Reply #53: Miller was a cut-out. She didn't do this on her own. The role she

[leveymg]

served as a conduit for information about the identity of Plame was to minimize the risk to the others of prosecution under the Intelligence Identitities Protection Act (IIPA).

Miller, who isn't a USG employee, can't be prosecuted under the Act. Bolton or Libby thought they could avoid prosecution if Miller was the conduit to other reporters, particularly since Miller could plausibly claim to have found out about Valerie's CIA identity through other sources. See my post above about who that source most likely was.

But, Fitzgerald is not prosecuting with the IIPA, and will instead get them for conspiracy, perjury and obstruction pursuant to prosecution of Scooter or Bolton (and whoever touched the original State Department document that discussed Plame and Wilson) for violation of the Espionage Act.