What Defines a Covert Agent?

One of the biggest questions concerning CIA Agent Valerie Plame's "outing" is whether she was a "covert agent". The law only protects the identities of "covert agents" of the USA.

Under the law, the term “covert agent” means—

(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—

(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and

(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or

(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—

(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or

(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or

(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.

But Libby wasn't being tried for breaking the above law. He was being tried for perjury and obstruction of justice in the investigation of the leak.

Was an underlying law broken? Valerie Plame was working under non-official cover for the CIA at a fake company that has now been revealed to the world. She traveled outside the USA as part of her job. Agents working under NOC by the way do not carry diplomatic passports and thus work under very dangerous conditions. I think an argument can be made that the law was broken. There may well have been other laws broken as well, it was up to the US Attorney to determine which laws were broken.

One question people should ask themselves. Why, of all the people that appeared before the Grand Jury, was Scooter Libby the ONLY person to lie about outing Plame?

Clearly, Valerie Plame was betrayed by members of her own government. I don't think that fact can be denied.