Barbara Boxer: “Yes. I just want to point out that to attempt to minimize this crime by saying this woman was probably an analyst and…”

“Yes. I just want to point out that to attempt to minimize this crime by saying this woman was probably an analyst and not an agent is unbelievable to me. The fact is, whether she was an agent or an analyst or anything else, was she not undercover? Every time I see her on TV, they cover up her face. I say to my friend, let's not get into the sideshow about was she an analyst or was she an agent. The fact is, she was in a covert situation, was she not, and it is safe to say that the reason her face is covered up is that she was undercover; the reason the CIA asked for an investigation is that they believe a law may have been broken because she was undercover. I want to make that one point, in addition to the points we made this morning, which is that I hope my colleagues will vote for this amendment. I hope my colleagues on the other side will not have a dual sense of when an independent counsel should be appointed: There is a real estate deal somewhere; there is an independent counsel. There were no lives on the line there. This is a situation where someone who is undercover has been revealed as a way to get back at her husband who happened to bring back the news that the administration didn't want to hear--that in fact Iraq was not purchasing, at least in this particular case, from Niger any nuclear materials. We have a circumstance where, faced with this, the new defense is: She was just an analyst; she wasn't an agent. I want to make the point, this woman was in the CIA.…”