Tuesday, July 26, 2005 10:12 a.m. EDT
Bill Clinton Pardoned Nat'l. Security Leaker

No wonder 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has been silent
as a churchmouse about Karl Rove while her Democratic colleagues call for
his prosecution for leaking classified information about CIA employee
Valerie Plame.

Turns out - in the only case in U.S. history of a person successfully
prosecuted for leaking classified information to the press - Hillary's
husband pardoned the guilty party.

On January 20, 2001, President Clinton pardoned Samuel Loring
Morison, a civilian analyst with the Office of Naval Intelligence. In
1984, Morison had been convicted of providing classified satellite photos
of an under-construction Soviet nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to
Britain's Jane's Defence Weekly.
He received a two-year jail sentence.

In pardoning Morison, Clinton dismissed the advice of the CIA.

"We said we were obviously opposed - it was a vigorous 'Hell, no,'"
one senior intelligence official told the Washington Post at the time. "We
think ... giving pardons to people who are convicted of doing that sends
the wrong signal to people who are currently entrusted with classified
information."

Morison is the only person ever successfully prosecuted under the
1917 Espionage Act, the law invoked by Democrats who want to nail Rove
after it became clear that he didn't violate the 1982 Intelligence
Identities Protection Act.

But it's going to be difficult for Dems to feign national security
outrage over Plame's outing when the husband of their party's presidential
front-runner let an actual convicted leaker off the hook.

Last week, when Sen. John Kerry called for Mr. Rove to be fired, with
Hillary standing by his side, she nodded silently. When reporters asked
her what she thought of the alleged Rove outrage, she offered only, "I'm
nodding."

No doubt while remembering her husband's pardon of Mr. Morison.