September 6, 2006: Former Editor: Investigation Worse than Leak

Former Scripps Howard editor Dan Thomasson, writing for the Cincinnati Post, writes that the Plame Wilson identity leak investigation is the most “bizarre, silly, overblown, and wasteful affair” he has seen in his 43 years of Washington reporting. The exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson broke no laws and did no damage to national security or US intelligence-gathering efforts, Thomasson writes (see Before September 16, 2003, October 3, 2003, October 11, 2003, October 22-24, 2003, October 23-24, 2003, October 29, 2005, and February 13, 2006). Once the FBI learned the source of the Plame Wilson leak, whom Thomasson asserts was no one besides former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see October 2, 2003), the investigation should have been terminated, even before the appointment of a special counsel to continue it (see December 30, 2003). Thomasson believes that the CIA pushed for the continuance of the investigation “as a diversion from the mounting furor over its own inadequacies in counterintelligence, ranging from the 9/11 terrorist attacks to its assessment of Iraq’s nuclear and biochemical capabilities.” Thomasson concludes that the investigation, and the upcoming Libby trial, are “far worse in [their] potential results and future implications than the original leak ever was.” [Cincinnati Post, 9/6/2006]