If Plame recommended Wilson, how does that exonerate the leaker?

[spotbird]

Not that she did or didn't, but the issues are unrelated, right?

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-usnige113888255jul11,0,2551452.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-headlines
Panel finds holes in envoy's report
Senate committee says Joseph Wilson was recommended to Niger mission by wife, a CIA employee


The article starts out with the "report" that Wilson lied about the yellow cake and Plame's suggesting him for the job. Then goes on to say:

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as a weapons investigator. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

But what is the legal justification for outing Plame? If every word Wilson has ever spoken is a lie, intentionally outing Plame was still a crime, right? How does releasing her name become "unintentional" simply because the administration really didn't like Wilson?