There has been only one person convicted under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act: Sharon Scranage in 1985. She confessed and got a 5-year sentence.
Someone convicted with the IIP Act means plenty of precedent for how it works. Rove could be indicted under the broader and easier Espionage Act however, as already commented upon in diaries.
Her boyfriend Soussoudis was sentenced to 20 years for espionage but got traded in the spy swap that resulted. Presumably that was under the Espionage Act.
More on the Flip!
From the Washington Post in 1985 - SHARON M. SCRANAGE, operations support assistant for the CIA stationed in Ghana and her Ghanaian boyfriend, MICHAEL SOUSSOUDIS, were charged on 11 July with turning over classified information, including the identities of CIA agents and informants, to Ghanaian intelligence officials.
It is reported that a routine polygraph test given to Scranage on her return to the US aroused CIA suspicions.
Following an internal investigation, Scranage agreed to cooperate with the FBI in order to arrest Soussoudis, a business consultant and permanent resident of the United States. According to one report, damaging information on CIA intelligence collection activities is likely to have been passed on by pro-Marxist Kojo Tsikata, head of Ghanaian intelligence, to Cuba, Libya, East Germany and other Soviet Bloc nations.
Indicted on 18 counts of providing classified information to a foreign country, Scranage subsequently pleaded guilty to one count under the espionage code and two counts of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
Fifteen remaining charges were dropped.
On 26 November Scranage was sentenced to five years in prison. (This was later reduced to two years.) At the same time Soussoudis who had been charged with eight counts of espionage pleaded nolo contendere and was sentenced to 20 years. His sentence was suspended on the condition that he leaves the United States within 24 hours."
Several other publications appeared in the Washington Post, on the issue, including one on July 12, 1985, ("CIA Aide, Ghanaian Face Spy Counts"), and July 14, 1985, ("Routine Polygraph Opened Ghanaian Espionage Probe")