Yes, you must have knowingly identified her as undercover and she must have worked undercover on foreign soil in the last 5 years for a crime to have been committed.

Is this the statute? Seems that if she's covert, then that's enough.

BTW, doesn't "knowingly" mean that the person knew what they were doing, but not necessarily that it was a crime? I.e., it wasn't a slip of the tongue.

The one problem is that apparently there's no obligation to issue a report, so if he finds no crime, he doesn't have to say anything. (although I suspect he would give at least a brief statement as to why he concluded no crime has been committed--e.g., Plame wasn't a covert agent).

So what is the meaning of "is"?

Where are you getting the 5 years from? The relevant statute that I've found is here. Is there another?

On a side note, it pains me to know that 50 USC § 111-113 Interference With Homing Pigeons Owned by United States has been repealed.

ETA: never mind, found definition of Covert Agent here.

If I my recollection serves me, the phrase "and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States," has some gloss on it in another section or reg that have the 5 year requirement.

ETA: See RT's post above.

Because, moron, he said it was Wilson's wife, not "Plame's wife." If that lesbian feminazi had taken her husband's name like God intended, then it would be a crime, but at this point it's her fault.

Can you post a quick memo that quotes all the code sections that modify Burger's quoted section to add the "identify as undercover" and "has worked undercover on foreign soil in the last 5 years" requirements? I can see the "has worked undercover on foreign soil in the last 5 years" being in the definition of "covert agent" but I'm not seeing that he would have had to say "Wilson's wife got him the job . . . she works undercover at the CIA in WMD."

No, we have statutes that define what actions constitute crimes. Either the statute has been violated or it hasn't. Other than the scienter component (which I don't think we even been an issue, given the other requirements), this is a very straight forward question.

The NYT article says she prefers to be called Valerie Wilson. I'm sure that's just the VLWC trying to make her more sympathetic to the soccer moms.

If this is Rove's defense to identifying a covert CIA operative to a reporter because her husband dared to debunk Bush's "yellowcake uranium" story, then hallelujah and praise be.

Even more so if the Admin lines up behind it.

Are you saying that for sure, she had not worked overseas as a covert whatever for at least 5 years prior to Rove trying to discredit Wilson's assertions about the uranium? Which, I think, were true, right?

He'd like to buy the world a Coke...
 

there was a strong "jews are at fault" thing going on too. Focus brings out some stuff that I've never heard of elsewhere.

And while the recent movie makes the anti-semitism seem symbolic for generic racism, the book written soon after was pretty clearly talking about raw anti-semetism.

I'm not saying it wasn't unseemingly (if intentionally done and the reports are true and all that).

I recall reading something a couple of years ago which, though circumstantial, suggested it would have been unlikely that she was overseas in the last 5 years.