Redstate

While fingers are pointing at Rove and Libby -- perhaps legitimately, perhaps inappropriately -- fingers might need to be pointing elsewhere.

Did Plame violate the Hatch act?  Interesting question. Wonder whether Fitzgerald is looking at this ...

to list a cover for the CIA as your employer, when donating to a political campaign, especially when said cover hadn't filled out all the paperwork to appear as a legitimate business.

I don't know if CIA employees are permitted to donate or not, but it is an interesting question.

This flier from the military details what sort of political activities that civilian employees are and are not allowed to participate in.  One of the activities that they are allowed to do:

Contribute money to political organizations;

This is the general rule for civilian employees of the federal government.  While certain agencies and divisions including the CIA are under additional restrictions, there is nothing in any of the additional restrictions listed which prohibits them from making campaign contributions.

Bottom line: I find it unlikely that Valerie Plame broke the law by making a campaign contribution to a presidential candidate's campaign while she was an employee of the CIA.

Ok, I did some more digging. Here is the relevant portion of the Hatch Act implementing regulations as they apply to employees of the CIA and other national security-related agencies:

Sec. 734.404  Participation in political organizations.

    (a) Each employee covered under this subpart retains the right to:

    (1) Participate in the nonpartisan activities of a civic, community,

social, labor, or professional organization, or of a similar

organization;

    (2) Be a member of a political party or other partisan political

group and participate in its activities to the extent consistent with

other Federal law;

    (3) Attend a political convention, rally, fund-raising function, or

other political gathering; and

    (4) Make a financial contribution to a political party, partisan

political group, or to the campaign committee of a candidate for

partisan political office.

    (b) Subject to the provisions in Sec. 734.406, an employee covered

under this subpart may make a financial contribution to a political

action committee through a voluntary allotment made under

Sec. 550.311(b) of this chapter if the head of the employee's agency

permits agency employees to make

such allotments to political action committees.

Even if legally permissible, though, the contribution clearly demonstrates poor judgment at best, creating the appearance of impropriety and political influences in her partisan job. And naming a top-secret cover entity in doing so is just a bad, bad idea.

to contribute money to a campaign, but I have trouble thinking it is wise to use the CIA cover as her place of employment when doing so-especially given the fact that the employer had a really weak cover (they didn't have the appropriate liscenses applied for etc).

I really don't know how all this covert stuff works, but you would think the CIA would discourage this kind of stuff from covert operatives who are trying to keep their identities secret.

I would think that it would be foolish for a CIA operative to list "CIA" as the place of employment if they were indeed covertly employed.  Part of keeping in cover would be to really work for this company, so listing it as her employer seems perfectly legit in my opinion.

Now - if you have done things like this in the past, you cannot and should not publicly acknowledge that without first clearing it with the CIA so they can take appropriate measures to cover other covert employees.  Drawing this connection (b/t CIA and front company) is precisely the reason that "outing" a covert agent was made a crime.

~Big Tom

Here is how CIA cover works:  The CIA sets up a company, known as a "front" company, that looks like an ordinary company.  An operative who uses that company for cover presents himself to the world as an employee of that company and behaves just as any other employee would behave.  The covert operative's name is not a secret.  The name of the front company is not a secret.  The fact that the operative works for the front company is not a secret.  The only things that are secret are (1) that the front company is actually a cover for covert operations, and (2) that the covert operative is an employee of the CIA.  

Part of the cover can be that the front company does contract work for the CIA -- routine stuff like financial services, legal services, etc.  The CIA contracts out a lot of this type of stuff, and the contractors who do the work are working "for" the CIA and may work "at" the CIA.  The secret is that they are actually an employee of the CIA and they are doing covert work rather than the routine stuff everyone thinks they are doing.

The CIA wants covert operatives to act like ordinary people. The best covert operatives are people you would never suspect would be doing covert operations.  The CIA also wants front companies to act like ordinary companies.  I don't know why you think Brewster-Jennings was a weak cover.  As long as they behave the way a company of their size and type would ordinarily behave, they are providing good cover.

1. Didn't file tax returns
   
2. No one in their building had ever met anyone in the company
   
3. Company filings with various database companies said they only had one employee who was also the owner: Victor Brewster
   
4. Didn't have a business license.

I don't know where you do business but in the regular business world all of that would add up to a shell for money laundering, a hobby for someone with too much time and money on their hands, or a front company for some other activity.

Don't believe me. This was reported by the Boston Globe.

and the Plames lived in the Beltway area.

Not totally unusual, but unusual enough to raise some flags.

Also that fact that Plame was motoring it to her desk at Langley every day.

the company wasn't a very good or solid front company.

As a matter of fact the CIA source in the story it came from stated that it would not be used for anyone who was going overseas, they would get a better cover without so many holes.

Which makes me wonder if making a political donation using that as you place of employment is wise.

Those records are public record, and anyone doing a check on employers could notice it.  And a company with no liscense, no tax returns and only one employee would raise a lot of legal flags.

it is only a crime if you gained the knowledge that they were a covert agent through information you had access to as part of your official duties and if the CIA is actively trying to protect the person's identity.

The things you list are not as out of line as they may first seem.

1.  The tax returns of small businesses are subjec to IRS privacy rules.  I don't know how the Boston Globe can know there were no tax returns.  Also, there are real businesses out there that do not file tax returns or file them late.  Some of them even get away with it.

2.  This is somewhat unusual, but not all that unusual for companies that do contract work performed at client sites.

3.  Small businesses often use somewhat creative reasoning to report having as few permanent employees as possible.  There are a number of reasons for this, which I won't go into here.

4.  Whether they would be required to have a license would depend upon where they are located.  There is typically no state or county requirement for such a license, only a municiple requirement.  Since there are fees involved, some small businesses deliberately choose to locate where no such license is required.  In other cases, a small businesses may choose to operate without a license, since the chances of being busted are low and the penalties are not that great.

I respond without having seen the Boston Globe article, so maybe it contains something more irregular than what your list indicates.  Do you have a citation for the article?

Again, I will make the point that I am not attacking Karl Rove.  I am not attacking people who are trying to defend Karl Rove.  I just want to caution people against setting themselves up by embracing arguments that can (and thus probably will) be shot down.  I'm arguing in favor of sticking to talking points we know have been vetted by the RNC, and not biting on every tidbit that may be put out by the media.

Read my post also about how Brewster-Jennings compares to other small businesses.

A NOC would be given different cover for a covert overseas operation either as a part of a story for why the person went overseas or because the person was assuming a different identify for the duration of their NOC mission.

Raising legal flags does not give away the fact that the company is a CIA front.  See how you think a CIA company would be doing everything legally?

This is why the CIA had no legal means to stop Novak from publishing the information he had.  This is why it is a crime is to (a) reveal classified information you have authorized access to or (b) steal classified information you do not have authorized access to.

Also, the CIA company the NYTimes was more than happy to expose had their ducks in a row.  The NYTimes even named and interviewed the owner of one of those company's (the owner chose not to answer the questions).

But then that company was operating overseas.

So we are back to if Brewster and Jennings had very little effort built into the cover and wasnt' used for overseas assignments, exactly who was it exposing?  Guess we can find out, but the curious thing is that the company was discovered and would not have been through the campaign contribution of Plame-which once again leads me to think using your cover company for campaign purposes may not be the wisest idea.

I suppose this is earthshaking in the congency of it's analysis. I just fail to see it.

I was just trying to indicate that I agree with you.  The crime requires a knowing leak of the information by somone having authorized access to the information.  Did Karl Rove do this?  I don't think so.

I guess we disagreed so much that I reflexively snarked. Apologies.

People are required or asked to list their employer for many purposes.  This is why it makes no sense to complain about a covert operative listing the front company they work for as their employer.  That's exactly what they are supposed to do.

Whether the front company has "all its ducks in a row" might depend upon what the CIA was trying to accomplish with that front company.  Suppose you wanted someone to get friendly with a drug smuggling ring.  How might you go about that?

I'm just saying there are much better talking points than ones that depend upon arguments that can (and thus probably will) be shown to be false.  If you don't know how the CIA works, you might want to go read up on it before making arguments that will ultimately discredit you and, by association, the cause you are trying to support.  Isn't one purpose of a blog like this to allow us to exchange information and hone our talking points?

I know you are acting in good faith, so I did not take any offense.

you wouldn't be getting friendly with a drug smuggling ring in the US-the CIA is prohibited from operating within the US.

Does beg the question though what the purpose of this front company was, since the CIA said it wasn't used for overseas covert missions.

Maybe it was designed for all CIA employees to use for political donations or something like that without any real mission attached to it (and yes this was speculation and pure silly speculation at that, but it is a good question).