Wilson v. Libby

• Citation: 498 F.Supp.2d 74
• Decision Date: 19 July 2007
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A.06 1258 JDB.,CIV.A.06 1258 JDB.
• Parties: Valerie Plame WILSON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. I. Lewis LIBBY, Jr., et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

498 F.Supp.2d 74

Valerie Plame WILSON, et al., Plaintiffs, v. I. Lewis LIBBY, Jr., et al., Defendants.

No. CIV.A.06 1258 JDB.

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

July 19, 2007.

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Anne L. Weismann, Melanie Togman Sloan, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Washington, DC, Frank M. Pitre, Cotchett Pitre & Mccarthy, Burlingame, CA, for Plaintiffs.

Alex Joseph Bourelly, Sabita J. Soneji, William H. Jeffress, Jr., Baker Botts, LLP, Robert David Luskin, Patton Boggs LLP, John Gordon Kester, Terrence O'Donnell, Williams & Connolly, Washington, DC, for Defendants.

Glenn Stewart Greene, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Constitutional and Specialized Tort Litigation, Torts Branch, Civil Division, Washington, DC, Richard Montague, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Washington, DC, for United States.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

BATES, District Judge.

Plaintiffs Valerie Plame Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson IV bring this action against four high-level Executive Branch officials, including the Vice President of the United States and his former Chief of Staff, based on the widely-publicized disclosure of the fact that Mrs. Wilson worked as a covert operative for the Central Intelligence Agency. Plaintiffs allege that defendants undertook a concerted effort to reveal this information to reporters in order to retaliate against and discredit Mr. Wilson for his public criticism of the Bush Administration's handling of foreign intelligence prior to this country's military involvement in Iraq. The Wilsons have sued the defendants personally for money damages based on claims brought directly under the First and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution and on a common-law tort claim for the public disclosure of private facts. Now pending before the Court are motions to dismiss filed by each of the four named defendants and the United States pursuant to Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6).

This is a case of some notoriety and public interest. The merits of plaintiffs' claims pose important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials. Defendants' motions, however, raise issues that the Court is obliged to address before it can consider the merits of plaintiffs' claims. As it turns out, the Court will not reach, and therefore expresses no views on, the merits of the constitutional and other tort claims asserted by plaintiffs based on defendants' alleged disclosures because the motions to dismiss will be granted.

For the reasons explained below, the Court finds that, under controlling Supreme Court precedent, special factors — particularly the remedial scheme established by Congress in the Privacy Act — counsel against the recognition of an implied damages remedy for plaintiffs' constitutional claims. The Court also finds that it lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over the tort claim because plaintiffs have not exhausted their administrative remedies under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which is the proper, and exclusive, avenue for relief on such a claim.

BACKGROUND¹

In the 2003 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush told the nation that "[t]he British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Am. Compl. ¶ 19(a). As it turned out, the veracity of the claim asserted in these "sixteen words" had previously been disputed to some degree within the Executive Branch. See id. ¶ 19(b). Newspaper articles published in May and June 2003 revealed that plaintiff Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former Senior Director for Africa at the National Security Council under President Clinton and the former U.S. ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Principé under President George H.W. Bush, id. ¶ 8, was sent to Niger in 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from that country, id. ¶ 19(b), (i). Mr. Wilson's trip was reportedly taken at the behest of the CIA, in response to inquiries made by the Office of the Vice President into the alleged Iraqi activities. See id. Upon the conclusion of the Niger trip, and well before the State of the Union address, Mr. Wilson advised the CIA and the State Department that the allegations were based on forged documents and were wholly untrue. Id. ¶ 19(b), (i).

The first newspaper column recounting this information, which was published in the New York Times on May 6, 2003, referred to Mr. Wilson only as an unnamed former ambassador. Id. ¶ 19(b). In response to the article, defendant I. Lewis Libby, Jr., the Vice President's Chief of Staff and Assistant for National Security Affairs, id. ¶ 9, asked the Under Secretary of State for further information about the Niger trip, id. ¶ 19(c). The Under Secretary in turn directed the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research to prepare a report on the trip. Id. On or before June 10, 2003, the Under Secretary received that report, which was labeled "Secret" and referred to Valerie Plame Wilson as a Weapons of Mass Destruction ("WMD") manager for the CIA. Id. ¶ 36. The particular paragraph mentioning Mrs. Wilson was prefaced with the letters "S/NF," which indicate that the information was both secret and not to be shared with foreigners. Id. Based on information gathered for this report, the Under Secretary informed Libby by early June 2003 that Mr. Wilson was the former ambassador in question. See id. ¶ 19(c). The Under Secretary also advised Libby by June 12, 2003, that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and the scuttlebutt around the State Department was that she was involved in planning his trip. Id. ¶ 19(e). At about the same time, Libby spoke with a senior officer at the CIA, who told Libby that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and was thought (erroneously) to have been responsible for Wilson's trip. Id. ¶ 19(f). Lib by further learned from Vice President Cheney, who obtained the information from the CIA, that Wilson's wife worked in the CIA's Counterproliferation Id. ¶ 19(h). Libby additionally heard, sometime between June 1 and July 8, 2003, that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA from the Assistant to the Vice President for Public Affairs, who in turn had learned that information "from another government official." Id. ¶ 19(t).

When a second article about the sixteen words and the Niger trip was published in the Washington Post on June 12, 2003, it also referred to Wilson only as a retired ambassador. Id. ¶ 19(i). The author of the Post article, Walter Pincus, had contacted the Office of the Vice President prior to its publication. Pincus's call generated discussions in the Office of the Vice President that involved Libby, among others. Id. ¶ 19(g). Two days after the Post article was published, Libby met with a CIA briefer and "expressed displeasure that CIA officials were making comments to reporters critical of the Vice President's office." Id. ¶ 19(j). Furthermore, on June 13, 2003, defendant Richard L. Armitage, Deputy Secretary of the Department of State, met with reporter Bob Woodward in Armitage's office at the State Department and told Woodward that Mrs. Wilson worked as a WMD analyst at the CIA — information he load learned from a State Department memorandum. Id. ¶ 37.

A third related article, entitled "The First Casualty: The Selling of the Iraq War," appeared in the online edition of The New Republic on June 19, 2003. Id. ¶ 19(k). This article again referred to Mr. Wilson as an unnamed ambassador and quoted him anonymously as saying that officials in the Bush Administration "`knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie.'" Id. The article also accused the Bush Administration of suppressing dissent from the intelligence agencies with respect to Iraq's WMD capacity. Id. The publication of The New Republic article prompted further activity within the Office of the Vice President. Libby discussed the article with his principal deputy, who asked Libby whether he could counter the reports that Vice President Cheney had arranged for Mr. Wilson's trip by discussing that trip with journalists. Id. ¶ 19(l). Libby "responded that there would be complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure line." Id. Libby did, however, meet with reporter Judith Miller on June 23, 2003, and offered criticism of the CIA and "informed Miller that Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the CIA." Id. ¶ 19(m).

Two additional publications are central to the events leading up to this action. First, an op-ed written by Mr. Wilson, entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa," appeared in the July 6, 2003, edition of the New York Times. Id. ¶ 19(n). In that op-ed, Mr. Wilson asserted "that he had taken a trip to Niger at the request of the CIA in February 2002 to investigate allegations that Iraq had sought or obtained uranium yellowcake from Niger, ... that he doubted Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger recently" and "that the Office of the Vice President had been advised of the results of his trip." Id. This information was also publicly conveyed by Mr. Wilson in the course of his appearance as a guest on the July 6 edition of the television show "Meet the Press," and in an interview with a reporter that provided the basis for a July 6 Washington Post article about the Niger trip. Id.

Subsequently, on July 14, 2003, several national newspapers, including the Chicago Sun Times and The Washington Post, published a column by writer Robert Novak that discussed the Niger trip. Id. ¶ 14. Novak's column stated, in relevant part: "[Joseph] Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger ...." Id. The publication of Novak's column revealed to the public, for the first time, Mrs. Wilson's "previously secret and classified CIA...