As Matt Yglesias points out, the extreme parsing of Rove’s comments to Matt Cooper — implying there is a substantive difference between “Joe Wilson’s wife works for the CIA” and “Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, works for the CIA” — has become the crux of Rove’s defense.
Now it’s seeping into the media. Here’s U.S. News editor Gloria Borger this morning on CBS Morning News: “Well, he didn’t leak the name. What he said was that his wife worked for the agency. That may be a distinction without a difference for some, but I think legally that probably is a distinction.”
A quick read of the relevant portion of the law shows that’s almost surely not the case. Section 421 specifically states that disclosing “any information indentifying [a] covert agent” is illegal:
Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identity of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more than $25,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(Correction: the initial post incorrectly attributed the Borger quote to Hannah Storm, a CBS anchor.)
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