October 5, 2003 - The Bush Administration cooperation with its own investigation of its own breach of national security is memorialized in memos and public statements. Less public but frantic activity has also been set in motion. The all two familiar “slime and destroy” operation trying to paint Ambassador Wilson and his CIA Agent wife as Democrat activists continues apace with Robert Novak’s renewed attack on the couple. Not content with his earlier breach of CIA security in the July 14th column he compounded the damage by identifying the CIA front company that provided her cover in an interview with Judy Woodruff broadcast on CNN.

The company is listed as Mrs. Wilson’s employer in the FEC database of contributions to the Gore primary campaign in 2,000. Both the Ambassador and his wife are listed as contributing $1,000 and, as required, her employer is listed as Brewster, Jennings and Associates. Novak, attempting to show that she was not an undercover agent, said “There is no such firm, I'm convinced, CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery." Bush Administration officials confirmed to the Washington Post that Brewster, Jennings and Associates was in fact a CIA front and that Ms. Plame’s 1999 W2 forms listed the firm as her employer. The Prince of Darkness did not mention that FEC databases also listed a $1,000 contribution to the Bush primary campaign earlier that year. Wilson had acknowledged the contribution noting that the Bush contribution occurred “before South Carolina”.

Not content with the ripples flowing from the original publication of her occupation the Prince of Darkness had to hurl another rock into the pool identifying the CIA front company that furnished her cover. The CIA does not create front companies to provide cover to just one agent. Novak’s new shot widens the scope of the damage to include every agent whose cover was furnished by the firm. The extent of the damage to Agency operations, the number of contacts burned, the number of lives put at risk expands with the ripples from Novak’s latest stone.

This time the Rovian politics of personal destruction has gone beyond the level of personal attacks that marked the campaign against John McCain and his family in the South Carolina primary campaign. It has gone beyond the character assassination has marked every campaign in which Karl Rove has been involved. This time the collateral damage as the Empire Strikes Back is not felt by the target’s wife and family, whether or not they are “fair game”. This time the damage has been done to the fabric of the nation’s first line of defense in the War on Terrorism.