Under US federal law it is generally not a crime for a person without a security clearance to receive or store classified information. The legal problems come in when they solicit it or take some other action to obtain it.
Laws matter less than they used to. When the President regularly uses the term "retribution" to describe his mode of operation, I don't blame someone for taking a more careful approach in a case like this. It shouldn't be that way, for a journalist. But a lot of things shouldn't be the way they are today.
