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Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
What is your basis for this suggestion?

From http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005343. There have been other reports as well, but I read this today so the cite was fresh in my mind. Ignore the tone, it's somewhat obnoxious.

What's more, the Post is correct about the law, and Marshall is either mistaken or disingenuous. As we explained in October:

In order for the alleged leakers to have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, they would have to have known that [Plame] was covert and that the government was "taking affirmative measures to conceal" her relationship to the CIA. Novak's statement that the CIA made only "a very weak request" that he not use her name suggests the absence of such "affirmative measures," which would put the leakers in the clear legally if not politically.

In addition, the Novak column did not describe Plame as covert, only as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

If indeed Plame was a covert agent, why wouldn't the CIA take "affirmative measures to conceal" her identity? The answer may turn on the legal definition of covert. As we also noted in October, an employee is a "covert agent" for the purposes of the statute if and only if he "is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States."

Little has been revealed publicly about the details of Plame's CIA career. But we do know that she gave birth to twins in 1999 or 2000, and it's unlikely that the CIA would send a new or expectant mother overseas on a dangerous assignment. Thus one may surmise that if indeed Plame was legally a covert agent, it was because she worked overseas during the early part of the five-year period preceding July 2003, when Novak's column appeared--that is, between mid-1998 and mid-1999. If she had been at a desk job at Langley for four years by last July, then concealing her identity, even if it was still classified, might not have been such a high priority for the agency.

A special prosecutor is investigating the Plame leak, so if we're wrong, it'll become clear soon enough. But at this point we'd be surprised if anyone gets charged, or indeed if any crime turns out to have been committed. And since Wilson appears to have lied about his wife's role in getting him the Niger gig, why should we lend any credibility at all to his claims about the leakers' motives?