October 28, 2005: MSNBC Commentator Claims, without Proof, Plame Wilson’s Exposure Did No Damage to US Intelligence Operations

Hours after the Patrick Fitzgerald press conference announcing the indictment of Lewis Libby (see October 28, 2005), NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell tells a viewing audience on MSNBC’s Hardball that the exposure of Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA official whose exposure as a covert agent triggered the investigation that led to Libby’s indictment, did no real damage to US intelligence interests. Mitchell does not cite any sources in her claim. She says: “I think the prosecutor [Fitzgerald] made a very broad claim, whether you buy it or not, that the disclosure of any CIA officer’s identity is a threat to our national security, that we are at a stage in our country where we need to recruit people, we need to guarantee that they will have anonymity, and that you cannot recruit people to work in these difficult jobs, nor can you be sure that by disclosing their identity that you are not putting them in jeopardy. I happen to have been told that the actual damage assessment as to whether people were put in jeopardy on this case did not indicate that there was real damage in this specific instance.” It is possible that Mitchell sources her claim from a very similar claim made the night before by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (see October 27, 2005). [Jane Hamsher, 11/29/2005] Two years before, Mitchell told a CNBC audience that “everybody knew” Plame Wilson was a covert official, a claim she was later forced to retract (see October 3, 2003). Shortly after Mitchell’s Hardball claim, MSNBC commentator Tucker Carlson writes, “In fact, as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell has reported, an internal CIA investigation found that Plame’s outing caused no discernable damage to anyone.” [MSNBC, 11/18/2005] A 2003 CIA assessment (see Before September 16, 2003) and an October 2005 analysis by the Washington Post (see October 29, 2005) both determined that Plame Wilson’s exposure caused “severe damage” to the US intelligence community, particularly in the Middle East.