ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A former Central Intelligence Agency officer is expected to spend 2 1/2 years in prison for telling a journalist the name of a covert agent, marking the first time in 27 years that someone will go to prison for blowing the cover of a CIA agent. John Kiriakou, 48, pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of disclosing the identity of a covert agent. Kiriakou revealed the agent's name in a 2008 email, one of many instances in which he helped journalists with information on activities such as waterboarding and the CIA's interrogation of al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah. The guilty plea closes one of six prosecutions the Obama administration has pursued in an aggressive campaign against alleged leakers of classified information. His Justice Department has prosecuted more leak cases than all previous administrations combined, according to tallies by multiple news organizations. US District Judge Leonie Brinkema called the expected 2 1/2-year sentence “reasonable under the circumstances” and noted it was the same sentence that a judge gave to former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in 2007 in another case of blown CIA cover. A jury convicted Libby of perjury in a case about who revealed the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had criticized the Iraq war. President George W. Bush commuted Libby's term, sparing him from prison. In 2004, Kiriakou retired from the CIA. By 2007, he was speaking publicly — including on television — about waterboarding and his role in Zubaydah's questioning. Then, in 2009, defense lawyers for detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, disclosed in a military commission filing that they knew the identities of some covert US personnel. An inquiry led US officials to Kiriakou because the journalist with whom he spoke also talked to a defense team investigator. — Reuters
