WASHINGTON — Bissonnette’s lawyer, Robert D. Luskin, represented Karl Rove when Rove, then a top adviser to President George W. Bush, was under investigation for his role in the leak of the name of Valerie Plame Wilson, a former undercover CIA operative. After months of maneuvering between Luskin and the prosecutor in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, Luskin announced in June 2006 that no charges would be filed against Rove....
It is unclear whether Pentagon officials will pursue legal action against a decorated veteran who participated in what is considered one of the most successful military and intelligence operations in recent history, or whether they were simply hoping the threats will persuade him and Penguin to delay release of the book and allow them to vet it first.
--more--"
It must be all the fake photos.
Also see: Obama Defends Dick Cheney
No Outrage Over Rove
The Return of Karl Rove
Who they will pursue:
"Ex-CIA operative accepts plea deal" by Scott Shane | New York Times, January 06, 2013
WASHINGTON — Looking back, John C. Kiriakou admits he should have known better. But when the FBI called him a year ago and invited him to stop by and ‘‘help us with a case,’’ he did not hesitate.
In his years as a CIA operative, after all, Kiriakou had worked closely with FBI agents overseas. Just months earlier, he had reported to the bureau a recruiting attempt by someone he believed to be an Asian spy.
“Anything for the FBI,’’ Kiriakou replied.
Only an hour into what began as a relaxed chat with the two agents did he begin to realize just who was the target of their investigation.
On Jan. 25, Kiriakou is scheduled to be sentenced to 30 months in prison as part of a plea deal in which he admitted violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act by e-mailing the name of a covert CIA officer to a freelance reporter, who did not publish it.
The law was passed in 1982, aimed at radical publications that deliberately sought to out undercover agents, exposing their secret work and endangering their lives.
In more than six decades of fraught interaction between the agency and the news media, Kiriakou is the first current or former CIA officer to be convicted of disclosing classified information to a reporter.
Yeah, sure:
Operation Mockingbird
Why Am I No Longer Reading the Newspaper?
Why can't they just get along, huh?
Kiriakou, 48, earned numerous commendations in nearly 15 years at the CIA, some of which were spent undercover overseas chasing Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. He led the team in 2002 that found Abu Zubaydah, a terrorist logistics specialist for Al Qaeda, and other militants whose capture in Pakistan was hailed as a notable victory after the Sept. 11 attacks.
He got mixed reviews at the agency, which he left in 2004 for a consulting job. Some praised his skills, first as an analyst and then as an overseas operative; others considered him a loose cannon.
Kiriakou first stumbled into the public limelight by speaking out about waterboarding on television in 2007, quickly becoming a source for national security journalists, including this reporter, who turned up in Kiriakou’s indictment last year as Journalist B.
Then he is a NATIONAL HERO!
When he gave the covert officer’s name to the freelancer, he said, he was simply trying to help a writer find a potential source and had no expectation that the name would ever become public. In fact, it did not surface publicly until long after Kiriakou was charged.
He is remorseful, up to a point. ‘‘I should never have provided the name,’’ he said Friday in the latest of a series of interviews. ‘‘I regret doing it, and I never will do it again.’’
At the same time, he argues, with the backing of some former agency colleagues, that the case — one of an unprecedented string of six prosecutions under President Obama for leaking information to the news media — was unfair and ill-advised as public policy.
This from the supposedly transparent president.
His supporters are an unlikely collection of old friends, former spies, left-leaning critics of the government, and conservative Christian foes of torture.
That is about most everyone.
Whatever his loquaciousness with journalists, they say, he neither intended to damage national security nor did so.
The leak prosecutions have been lauded on Capitol Hill as a long-overdue response to a rash of dangerous disclosures and are defended by both Obama and his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr.
Well, in some cases anyway.
--more--"
"Ex-CIA agent gets 2½ years after guilty plea over ID leak; Defense lawyer called operative a whistle-blower" by Matthew Barakat | Associated Press, October 24, 2012
ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — A former CIA officer pleaded guilty Tuesday to leaking the identity of one of the agency’s covert operatives to a reporter and will be sentenced to more than two years in prison.
As part of a plea deal, prosecutors dropped charges for John Kiriakou, 48, that had been filed under the World War I-era Espionage Act. They also dropped a count of making false statements.
The law under which Kiriakou was convicted, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, had not yielded a conviction in 27 years.
Under the plea, all sides agreed to a prison term of 2½ years. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema said the term was identical to that imposed on Scooter Libby, chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was sentened for leaking information that compromised the covert identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, though his sentence was commuted by then-President George W. Bush.
Kiriakou, who wrote a book detailing his CIA career, initially tried to argue he was a victim of vindictive prosecution by government officials who believed he portrayed the CIA negatively, but the judge rejected those arguments.
Kiriakou was a CIA veteran who played a role in the agency’s capture of Al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002. Zubaydah was waterboarded by government interrogators and eventually revealed information that led to the arrest of ‘‘dirty bomb’’ plotter Jose Padilla and exposed Khalid Sheikh Mohamed as the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Related: Memory Hole: What Four Years of Torture Will Do to an Innocent Man
Btw, if they were waterboarded all the "evidence" is inadmissable.
Kiriakou declined to comment after the hearing, but his lawyer, Robert Trout, told reporters that Kiriakou ‘‘is a loyal American who loves his country . . . and served it for many years in classified and often dangerous assignments.’’
You see what happens?
After Tuesday’s hearing, one of Kiriakou’s lawyers described him as a whistle-blower. Jesselyn Radack, a specialist on whistle-blower issues with the Government Accountability Project, said it was an outrage that Kiriakou will serve jail time. She said the name he revealed to a journalist was an individual involved in the CIA’s rendition program, which Radack said had engaged in torture.
--more--"
Related: Good Leaks Bad Leaks
Alphabet Agency: CIA Water Sports
UPDATE:
"CIA officer gets 30 months for leak" by Michael S. Schmidt | New York Times, January 26, 2013
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The first CIA officer to face prison for disclosing classified information was sentenced Friday to 30 months by a federal judge.
The judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, said that in approving the sentence, she would respect the terms of a plea agreement between the former CIA agent, John C. Kiriakou, and prosecutors, but “I think 30 months is way too light.”
The judge said “this is not a case of a whistle-blower.” She went on to describe the damage that Kiriakou had created for the intelligence agency and an agent whose cover was disclosed by Kiriakou.
Before issuing the sentence she asked Kiriakou whether he had anything to say. After he declined, Brinkema said, “Perhaps you have already spoken too much.”
The sentencing was the latest chapter in the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on government officials who disclose classified information to the press. Since 2009, the administration has charged five other current or former government officials with leaking classified information, more than all previous administrations combined.
This from the transparent administration.
In October, Kiriakou pleaded guilty to one charge of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, when he disclosed to a reporter the name of a former agency operative who had been involved in the George W. Bush administration’s brutal interrogation of detainees.
Kiriakou, who worked as a CIA operative from 1990 to 2004, had played a significant role in some of the CIA’s major achievements after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In March of 2002, he led a group of agency and Pakistani security officers in a raid that captured Abu Zubaydah, suspected of being a high-level Al Qaeda facilitator.
Then he is an AmeriKan hero, isn't he?
In 2007, three years after he left the CIA, Kiriakou discussed in an interview on ABC News the suffocation technique known as waterboarding that was used in the interrogations.
In subsequent e-mails with a freelance writer, Kiriakou disclosed the name of a former colleague, who was under cover and part of the interrogations.
The freelancer later passed the name to a researcher working for lawyers representing several Al Qaeda suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who included the name in a sealed legal filing, angering government officials and kick-starting the federal investigation that ultimately ensnared Kiriakou. The name was not disclosed publicly at the time, but it appeared on an obscure website in October.
Federal prosecutors indicted Kiriakou, accusing him of disclosing the identity of an agency analyst who had worked on the 2002 raid that led to Abu Zubaydah’s capture and interrogation. The prosecutors said Kiriakou had been a source for a New York Times story in 2008 written by Scott Shane that said a CIA employee named Deuce Martinez had played a role in the interrogation.
When Kiriakou pleaded guilty last October, the charges stemming from that disclosure were dropped along with several others.
--more--"
