The Alameda County District Attorney’s office has decided that Attorney General Jerry Brown’s press spokesman didn’t break California’s eavesdropping law when he recorded an interview with Chron reporter Carla Marinucci.

Communications director Scott Gerber is off the hook because, according to District Attorney Nancy O’Malley, the interviews were “meant for publication and airing.”

The eavesdropping law, Penal Code Section 632, only applies to “confidential communications” and it excludes “any other circumstance in which the parties to the communication may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard or recorded.”

Gerber recorded interviews conducted by reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Associated Press and other media organizations.

“The investigation concluded, therefore, that the recorded conversations were not confidential and there is insufficient evidence to support any conclusion that they were meant to be confidential,” says a press release from the District Attorney’s Office.

According to the Sacramento Bee, the attorney general’s office responded Thursday, “The Alameda County District Attorney’s independent conclusion validates the Department of Justice’s earlier finding that Scott Gerber only taped conversations intended for the public, which was well within the provisions of law. All of the recordings were on-the-record discussions intended for public consumption.”

Gerber resigned in November after news of the secret recordings sparked a political firestorm around Brown, who is expected to run for governor.