A former US government official has pleaded guilty to leaking secret information about North Korea to a Fox News reporter, in a case that triggered controversy over the Justice Department's targeting of journalists who expose classified material.
Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department intelligence adviser who specialised in weapons of mass destruction, agreed to a sentence of 13 months in prison for disclosing a June 2009 intelligence report about North Korea to Fox's James Rosen.
Rosen used the information in a story disclosing that the CIA had learnt from sources in North Korea that the country would conduct new nuclear tests in response to United Nations sanctions.
The Obama administration condemned the story and said it put CIA sources in danger.
To track down the leaker, the FBI provided an affidavit in support of a search warrant for Rosen's email records, labelling him a co-conspirator in a potential crime that could result in up to 10 years in prison.
The suggestion that Rosen had committed a crime sparked a furore because journalists are seldom prosecuted for disclosing government secrets in the course of their work.
At the same time, Attorney-General Eric Holder faced criticism that the Justice Department had obtained telephone records of more than 20 Associated Press phone lines in an investigation into the AP's disclosures of a secret indictment of an alleged al-Qaeda operative and the arrest of terrorism suspects in Norway.
Holder disavowed any interest in prosecuting Rosen.
Last July, he issued new guidelines limiting the circumstances in which reporters' records could be obtained.
A Justice Department official who was not authorised to speak publicly said there would be no further charges in the Rosen matter.
"The government's investigation and prosecution of this matter is concluded," the official said.
Fox News had not commented as of Friday afternoon.
