FISA Judge Nixes Plame Suit

The WaPo reports

Judge Dismisses Plame Lawsuit

By Carol Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 19, 2007; 3:30 PM

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.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said that Cheney and White House aides cannot be held liable for the disclosure of information about Plame in the summer of 2003 while they were trying to rebut criticism of the administration's war efforts levied by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The judge said such efforts were certainly part of the officials' scope of normal duties.

"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...

So who is U.S. District Judge John D. Bates?

... Judge Bates was on detail as Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997...

... In February 2006, he was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to serve as a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

Go figure.