A recent article in the London Telegraph reports that Valerie Plame has been on an “enforced leave of absence” — that she has been on “unpaid leave for a year.”
Now at first you might think, OK, sure, after Bob Novak wrote that she was a “CIA operative” and the Nation’s David Corn wrote that she had been a “top-secret” agent — providing details about her work and even her cover story — the CIA would give her a vacation.
But Novak and Corn wrote about Plame in July 2003.
If the Telegraph is correct, she was not put on “unpaid leave of absence” until a full year later, around July 2004. Why?
One also might think she voluntarily decided to take some time off but then it wouldn’t be an “enforced leave of absence,” would it?
There also is this intriguing tidbit: According to The New York Times, a former CIA officer, whose name remains secret, is filing a lawsuit against the agency because he was dismissed in 2004 – the same year that Plame was put on “enforced leave of absence.”
What’s more, the fired CIA officer “worked in the same unit of the agency” as Plame. And his lawyer “likened his client’s situation to that of Valerie Wilson, also known as Valerie Plame.”
I don’t claim to know how to put these pieces together. You have any bright ideas, Dr. Watson?