Jack Balkin muses about the Plame Affair. I agree with him that the "CIA" has declared bureaucratic war on the White House staff. But it's not clear to me that his explanation is sufficient--the "you pushed us, we'll push you back" explanation. At this level, the "CIA" is the Director of Central Intelligence and his deputies, and they are as much the personal courtiers of George W. Bush as they are representatives of the career bureaucracy of the Agency. They would have had every incentive to find an alternative resolution than the one they have chosen: to try to deprive the president of the services of his trusted aides and to mire the White House in scandal is not likely to make George W. Bush happy to see them or eager to listen to them in the future.
I would dearly love to know what has been going on between Tenet, Rice, and Card over the past two months. How many times did Tenet tell them that this was really serious, and that they needed to take action before the career staff forced his hand and forced a criminal referral against the White House staff? How many times did Rice, or Rice and Card, ignore him?
Posted by DeLong at October 2, 2003 03:06 PM | TrackBackBalkinization: What Caused Wilsongate? Some Thoughts About Institutional Incentives
What caused the Wilson scandal, and why did the story break into the mainstream press when it did? We can start to answer these questions by thinking in terms of institutions rather than individuals. The institutions are the Bush Administration, the CIA, and the mainstream press.
Begin first with the Bush Administration’s attempt to divert blame. Administration officials originally claimed that Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and likely nuclear capabilities fully supported their decision to go to war. Later, when no WMD’s were uncovered, they argued either that their decisions were reasonable extrapolations from available intelligence, or failing that, that there was an intelligence failure; i.e., that the CIA had not done its job correctly.
The latter claim cast aspersions on the professionalism of the CIA. The CIA resented the Bush Administration’s attempt to use them as a scapegoat. But after Wilson wrote his op-ed on July 9th, responding to insinuations of CIA incompetence, senior members of the Bush Administration went one step further. They leaked information about Wilson’s wife’s identity as a CIA operative. The evident purpose of this was to say, both to Wilson, and to anyone who might have similar ideas in the future: “Screw with us and we will screw with you.”
At this point, however, the Bush Administration stepped over the line, at least from the CIA’s perspective. It was bad enough that the Administration attempted to impugn their professionalism and shift the blame to them. But now Administration officials had outed a CIA operative in response to criticism, partly as payback and partly as a warning. As a result, the CIA has struck back by requesting that the Justice Department investigate the leak.
Two questions:
Why did the CIA take so long to respond, from July 22d, when Novak’s story was published, to the end of September?
Why did the mainstream press take so long to take up this story?
The answers to both these questions concern institutional incentives.
When Novak’s story was first published, several bloggers complained vigorously about the administration’s leak, but the mainstream press paid very little attention (and at that point Novak himself obviously believed that the Administration had done nothing very seriously wrong). Why did the press hesitate? To answer this question we have to recognize the institutional incentives of the Washington press. Reporters do not like to disclose their sources. The more important a story becomes, the greater the chance that reporters will be called to testify before a grand jury, because, obviously, they know who leaked the story to them. Given their professional norms, the reporters will then refuse to disclose their sources, and the press will look bad for breaking the story and then refusing to assist with ascertaining the truth. That is, if the matter goes to the grand jury, there is a danger that the press itself will become the story, not the miscreants who leaked the information to the press.
All of this explains why, in the run of the mill story about leaks, the press is less than interested. The mainstream press has no incentive to make a big deal about leaks *to the press itself.* For this reason, it is often said that investigations about leaks in Washington tend to go nowhere. But they go nowhere not because the information is not readily available– it is readily available, the reporters have it! They go nowhere because reporters don’t want to testify about their sources, and government officials are usually not willing to take the political heat for putting them in jail if they don’t testify. (The institutional calculus is somewhat different with respect to local reporters in jurisdictions outside of the Beltway, so you actually do see the occasional reporter jailed for refusal to testify). Put another way, the ongoing (some would say incestuous) relationship between national politicians and the Washington press corps leads to the received wisdom that the source of leaks cannot be uncovered. And it also led to the mainstream press not picking up on the story for over two months after the Novak column originally appeared.
The CIA’s request to the Justice Department, however, changed the equation considerably. Once the CIA started to push back at the Bush Administration in order to defend its reputation and its institutional prerogatives, it produced a story that could not be buried. The story had to be covered, even though the idea of putting mainstream reporters in harm’s way makes the institutional press quite nervous. The Bush Administration, recognizing the natural hesitancy of the mainstream press to push hard on stories where the press’s own interests are involved, has wanted this to be a story about leaks, which are a common enough occurrence in Washington, and which are governed by the unspoken rules between politicians and the Washington press corps. Thus, if this remains a story about leaks, then it will go nowhere.
The CIA’s decision to complain, on the other hand, suggests that to the CIA, at least, this is a story about the Administration trying to push the CIA around, and interfere with its professional status and its prerogatives. For that reason, if the Administration pushes the CIA, the CIA is going to push back. From the CIA’s standpoint, the Bush Administration (and all future administrations) must be shown that if it screws with the CIA, the CIA will screw with them. Karl Rove may think that he is Don Corleone, and that he can put the metaphorical equivalent of a horse’s head in Joseph Wilson’s bed, but two can play at that game. And, given the fact that the CIA probably has enough evidence in its files to undermine any sitting president, it is probably not a good idea for the Bush Administration– or any administration for that matter-- to use the CIA as a whipping boy.
It is likely that Valerie Plame and her immediate superiors wanted to push back at the Administration almost immediately after she was outed. But the CIA bureaucracy may have resisted for some time, hoping that the press would pick up the story. The mainstream press did not do so, for the institutional reasons I have just recounted, and therefore at some point the CIA felt it necessary to force matters into the open by requesting an investigation from the Justice Department.
Many people, I suspect, will want to see this story as about political machinations between Democrats and Republicans. Surely there is plenty of that going on. But if one focuses only on the partisan aspects of the story, one will miss the much more interesting and intricate conflicts between institutions that have set these events in motion.
UPDATE: Jerry Newmark writes that the CIA actually did make an informal request for an investigation within a week of Novak's story. An account appears here. He argues that the CIA only made a formal request (thus bringning on press scrutiny and, possibly, a full criminal investigation) only after the White House and the Justice Department failed to respond to its informal suggestion:
Along the lines you've presented, I've got a slightly different take on why
it took so long for the CIA to submit a formal request (and publicize it in
a way that is unusual for them). The CIA did make an informal request for a
Justice Department review shortly after the Novak article was published.
This may be seen as message to the White House that while the CIA wanted
someone's head to roll, they would rather not pursue a criminal
investigation. There are good institutional reasons for this - a formal
investigation would necessarily involve having the FBI investigate CIA as
well as White House personnel and the animosity between the CIA and FBI is
well known - as well as practical concerns about being able to control the
scope of an investigation once it has begun. Only after it was clear that
Justice and the White House were not going to act on their own accord did
the CIA raise the stakes.
Supposedly since 9/11 there has been warfare between some in the administration and the CIA over charges that the CIA blew the 9/11 intelligence. Tim Noah puts the center of the feud in the Vice President's office and names Soocter Libby.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2085803/
This is what Tim Noah is reporting and I have no way of knowing how much truth is contained in the article.
If Mr. Cheney is one of the "Senior administration officials" then there are huge political problems and it would be diffcult for Mr. Bush to demand a resignation.
Perhaps relations between the CIA and WH are already so bad that filing a complaint with DOJ will not make them worse and perhaps make them better by getting rid of an enemy that cannot be won.
Posted by: bakho on October 2, 2003 03:44 PMThe press is less than interested because it has been in the RNC's pocket for well over a decade.
Just go Google yourself some storeis about Al Gore's "lies." That's all they care about -- manufactured RNC spin, and Bill Clinton's penis.
The Plame Affair is beyond their ken -- which is precisely how Karl Rove wants it. BushCo. clearly feels about the CIA the same way it does about the armed services -- servants to be hired or fired at will.
And so they'll have to learn the hard way as the "servants" strike back. Whether the press pays any attention is of little import. The "mainstream" media is by and large less than useless.
Posted by: David Ehrenstein on October 2, 2003 03:56 PMI think we may be missing the motive for outing Plame. Maybe they are not punishing and making an example out of Wilson. Maybe they are punishing Plame.
Maybe she is "fair game" because, in their minds, Wilson is nothing but Plame's pawn. Maybe they think that she and her allies in the CIA wanted to undercut the yellowcake evidence; that she knew that her husband, a political hack, could be counted on to sip tea with Niger bureaucrats and report back that the yellowcake story was bogus; and that she engineered his appoinment with the expectation that he would torpedo the Bush case for war.
While this line of thinking may be nuts, it may nevertheless be the real reason they outed her.
Posted by: joe on October 2, 2003 04:11 PMThe CIA's motives must also have to do with their own MO which has to be founded in its own credibility. If they allow the White House to get away with this, they will basically be accepting that the WH can put leg irons on any career employee at will. Or "liquidate" them at will. Not just the appointed positions.
The CIA will know it, congress will know it. More importantly, the information sources the CIA relies on and the enemies of U.S. interests the CIA is supposed to oppose will know it.
Tenent is not doing this in a vacuum; he must certainly be being aided/supported/pushed by the career spooks who understand what is at sake here is the CIA's very ability to operate or even exist. From their point of view, they have no choice but to hit back, and as hard as possible under the letter of the law.
Posted by: Alan on October 2, 2003 04:19 PMMuch Shorter And Corrected Jack Balkin:
Shorter Balkin: The CIA outed Bushco because Bushco tried to make them scapegoats and outed one of their own.
The Correction: The press took so long to get on the story because the press has given Bush a blanket free ride since about 1999.
You don't need Balkin's fancy shmancy institutional analysis to explain this. In fact, Balkin's analysis lacks power because it can't account for the similar lack of press coverage on the myriad stories where the press gave Bush a free ride on matters that did NOT involve leaks.
Posted by: The Fool on October 2, 2003 04:48 PMI wonder if they are believing their own rhetoric and that's what's getting them into trouble. The case they're making in their defense today - referred to as the sleaze machine in this morning's paper - is that Wilson is a Democrat and is therefore part of a conspiracy to block this great war against evil, so the leak is justified, etc... Well what if what's going on is that they actually BELIEVE this stuff??? I recently read that they don't have many Arabic linguists in Iraq because they found out the ones they were sending were Democrats, or something like that... that they're vetting everyone for Party loyalty. A lot of bloggers and commenters say they're acting like a cult, but it doesn't seem to sink in that it might be for real.
Posted by: Dave Johnson on October 2, 2003 04:48 PMAfter Novak ran his 7/14, he also wrote a Creators Syndicate oped (which appeared on www.cnn.com). Neither seem to archive things this far back. Which is a shame as I distinctly recall that what Novak said in his 2nd oped stands in direct contrast to his pollyanna spin in the last few days. Look, Novak is not that alpha and omega of this scandal, but it would sure be nice if someone has a copy of his other oped. It might make this spinmeister look a little silly if his own words contradict his current spin. Anyone with any insights here?
Posted by: Hal McClure on October 2, 2003 04:56 PMAlan wrote:
"Tenent is not doing this in a vacuum; he must certainly be being aided/supported/pushed by the career spooks who understand what is at sake here is the CIA's very ability to operate or even exist."
I couldn't agree more. I am surpised/appalled that this angle doesn't get more attention. Ignoring the damage done to the CIA's ability to recruit agents for a minute, this has to give SERIOUS pause to any foreign asset we try to recruit: 'Jeez, at any time my handler, and by extension myself could be outed at any time to settle some petty domestic score.'*
It's not like becoming an asset is riskless, but do we seriously think that this will have NO effect?
* Alternatively, 'If getting even with Wilson was more important than the CIA's/Plame's work on WMD, what would they sell me out for - extra cheese on their pizza?'
I don't doubt that there's deep istitutional resentment within the CIA against the White House. But Brad is emotionally wedded to his "it's full-blown institutional warfare" thesis. Because, you see, there's no indication that this is true. There _aren't_ a flood of leaks coming out of the CIA that are damaging the White House. What there is, is exactly _one_ leak, and that's Tenet's leaking to the Post as a "senior administration official". Yes, there's very bad blood right now between the CIA and the administration. But I don't see anyone except Tenet (and he not publically, yet) putting his neck on the line. What this is about is that the institutional conflict between the White House and the CIA became personified as a conflict between Tenet and the admin, possibly personified by Scooter Libby. Tenet had to endure, for example, Condi Rice's finger-pointing last July when the yellowcake scandal broke, and then he humbly issued a mea culpa. Now he's getting his revenge. This is *at least* as much about Tenet as it is about the entire intelligence community. I'm not saying that the intelligence community isn't behind Tenet on this....they are. But this isn't the attempted CIA coup that Brad seems to think that it is.
Posted by: Keith M Ellis on October 2, 2003 05:58 PMNot to spend too much energy defending either Bush or the CIA, but...
Novak's column appears on July 22nd. Since almost no one reads Novak, it takes maybe three days or a week for the information to sink in. Probably Wilson, after it's brought to his attention, calls a friend at the CIA.
Next, it has to be brought to the attention of someone high enough up the ladder to check and make sure that Plame is a person covered by the Act. It being late summer, people are out of the office on vacation, so the request takes time.
In second week in August, perhaps, the request is sent over to the Justice Department which, because it is August and involves something unpleasant and to it not very important, waits a week (perhaps August 20th) and sends back a list of questions. The CIA fills out the form and sends it back on September 11th +/-2 days (this is the one date we know with any certainty).
It's at THIS point that tempers start to rise, when it becomes clear that BushCo are going to sit on the complaint.
In official Washington, 10 weeks is but a glimmer on the pond of bureaucratic eternity. Try filing a FOIA.
Posted by: Charles on October 2, 2003 06:29 PMHey. This isn't me. This is Jack Balkin... I have allies.
Posted by: Brad DeLong on October 2, 2003 07:13 PMEveryone here underestimates Joe Wilson. First of all he is far from being a political hack, but rather a veteran Foreign Service Officer. He also was the one who faced down Hussain in the first Gulf war. He worked on the professional side of the NSC in the Clinton administration. Through his wife, he is connected to the CIA. Let's see, that means he is about one step from everyone in on the career staff at State, NSC and CIA.
There is an old saying that a single man can only impose his vision over a long period. I think if you look carefully you will see that he is a mighty angry man who kept this thing alive till it burst into the headlines.
Posted by: Joshua Halpern on October 2, 2003 07:29 PMCharles writes:
>
> Not to spend too much energy defending either Bush or
> the CIA, but...
>
> Novak's column appears on July 22nd. Since almost no
> one reads Novak, it takes maybe three days or a week for
> the information to sink in.
Unfortunately, this is not correct. The Novak column appears on July 14. Also, however much I rant about people not reading enough, it's absolutely silly to say something like "almost no one reads Novak". He's syndicated in over 150 papers and lives by his contacts with the powerful. No, he's not as widely read as Dave Barry, but the July 14 column is in essence a hit piece on Wilson that appeared 8 days after Wilson went public about his mission in his own op-ed piece. There may or may not have been a more effective person to leak the Plame information to if your goal was to spread the word, but Novak was a pretty effective way to get the message out with little danger that you'd end up being identified.
Once again: sheesh. Robert "Crossfire on CNN" Novak is not exactly the author of a little-read weblog or something. You really can't spin the story that way.
Posted by: Jonathan King on October 2, 2003 08:53 PMJonathan King says "Unfortunately, this is not correct. The Novak column appears on July 14. "
Thank you for the correction. I knew I had the date wrong. But I stand with the thesis that in the initial stages this scandal has not moved unusually slowly.
As to whether many or few people actually read Novak, I don't know. Syndication numbers reflect the viewpoints of the *owners* of media, not the readers. My point is that information-- especially one line in a column-- percolates slowly. That's true and your attempt at disparagement is not regarded as serious debate.
Posted by: Charles on October 4, 2003 03:08 PMI think there are more simple explanations for the journalists' failure to report the story. The original 6 or 7 who recieved the leak had a quandary, if they recognized the story (that is, the story that the admin was committing a posible felony by outing a CIA agent).
The problem is that they would not have been able to name anyone crucial to the story. It would have been virtually impossible to go to press with a story that an unnamed source leaking the name of an un-nameable CIA agent who was married to someone, also now un-nameable, who the White House wanted to demonize because he disagreed with something the White House did.
Unless the reporter had a tape of the original leak, there is then no meat to the story -- and the right would be all over it as a lame attempt to smear the admin. If the reporter added the meat -- either Plame's name, Wilson's name, or the issue of Niger itself, the outing would happen.
But there's another possibility: that the "establishment" Washington media those who received the leak, actually couldn't step back enough to see the real story of the possible felony. There's a point where even six leading journos can be so inside that as a group they miss the real story amid all their other "scoops-in-preparation."
Then again, maybe they were just wimps. But you can imagine the people in the CIA grating their teethfor weeks waiting for some reporter todo their job.
Posted by: paul handley on October 4, 2003 10:09 PM