It appears that Karl Rove was indeed the person--or one of the people--who told one or more reporters that Joe Wilson's wife worked in the CIA. This Newsweek story seems pretty definitive:

In a brief conversation with Rove, [TIme reporer Matthew] Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."

The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger..."

Newsweek notes that "[n]othing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative."

It is highly unlikely that Rove (or any other as-yet-unidentified source) violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. That statute applies when:

1) a person having access to classified information that identifies a "covert agent" discloses the agent's identity to a person not authorized to receive the information, where the person making the disclosure knows that "the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States";

2) same thing, only the person making the disclosure "learns the identity of a covert agent" through his access to classified information; or

3) a person discloses the identity of a covert agent "in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States."

First of all, it is not clear that Valerie Plame was a "covert agent." Here is the definition of "covert agent":

(4) The term “covert agent” means—

(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—

(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and

(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or

(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—

(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or

(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or

(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.

So whether Plame was a covert agent appears to turn on whether shse served outside the United States during the five years preceding her identification. I haven't seen any definitive answer to this question.

In any event, a violation of the IIPA seems highly unlikely. It is doubtful whether Rove or any other administration source knew of Plame's affiliation with the CIA through access to classified materials; it is further questionable whether Rove or any other source knew that she was a "covert" employee, or that the government was making an effort to keep her affiliation with the Agency a secret. (In fact, it is unclear whether the Agency did make such an effort.) As to the third situation covered by the statute, neither Rove nor any other administration source identified Plame as part of a "pattern of activities intended to identify or expose covert agents" for the purpose of impairing national security.

It is hard to see how Rove could be indicted for violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, and it is very unlikely that he would have been foolish enough to testify falsely before the grand jury about his conversations with journalists. None of this will matter much, though, when it is publicly acknowledged that Rove was one of the sources of the Plame "leak." (This isn't, by the way, the sort of communication that is ordinarily referred to as a "leak.") We can expect a media feeding frenzy of potentially unprecedented proportions.

Rove presumably told the President that he was one of the sources of the Plame information long ago. It is interesting that Bush didn't take the path of least resistance and ease Rove out of the administration at the end of his first term. The President's reputation for loyalty to has aides is certainly well-deserved.

DEACON adds: The media feeding frenzy will, indeed, be massive. But absent a serious claim of a statutory violation or perjury, it's questionable whether anyone apart from liberal bloggers and other pre-existing Bush haters will partake in the media's dog food. This isn't a top presidential aide accepting an expensive gift, or engaging in lewd sexual conduct. It's a top aide providing truthful information to journalists in response to lies told to embarrass the administration and our government. And, as John suggests, Valerie Plame isn't very convincing as a covert agent of the United States, although she did fairly well as an agent of her husband and the president's other enemies.

SCOTT adds: Hilail Gildin writes: "Andrea Mitchell was asked, on MSNBC, whether it was generally known to news people, before the hullabaloo, that Ms. Plame worked for the CIA. She answered, somewhat reluctantly, that it was. In the light of this, I don't understand the ensuing fuss."

Posted by John at 12:21 PM  |    |