Brewster Jennings & Associates - Staff Member: Valerie Plame

Staff Member: Valerie Plame

According to Walter Pincus and Mike Allen, in the Washington Post of October 4, 2003, Brewster Jennings & Associates was "the obscure and possibly defunct firm" at one time listing Valerie Plame as a staff member:

Plame's name was first published July 14, 2003, in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons.... The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore, and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates."

Whereas, in his appearance on CNN on October 3, 2003, Novak insisted, as quoted by Pincus and Allen the next day: "'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,'" the "Washington Post" reporters disputed Novak's conviction:

In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates. The phone number in the listing is not in service, and the property manager at the address listed said there is no such company at the property, although records from 2000 were not available.

Pincus and Allen explain also that:

The company's identity, Brewster Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign. After the name of the company was broadcast on October 3, 2003, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA.

Reiterating that the company was listed on the Dun & Bradstreet database of company names, Ross Kerber and Bryan Bender, in an article published on October 10, 2003, in The Boston Globe, observe that "Plame's exposure as an intelligence operative has become a major controversy in Washington," stating: "Former intelligence officials confirmed Plame's cover was an invention and that she used other false identities and affiliations when working overseas. 'All it was was a telephone and a post office box,' said one former intelligence official who asked not to be identified. 'When she was abroad she had a more viable cover.'"

Furthermore, reporting for the news service Knight Ridder, Warren Stroebel writes:

Compounding the damage, the front company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, the name of which has been reported previously, apparently also was used by other CIA officers whose work now could be at risk, according to Vince Cannistraro, former CIA chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis. Now, Plame's career as a covert operations officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations is over. Those she dealt with – on business or not – may be in danger. The directorate is conducting an extensive damage assessment. And Plame's exposure may make it harder for American spies to persuade foreigners to share important secrets with them, U.S. intelligence officials said.