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Neither Criminal Nor Unethical

That's the title of a piece in today's Wall Street Journal by David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Lee A. Casey which serves as a follow up to their effort in The Washington Post on Saturday.  This morning they write:

"The reason Mr. Fitzgerald did not charge anyone with leaking Ms. Plame's name, then, is clear.  It was not because, as he implied at his Oct. 28 press conference, there was insufficient evidence.  It was, rather, because there was in fact no crime as a matter of law. The true scandal here is that, despite Ms. Plame's non-covert status, Mr. Fitzgerald pressed ahead, forcing numerous journalists to testify and actually jailing Judith Miller....

In view of this history, and precisely because the CIA was skeptical of the Niger claims, sending an outside expert to assess them was absolutely correct.  The fact that the expert chosen by the CIA was so closely connected to its own bureaucracy was indispensable in assessing the value of that expert's work - especially after he had openly waded into the debate.  In short, the revelation of Ms. Plame's name in connection to the CIA was a public service, neither criminal nor unethical."