Good. It's about time.  I hope they prosecute her too.  I have no tolerance for people who violate security.  She knew the risks and the consequences.

CIA Officer Is Fired for Media Leaks

The CIA fired a long-serving intelligence officer for sharing classified information with The Washington Post and other news organizations, officials said yesterday, as the agency continued an aggressive internal search for anyone who may have discussed intelligence with the news media.

CIA officials said the career intelligence officer failed more than one polygraph test and acknowledged unauthorized contacts with reporters. The "officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information" with journalists, the agency said in a statement yesterday.

The CIA did not reveal the identity of the employee, who was dismissed Thursday, but NBC News reported last night she is Mary McCarthy. An intelligence source confirmed that the report was accurate.

McCarthy began her career in government as an analyst at the CIA in 1984, public documents show. She served as special assistant to the president and senior director for intelligence programs at the White House during the Clinton administration and the first few months of the Bush administration. She later returned to the CIA. Attempts to reach her last night were unsuccessful.

The CIA's statement did not name the reporters it believes were involved, but several intelligence officials said The Post's Dana Priest was among them. This week, Priest won the Pulitzer Prize for beat reporting for articles about the agency, including one that revealed the existence of secret, CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

I am so glad that Mary was able to violate Federal Law and help Priest get a Pulitzer prize for it.

Here is some irony from the NYT:

Mary O. McCarthy, the intelligence officer dismissed on Friday after being accused of leaking information to reporters about the Central Intelligence Agency's overseas prisons, once was responsible for guarding some of the nation's most sensitive secrets.

As a senior National Security Council aide for intelligence from 1996 to 2001, Ms. McCarthy was known as a low-key professional who paid special attention to preventing White House leaks of classified information and covert operations, several current and former government officials said. (Emphasis added)

How quaint.  The person who stopped leaks is the source of the leaks.

Government officials said that after Ms. McCarthy's polygraph examination showed the possibility of deception, the examiner confronted her and she disclosed having conversations with reporters.

But some former C.I.A. employees who know Ms. McCarthy remain unconvinced, arguing that the pressure from Mr. Goss and others in the Bush administration to plug leaks may have led the agency to focus on an employee on the verge of retirement, whose work at the White House during the Clinton administration had long raised suspicions within the current administration.

"It looks to me like Mary is being used as a sacrificial lamb," said Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. officer who worked for Ms. McCarthy in the agency's Latin America section.

Sure, defend her even when she admits it.

The state of integrity in our government is truly sad.

Link roundup-  Flopping Aces including a speculation about a Joe Wilson connection.

More on this at:  Sister Toldjah,  Jeff Goldstein, Captain Ed, Michelle Malkin, Rick Moran, Wizbang, Stop The ACLU, Tom Maguire, Ace of Spades, AJ Strata, Gay Patriot

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