{"id":4773,"date":"2005-07-22T09:27:56","date_gmt":"2005-07-22T13:27:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4773.html"},"modified":"2005-07-22T09:27:56","modified_gmt":"2005-07-22T13:27:56","slug":"state-dept-memo-was-top-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/state-dept-memo-was-top-secret\/","title":{"rendered":"State Dept. memo was ‘Top Secret’"},"content":{"rendered":"

It may seem like a minor point, but the State Department memo that told top White House aides about Valerie Plame was, in fact, classified “Top Secret<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

A key department memo discussing Joseph Wilson’s Niger trip was classified “Top Secret,” and the passage about his wife’s CIA role was specially marked “S\/NF” — not to be shared with any foreign intelligence agencies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This tells us a couple of things. One, the WH defense that they didn’t know Plame was undercover and that her CIA identity was classified is, definitively, absurd. The next time you hear a White House ally offer the argument, you’ll know he or she has completely run out of ideas for justifying the Bush gang’s behavior.<\/p>\n

Two, this report also lays bare what was a fairly silly argument to begin with: the State Department memo included secrets, but was not actually classified. That was the argument floated yesterday<\/a> on CNN’s Inside Politics<\/a> by right-wing activist Rich Galen.<\/p>\n

Candy Crowley: Today there is a new development. The “Washington Post” reports on a classified State Department memo marked “S” for top secrete in which Plame’s married name appears. If anyone in the White House saw that and still leaked her identity, that person could be in a world of trouble. <\/p>\n

Galen: I’m not sure it was top secret. It said secret. <\/p>\n

Crowley: Yeah, right. It didn’t say “TS,” it said “S,” secret.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s no getting around this. The memo was “top secret” and the information on Plame was so sensitive, it was specifically labeled to make sure her identity was not shared with any foreign intelligence agencies.<\/p>\n

The Bush gang saw this memo and leaked the information anyway. All the spinning in the world won’t change that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It may seem like a minor point, but the State Department memo that told top White House aides about Valerie Plame was, in fact, classified “Top Secret.” A key department memo discussing Joseph Wilson’s Niger trip was classified “Top Secret,” and the passage about his wife’s CIA role was specially marked “S\/NF” — not to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}