Mary McCarthy and condi rice

a couple more things re Larisa's huffpo slam on Goss. She says:

"Consider that this career officer may have at one time or another been covert, although not currently. The CIA never publicly fires employees, covert or otherwise, for this very reason. "

I'm not sure if Larisa knows - or is just pointing out the possibility - that Mary McCarthy was ever undercover.

Here's Larry Johnson:

The case against the CIA Intelligence Officer, Mary McCarthy, fired for her alleged role in leaking information about secret prisons to the Washington Post's Dana Priest smells a little fishy. Let me state at the outset that the officer in question, Mary McCarthy, is an old acquaintance. I hasten to add that I do not consider her a friend. She was my immediate boss in 1988-89 and was instrumental in my decision to leave the CIA
[]
Mary never worked on the Operations side of the house. In other words, she never worked a job where she would have had first hand operational knowledge about secret prisons. She worked the analytical side of the CIA and served with the National Intelligence Council.

I think that means that she wasn't undercover - but i don't know.

Larisa:

"Moreover, everyone I have spoken with says this is the first case they know of where an officer was fired for leaking to the press.
So why is Goss so eager to publicly expose this career officer who had recently served in the inspector general's office as well as on the National Security Council?"

As I said yesterday:

"JimAngle on BritHume could barely disguise his glee and couldn't wait to blurt out the details - including her name."

it was actually even odder than I described - they ran the segment that someone had been fired at the CIA early in the show and then right at the end of the show they did a 'special update' naming her - and you could tell that something fishy was going on - like they'd been specifically instructed to get that essentially meaningless (to the audience) piece of information out.

Larisa:

And why did he time it to coincide with revelations that Secretary Condoleezza Rice passed classified information to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the same manner as the now imprisoned Larry Franklin?

i wonder if this was coincidental or orchestrated - I haven't looked closely at the timeline. Do you expect that AIPAC's lawyers would have given someone the heads up that they were going to subpoena Condi? I'd think so.

LATimes:

"Rice "never gave national defense information" to Rosen, Assistant U.S. Atty. Kevin DiGregory told (judge) Ellis. "

presumably they had a heads up then, if they were able to make that statement in court friday (when/where the condi news broke). she didnt give any to Rosen - I wonder if she gave it to anyone else. Note also that she is using a different claim than the Libby 'declassified' argument - condi is saying no "national defense information"

FWIW, WaPo's (pincus) A3 headline is "Judge in Spy Trial Considers Motions - Difficult Constitutional Issues Cited" - Condi finally gets mentioned in para 9 - and creepy Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns has been subpoenad too

(Incidentally, according to news.google, WaPo seems to have changed it's headline from "Judge Moves Date of Ex-Lobbyists' Trial")

Curiosuly, Pincus ends thusly:

"Ellis denied a defense motion to dismiss the case because of "outrageous conduct" by the government. He said that several government actions raised by the defense remained under seal.

But he said his denial covered a recent addendum by Lowell that made reference to the FBI's attempts to gain access to the files of the late columnist Jack Anderson in searching for evidence in the Rosen-Weissman trial. Ellis said he did not see a connection to the case."

The best the NYT can do is run the AP piece.