Leakgate Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald dropped a mini-bombshell Friday afternoon while he was explaining his indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby to the press.
It turns out that the central premise of his investigation - that Valerie Plame Wilson enjoyed protected "covert" status at the CIA - may not be true.
"Let me say two things," Fitzgerald told reporters. "I am not speaking [in this indictment] to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert . . . And we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly or intentionally outed a covert agent."
Fitzgerald did insist that Mrs. Wilson's "association with the CIA was classified," which would make leaking her occupation a crime. But he declined to bring any charges to that effect, casting even more doubt on the claim that her CIA job was a closely guarded secret.
A Nexis Lexis search shows that since Mrs. Wilson's alleged "outing" in July 2003, the media has erroneously referred to her "covert" status more than 3,100 times.
Surely the press will begin issuing its Leakgate retractions any minute now.
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