[Cboldt]

Would you summarize this to mean:
The leaking of Plame's status of employment with the CIA, covert or not, classified or not, was ITSELF ALONE, never a consideration of criminal wrongdoing.
But rather, the investigation is into whether or not there was the BELIEF that her status of employment with the CIA was covert or classified and so it was (purposefully) released.

No. I would summarize the footnote as that "If we assume Plame is covert under the statute, that alone isn't enough to convict Libby under the 'outing the covert agent' statute. We would also have to find that Libby knew or believed that Wilson's wife was engaged in covert work, and we have no evidence of that."

In other words, as of August 27, 2004, Fitz wasn't planning to charge Libby with outing the agent.

While interesting, the fact is a distraction from the actual charge, which is "Libby lied to investigators by concealing that he knew for a fact that Plame worked for the CIA."

[Kimberly GG]

Thank you for the explanation, Cboldt.