The Daily Background

Via Brad and the Associated Press:

A federal judge today dismissed a lawsuit filed by former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband against Vice President Cheney and top administration officials over the disclosure of Plame’s name and covert status to the media.
[…]
“The alleged tortious conduct, namely the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson’s status as a covert operative, was incidental to the kind of conduct that defendants were employed to perform,” Bates wrote in an opinion released this afternoon.

Bates also ruled that the court lacked the power to award damages for public disclosure of private information about Plame. The judge said that was because Plame and Wilson had failed to exhaust other remedies in seeking compensation from appropriate federal agencies for the alleged privacy violations.

Details are kind of sketchy right now, but it appears that the ruling was based on two things: first, the Judge said it was normal, or part of the White House’s duties to rebut anti-war arguments, and therefore outing a CIA agent was okay because it was just part of their job, and secondly, that the lawsuit itself was improperly brought because there was more the Wilson family could have to seek justice beforehand (no details on what other steps the judge says should have been taken are available yet though).

The second point is kind of confusing but I expect we’ll see some clarification for it though. On the first point, I think one of the important things to emphasize is that the judge did not say that the Administration wasn’t responsible for leaking Plame’s identity as part of their rebuttal of Wilson’s claims in his 2003 op-ed. I’m sure we’ll hear more about this ruling soon, as well as talk of appeals and what those other avenues the judge seems to have recommended were.

Update: CREW’s Melanie Sloan, who is representing the Wilson family, expects to file an appeal.

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