Will Anything Stick?

As demonstrated last weekend, Valerie Plame plainly lied when she denied recommending that her husband, Joseph Wilson, investigate rumors that Saddam's Iraq tried to by uranium in Niger. And official Washington is beginning to notice, says USA Today:

Plame's differing versions have furthered "misinformation" about the origins of the case that roiled official Washington beginning in July 2003, said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo. Plame gave those accounts to the CIA's inspector general, Senate investigators and a House committee in March.

A February 2002 CIA memo released last week as part of a study of pre-Iraq-war intelligence shows that Plame suggested her husband, former State Department official Joseph Wilson, for the Niger trip, Bond said. That "doesn't square" with Plame's March testimony in which she said an unnamed CIA colleague raised her husband's name, Bond told USA TODAY.

Here are Plame's three versions of how Wilson was sent to Niger, Bond said:

•She told the CIA's inspector general in 2003 or 2004 that she had suggested Wilson.

•Plame told Senate Intelligence Committee staffers in 2004 that she couldn't remember whether she had suggested Wilson.

•She told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March that an unidentified person in Vice President Cheney's office asked a CIA colleague about the African uranium report in February 2002. A third officer, overhearing Plame and the colleague discussing this, suggested, "Well, why don't we send Joe?" Plame told the committee.

CIA officials have been unable to verify Plame's March version, Bond said. Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, said the "public record on the matter is extensive, and, at this point, I can't add anything to it."

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's Sentencing Memorandum, recently filed in the Scooter Libby docket, has renewed debate about whether Plame was "covert" under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act definition (50 U.S.C. § 426(4)) when her name and employer became public in mid-2003. But as Tom Maguire shows, Fitzgerald merely asserts she met the test without analysis ("it was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute") and says the CIA agrees. I've argued to the contrary -- because she was not posted overseas in the five years prior to the disclosure; because several journalists already knew Plame and her employer; and because being "Classified" and "Secret" doesn't make you "covert" -- as have Maguire, Flopping Aces, Victoria Toensing and others. Indeed, as recently as April, the CIA wasn't sure.

Still, ya gotta love the lefties who uncritically accept a prosecutor's assertion (not yet addressed by the defense or the Judge!) if it's anti-Bush, while piling-on the "alleged" and "accused" when sanctifying Gitmo terrorist detainees. As Instapundit observes:

Folks who think the prosecutor gets the first and final word will be satisfied with the current state of play. For myself, I would at least like to see the defense response (Newsweek says we will get one this week) and I continue to hold out hope that the CIA Counsel will respond to Congress, which will then generate a leak to Novak, if he likes the answer, or to Newsweek otherwise. I'd just like to see this kind of outrage generated on behalf of leaks that actually hurt the war effort.

Or a similar zeal for prosecuting the perjuring Plame.