He said…she said…they said.

Many are asking this morning about how these two statements can be reconciled:

A C.I.A. spokeswoman, Jennifer Millerwise Dyck, said: “The officer was terminated for precisely the reasons we have given: unauthorized contacts with reporters and sharing classified information with reporters. There is no question whatsoever that the officer did both. The officer personally admitted doing both.”

“She did not leak any classified information, and she did not have access to the information apparently attributed to her by some government officials,” Washington lawyer Ty Cobb, who is representing veteran CIA analyst Mary McCarthy, said Monday.

Without putting too fine a point on things – and God, I hate people who use the English language as if it were the carcass of some dead cow, deliberately obscuring the meaning of what they’re trying to say by carving words out of sentences like a butcher carves a choice steak – and assuming both sides are choosing their words very, very carefully, one can immediately see where both statements may, in fact, be true.

Is there a difference between “leaking” classified information and “sharing” it? It would seem to be the case since according to some of her defenders, McCarthy had “permission” to brief reporters (probably on deep background) on some issues:

Associates, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of her sensitive legal situation, say the CIA authorized McCarthy on a number of occasions to talk with reporters. However, the details and timing remain unclear, including whether that was ever true after Goss took over in September 2004.

Leaking would be a crime. But suppose you “shared” more classified information than you were authorized to? The CIA could hardly send you to jail for stepping over some line that’s incredibly vague to begin with. This, and her unauthorized contacts with reporters that, according to the CIA, represented “a pattern of behavior” is why she was able to box up her possessions and walk unescorted out the door at Langley.

Is that the end of it? Not hardly. Mr. Cobb raises the first of what is sure to be many defense strawmen; she didn’t have access to classified information on the prison story. Just because she didn’t have access to the information doesn’t mean that she wasn’t aware of the existence of the prisons and was thus able to confirm part of Priest’s story.

But even if that’s the case, where or where did that part of the original story come from? From someone involved in an investigation of criminal wrongdoing – leaking classified information – at the Department of Justice:

A Justice Department spokesman said “no comment” on the firing. The spokesman also would not say whether the agency was looking into any criminal action against the officer. One law enforcement official said there were dozens of leak investigations under way.

A second law enforcement official confirmed said the CIA officer had provided information that contributed to a Washington Post story last year saying there were secret U.S. prisons in Eastern Europe.

McCarthy was smart to get a lawyer. If there are “dozens of leak investigations under way,” and she had a “pattern of behavior” of making “unauthorized contact” with “several reporters” she very well may be the focus of a preliminary investigation that DOJ will neither confirm or deny at this point.

Look for your next important series of leaks on this case from the Department of Justice.

UPDATE

The Commissar has an interesting “Matrix” showing the McCarthy connections to various Democrats and far left groups.

Take the red pill, Mary….