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As valuable as Felt was as a contributor to Woodward and Bernstein's reporting, to a certain degree the material he shared with them is somewhat exaggerated. He was never quoted in any of their coverage in The Post. His inclusion as a "character" only emmerged in the book and later the movie. What he largely did was "direct" Woodward and Bernstein toward valuable clues and information and directed them away from bad sources and wild goose chases.
It seems that it would be difficult to mount a legal case against him. By accounts, he didn't turn over any documents or reveal any national security information. I saw Pat Buchanan bellowing last night that Felt should have built a case and charged the Watergate conspirators rather than feed the info to the press, but that really didn't seem to be an option, given that his boss at the FBI was hand-picked by Nixon to prevent that kind of thing from happening.
Felt was the SAC in charge of the Kansas City FBI office in the late 50s and early 60s, so there have been quite a few local stories about him the last few days. Most of the personal accounts have suggested that he was a by-the-book investigator who took his job very seriously and was a "hands-on" manager. He seemed pretty well respected by his fellow agents.
If Felt saw a wrong-doing and wanted to correct it, I think the approach he took was the only option.
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