Reply #156: A crime regardless of their motivations, if they knew she was undercover!

[tableturner]

Even if, and it's a big if, and obviously false, Plame did play a part in sending Wilson, even convincing the Grand Jury that their exposing Plame was not intended as a criminal act, does NOT get them off the hook. If they purposely exposed her, knowing that she was undercover, they still commited a crime, regardless of whether or not they knew that what they were doing was a crime, and regardless of their motivations in doing so. They just had to know, when exposing her, that she was undercover.

"We knew that she was undercover when we exposed her as being undercover, but we exposed her not to blow her ability to continue undercover, not to hurt the country, and not to ruin the viability of her undercover operations, but to expose the fact that she played a part in sending Wilson to Africa; and her exposure as an undercover operative, the concomitant harm to the country, and the destruction of the viability of her operations, were incidental to our true motives, and were merely necessary and automatic outgrowths of our real effort, which again, was to expose, for political purposes, the part she played in sending Wilson to Africa", is not a defense. They broke a law MERELY by knowing she was undercover, and then exposing that fact, REGARDLESS of why they did so, and regardless of whether or not they knew that what they were doing was a crime.

"I shot a man and killed him, and killing him was not my main motivation, but was instead a necessary, incidental, and automatic outgrowth of my real desire, which was to keep him from telling the authorities that I am a crook", is the same level of non-exculpatory PSUEDO defense as the Bush people are using to defend themselves against criminal charges.

Edited for grammar.