McCarthy was Democrat mole at CIA

Dean's World:

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Buried deep--very deep--in the New York Times' story is the fact that she was a contributor to the John Kerry for President campaign in 2004. What they don't mention is that she was an even bigger donor to the Democratic Party, and her husband was likewise a significant donor to both.

They also, no surprise, were friendly with Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. It doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to note that it appears that some of the supposedly "apolitical" people in our government appear to have been actively working against elected and appointed officials because they didn't agree with their policy choices.

I'm looking forward to her indictment, and what other cockroaches get shaken out.

I'm also looking forward to seeing a national discussion of the political nature of a lot of supposedly "apolitical" positions within places like Foggy Bottom and CIA.

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Was there a conspiracy among Democrats working for the CIA to undermine US war policy? This is a serious question that deserves answer. It might make sense for the CIA to check their employee list against teh list of contributors to the Democrats and Democrat candidates, and cross check it with a list of people who had acess to classified information that was released to teh public without authorization. While McCarthy's leak of this information was post election, there was a series of leaks during 2004 leading up tot he election that was also meant to undermine the administration and infleunce the election. Some of it may have been attempts to change the subject from the CIA failures before 9-11 and leding up to the IRaq war, but it is also likely that many of them were to try to get rid of Republicans who were exposing the intelligence agencies incompetance by acting on their intelligence.

The LA Times reports that the IG's office at the CIA is suspected as the source for several leaks since it has access to information that is otherwise compartmentalized.

One former senior CIA official said the inspector general's office often was suspected by other agency employees of being the source of many leaks. The "IG's office," as it is known, is an independent, internal watchdog organization with wide latitude to investigate sensitive programs and call attention to problems.

Washington has been racked by a series of high-profile leaks and subsequent investigations in recent years.

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The McCarthy leak also highlights how anonomous sources with partisan agendas attempt to play politics without the media telling their underlying agenda. If Dana Priest had reported McCarthy's political affiliation and contributions and associations with the Wilsons it would have shown the partisan motive that undercut any patriotic assertions about illegal activity in releasing clasified information.

The Right Wing Nut House has some interesting speculation on whether the original story was the result of a sting operation. While there would be some irony especially for the Pulitizer committee, I am skeptical of this theory.

Update: Flopping Aces also discusses links with the Democrat Mole at the CIA. The Strata-Sphere discounts the sting theory. I tend to agree with him for a different reason. I think the concern expressed by Porter Goss when teh revelation was made was genuine. There were other storis that also indicated how the CIA had to scramble to move the prisoners to Egypt. The stories about the EU not being able to find the prisons jsut suggest that the CIA can occassionally cover their trail.