. Davis said that the investigation by a special counsel ended without anybody being charged with knowingly leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer. The disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity, he said, was unintentional. (Mr. Libby was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to the F.B.I.)

Friday’s episode, Mr. Davis added, was but a “media maelstrom,” an assessment no one quibbled with.

The Washington Post adds to Rep. Davis' snubbing of Plame with this quote:

The committee's ranking Republican, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), sought to deflect blame from the administration. "This looks to me more like a CIA problem than a White House problem," Davis said. The agency should have made sure that White House officials who inquired about Plame knew that her position was classified, he said.

You have got to love the Republicans here. Not only are they still clinging to their excuse that the CIA was at fault here for Plame's exposure, but of the 17 Republicans on the committee, only Davis and Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland were the only committee Republicans that attended the hearing.