Libby - The Pieces Start to Fall in Place

Newsweek
Michael Isikoff
Feb. 13, 2006 issue

The CIA Leak: Plame Was Still Covert

Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion.

This solidifies one of the requirements of

United States Code, TITLE 50 - WAR AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
+ CHAPTER 15 - NATIONAL SECURITY
# SUBCHAPTER IV - PROTECTION OF CERTAIN NATIONAL SECURITY INFORMATION

Section 421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources

.....
(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information
Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify 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 under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

If you go to the link, you will see that there is no provision for anyone, including the President or Vice President, to authorize an exception to this section, such as can be done with classified information of most kinds. Documents, for example, can be re-classified at some point in time as "Non-classified". A covert agent's status cannot be re-classified. It can only become available when the five years have expired.

For those who don't know - and it is actually hard to find nowadays online - Libby was President Bush's Special Assistant on National Security issues. As such, he had a higher standard of behavior on classified information. Being one of the top very few officers in the Administration on National Security, he was MOST required to know the rules about what can and what cannot be released to outsiders.