Novak: Administration didn’t ‘call me to leak this’

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Newspaper columnist Robert Novak said Monday that no one in the administration called him to identify the wife of Bush critic Joe Wilson as a CIA operative.

The Post had an article this morning on the act in question, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982

From the article and the actual text of the law (above) it seems pretty clear that even IF someone did maliciously disclose her association with the CIA it would still be a non-starter from a prosecution standpoint:

…having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent…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…"

So you have to prove not only that the person knew the person was a covert operative (she wasn’t); you have to prove the person the person got the info from classified sources (not the case here, as it was through personal contact) AND you have to prove the US government was taking action to disguise the relationship (the CIA certainly didn’t meet this standard).

So what you have here is a non-story. Novak’s own words:

The CIA “asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else,” he said. “According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives.” Sources said Wilson’s wife is a clandestine operations officer for the CIA, now out of the field and working on weapons of mass destruction.

She was an analyst. She was not covert. If Wilson’s wife wasn’t a covert agent or in charge of covert agents, then the statute against disclosure doesn’t even apply. Now you have Wilson throwing around accusations that are based on nothing - - and a whole field of Dems drooling over the prospect of independent counsel to investigate.

At least it gives them something to feed on - - even if it’s nothing but empty calories.