On the July 6 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Colorado Inside Out (CIO), regular panelist Dave Kopel -- who is the Rocky Mountain News' media critic and research director at the conservative Independence Institute -- called former covert CIA agent Valerie Plame an “audacious liar[]” and claimed she “never got put under oath.” In fact, as panelist Dani Newsum correctly pointed out, Plame was under oath when she testified before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on March 16 about her covert status.

During the broadcast, CIO panelists were discussing President Bush's July 2 decision to commute I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby's 30-month prison sentence. The former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, Libby was found guilty on March 6 of perjury, obstruction of justice, and lying to investigators about his role in the leak of Plame's covert CIA identity.

After Kopel said that Bush's decision “was the right thing to do 'cause it was a much ado about nothing,” he stated that Plame and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, “never got put under oath.” Newsum later corrected Kopel, saying, “Valerie Plame has testified under oath.”

From the July 6 broadcast of KBDI Channel 12's Colorado Inside Out:

KOPEL: I think it [commuting Libby's sentence] was, first of all, the right thing to do, and second of all, completely hypocritical for him [Bush] to do it. It was the right thing to do 'cause it was a much ado about nothing, much as Clinton was appropriate in pardoning his Cabinet official Henry Cisneros, who had his own special prosecutor go after him 'cause Cisneros lied about how much blackmail money he was paying to his former mistress. This guy allegedly lied when said he couldn't remember a conversation he had several years ago in something that grew out of, something started by, the two most audacious liars in Washington, D.C., or maybe in the entire universe: Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. And it's a shame they never got put under oath because as the Senate Intelligence Committee and The Washington Post have both said, they're outrageous liars. That said, so he, he, it would be wrong for anybody other than Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame to go to jail for all these lies. That said, Bush -- as with the Ashcroft memo from the Department of Justice telling prosecutors they always have to seek the maximal sentence and bring the highest charges -- he's run a Department of Justice that goes in the opposite direction of showing any kind of, you know, individual circumstances, and he really ought to take a lesson from this and start reforming his DOJ so they stop doing so many, many, many unjust prosecutions.

PATRICIA CALHOUN (guest host): Dani, do you forgive Scooter Libby?

NEWSUM: Valerie Plame has testified under oath, and the, neither The Washington Post nor the Senate Intelligence Committee called either she or her husband “outrageous liars.” OK? You just told a big one.

[crosstalk]

KOPEL: Look, Dani, I'll bring the [unintelligible] in.

NEWSUM: Please, please.

On March 16, CNN reported that Plame “was called to testify Friday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about her work at the CIA before her covert identity was revealed.” CNN also posted the transcript of Plame's opening statement -- in which she stated that she was “honored” to “testify under oath” -- on its website:

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Valerie Plame Wilson and I am honored to have been invited to testify under oath before the committee on oversight and government reform on the critical issue of safeguarding classified information.

I'm grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight. I served the United States loyally and to the best of my ability as a covert operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Washington Post on March 16 posted the full transcript of Plame's testimony on its website, including committee chairman Rep. Henry A. Waxman's (D-CA) remark that “it's the practice of this committee that all witnesses are administered an oath”:

WAXMAN: Our first witness is Ms. Valerie Plame Wilson. She's a former covert CIA employee whose service to this country included work involving the prevention of the development and use of weapons of mass destruction against our nation. Her employment status was name was revealed in July 2003, effectively terminating her covert job opportunities within the CIA.

WAXMAN: Ms. Wilson, it's the practice of this committee that all witnesses are administered an oath, and I'd like to ask you to stand and raise your right hand. Do you promise to tell the truth and nothing but the truth?

WILSON: I do.

WAXMAN: Thank you. The record will reflect the fact that the witness answered in the affirmative.