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Leak of Info re Secret US Overseas Prisons Investigation
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| Groundhog Boy |
Who wants to bet that they get to the bottom of this one faster than the Valerie Plame issue?
| quote: | Congress may probe leaks in CIA prisons story
By Vicki Allen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top U.S. Republican lawmakers on Tuesday called for a congressional investigation into leaks of information used by The Washington Post in an article on the CIA's secret global prison system.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert in a letter asked the intelligence committees to "immediately initiate a joint investigation into the possible release of classified information."
Democrats said instead of just investigating possible leaks related to that story, Republicans should allow a broad investigation on detainee abuses and whether the Bush administration manipulated intelligence before the Iraq war.
"If the speaker and the majority leader in the Senate are interested in this, they should join with us in getting to the bottom of what went on in bringing this country to war," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat.
Democrats had pushed for an independent commission to investigate abuses of terrorism suspects in U.S. custody. But voting 55-43, the Senate largely on party lines rejected the commission in an amendment to a defense policy bill.
Democrats said an independent review was essential to determine whether Bush administration policies led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and elsewhere, but Republicans said the Pentagon already had conducted investigations and prosecutions were ongoing.
The Washington Post reported last week that the CIA has been holding and interrogating al Qaeda captives at a secret facility in Eastern Europe, part of a global covert prison system established after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The Bush administration has not confirmed or denied the report.
In their letter, Frist of Tennessee and Hastert of Illinois said they wanted the intelligence committees to determine if the information given to the newspaper was classified and accurate, who leaked it and under what authority, and the actual and potential national security damage from it.
Asked whether the Republican leaders would seek an investigation of the secret prisons, Ron Bonjean, Hastert's spokesman, said, "First we're looking into why we have people leaking classified information."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the probe was the lawmakers' idea, not the administration's.
"The leaking of classified information is a serious matter. It ought to be taken seriously," McClellan said. "But this is a congressional prerogative and it was a decision that was made by those leaders and that's the way I would describe it."
Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott, who caused a stir by saying a Senate staffer may have provided information for the story, later said he was talking about the issue of detainee torture, not secret prisons. "Two different issues but they do get kind of interwoven," he told reporters.
But Lott questioned whether a congressional probe of potential leaks was a good idea. "I don't see how we have the time or how we get into that without getting into all of it."
Democrats and some Republicans have cited The Washington Post story as another reason Congress must set rules for the treatment of military detainees in the wake of the scandal over physical and sexual abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The Senate has passed an amendment barring torture of detainees and setting standards for their treatment and interrogations, despite the White House's threat to veto a $440 billion defense spending bill if it contained the measure.
The House has not yet voted on that measure.
President George W. Bush has been dogged by questions over the Pentagon's and the CIA's treatment of terrorism suspects. Responding to questions on Monday in Panama, Bush said, "We do not torture," and defended his administration's efforts to stop Congress from imposing rules on prisoner treatment.
The administration also has been hit by the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on five counts of obstructing justice, perjury and lying in the two-year probe into the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity after her husband criticized the Iraq war.
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| St_Andrew |
| Yeah we have secret prisons where no one knows how the detainees are treated, lets investigate who told the public, forget the rest we don't care! yay go republicans! :rolleyes: |
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| Shakka |
| quote: | Originally posted by St_Andrew
Yeah we have secret prisons where no one knows how the detainees are treated, lets investigate who told the public, forget the rest we don't care! yay go republicans! :rolleyes: |
Defending your right to bitch and moan for 2 centuries.:p :disbelief |
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| MisterOpus1 |
There really is a not-so-subtle point that GH Boy made here. Here we have an investigation on who leaked out information on illegal detention centers conducted by our government in which the GOP Bush apologists are completely up in arms over, yet these are the same people who defend individuals who essentially commit treason during wartime to our country by deliberately and willingly lying and outing a covert CIA agent who's job is to protect our country from foreign WMD proliferation.
I mean, who could possibly come up with this Hastert moneyquote chalk full of irony?:
| quote: | "If accurate, such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences, and will imperil our efforts to protect the American people and our homeland from terrorist attacks," Frist and Hastert said in a letter to Senate and House intelligence committee chairmen.
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/e...t_id=1001435738 |
Who the are you GOP clowns kidding here? First off, those ing detension centers shouldn't have been there in the first place. But more importantly, why the are you not saying the exact same ing thing about outing a covert CIA operative who's sole job was to protect our country from terrorist attacks, exactly that which you ing preach about here?
Or is it okay when a GOP member commits treason and puts our intelligence gatherers and their families at risk?
Well here's a funny possible irony - the leak on these detention centers might actually have come from a Republican:
| quote: | Last Wednesday, the Washington Post ran a front page story revealing that there are secret CIA prisons in Eastern Europe. Apparently thinking that current and/or former CIA officials leaked this story, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist today launched a formal investigation into the leak. But now, Sen. Trent Lott, one of their own, is suggesting that the Republican efforts could boomerang… in a huge way. Were National Republicans Involved in Yet ANOTHER CIA Leak??
Lott: “We Can’t Keep Our Mouths Shut.” Sen. Trent Lott “stunned reporters” by saying that the issue of secret CIA prisons was discussed at a Republican-only lunch, attended by Vice President Dick Cheney, last Tuesday, the day before the Washington Post reported the story. Lott said of the Washington Post story, “a lot of it came out of that room on Tuesday” and he said of his Senate Republican colleagues, “we can’t keep our mouths shut.” [CNN, “The Situation Room,” 11/8/05]
CNN Calls Potential Senate Republican Leak “Boomerang.” Discussing the Republican investigation into the CIA prison leak and Sen. Trent Lott’s subsequent comments, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer said, “That would really boomerang against Hastert and Frist…that would be a bombshell…” [CNN, “The Situation Room,” 11/8/05]
http://www.shadowtv.com/redirect/no...18466b0d5931c8b |
Well how fast will the GOP faithful go after this one if it's revealed that one of their own was actually involved in the leak?
Too ing funny and sad. |
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| priveye03 |
| No no no see, the person that leaked it shouldn't be on trial. It's the people that heard it, they should be on trial. BURN THE WASHINGTON POST! :rolleyes: |
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| occrider |
| quote: | Originally posted by Groundhog Boy
Who wants to bet that they get to the bottom of this one faster than the Valerie Plame issue?
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I'll bet you they won't get to the bottom of this issue any time soon considering a Republican senator may have been the one to leak the story to the post. Hehe let's get Fitzgerald on this pronto. Thanks Hastert/Frist.
| quote: |
Bungling meant leak letter leaked
By Alexander Bolton
A leak suspected to have come from the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) complicated, confused and nearly derailed a joint effort by Senate and House Republican leaders to seek an investigation of the unauthorized release of classified information.
Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) both eventually signed a letter Tuesday calling for the Senate and House intelligence committees to conduct a joint investigation of how The Washington Post discovered of the existence of CIA-run detention and interrogation facilities in eight foreign countries.
The request for the investigation was intended to give Republicans political momentum on the issue of national security at a time when Democrats have recently scored public-relations victories on national security.
Instead, the premature release of Frist and Hastert’s letter set off a chain of events that drew attention to what some House Republicans call the inability of the Senate to coordinate with them.
The mix-up renewed the criticism often voiced by House Republicans that it can be difficult to coordinate party message with Senate Republicans.
“It’s very hard to get the Senate to partner in the message,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (Ga.), vice chairman of the Senate Republican Conference and head of the House GOP “Theme Team.” “The Senate is not a cohesive group. Even within the Senate’s [55] majority senators, you can’t get them to coordinate.”
Kingston said the last time there was such a communications mix-up was before the August recess, when Frist announced his support for legislation expanding stem-cell research, something conservatives vigorously oppose, without consulting with the House. That announcement eclipsed the planned Republican message touting the passage of long-stalled energy and transportation legislation.
“I think sometimes the Frist press people get ahead of themselves,” Kingston said.
On Tuesday at 11:36 a.m., the Drudge Report reported that Frist and Hastert would “announce a bicameral investigation into the leak of classified information to The Washington Post regarding the ‘black sites’ where high-value al Qaeda terrorists are being held,” catching Senate and House Republicans off-guard.
The short news report immediately created a clamor among the Capitol Hill press corps for more information about the probe. The media demand prompted the Speaker’s office to release copies of the letter to the press between 12:30 and 1 p.m., before Hastert had a chance to read and approve the demand, said reporters who received copies of the letter. Hastert didn’t sign the letter until about 1:10 p.m.
The leak appeared to pressure Hastert to sign the letter before he or Frist intended to. But then something happened that lawmakers and political observers surmised made Frist hesitant to sign it.
CNN reported earlier in the day that Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) had said a Republican senator may have leaked information about the so-called black sites to the Post. Lott told reporters yesterday that he had been talking about another Post article. He said he was not talking about the article about the detention and interrogation facilities.
GOP aides conjectured privately that Frist’s delay in signing the letter may have been caused by concern over the possibility of endangering a Republican senator by calling for the investigation.
Frist told a gaggle of reporters at around 5 p.m. that he had not signed the letter. He did not sign it until 5:45 p.m. But even after then, it was not certain whether Frist had signed the letter. Frist’s office compounded the confusion by informing some reporters that he had signed the letter but also decided not to release it.
Confusion caused by Frist’s delayed endorsement of the letter was evident during a dialogue Tuesday evening between CNN anchor Lou Dobbs and CNN correspondent Ed Henry.
Dobbs said, “The fact that the majority leader in the U.S. Senate, Senator Bill Frist, has pointed out that he’s not officially signed the agreement with Dennis Hastert, the Speaker of the House, that seems like a pretty clear statement. Would you like to conclude what it means?”
Henry responded, “Well, it’s unclear. Hastert has signed the letter. He signed it several hours ago. That was when we — CNN first reported it, about 1 p.m. this afternoon. Now, why Senator First has not officially signed it, it’s unclear.”
Frist’s communications director, Bob Stevenson, said that it took Frist so long to sign the letter merely because it had been such a busy day in the Senate and that Frist had to work on the Department of Defense authorization bill. Stevenson said that Frist merely didn’t have a chance to sign the letter before the late afternoon.
The lack of confirmation about Frist’s support raised the specter that Hastert would be left alone in calling for the investigation. That would have likely been a source of major irritation for House Republicans since the idea for the investigation originated with Frist office, said a senior Senate GOP aide.
And the cause for the mistiming would likely have been a leak from Frist’s office.
Republican aides said the leak either came from Hastert’s or Frist’s office because they were the only two offices handling the matter.
Scott Palmer, Hastert’s chief of staff, emphatically told The Hill that the Speaker’s office was not the source of the early leak. When pressed, Frist’s office, however, did not offer a similar denial.
Asked about the source of the leak, Stevenson responded: “I know word leaked. I didn’t leak it. I don’t know who did,” leaving open the possibility that someone else in the majority leader’s office did.
A reporter for a major daily publication said he thought it was clear that the leak came from Frist’s office.
Another complication created by the snafu is that it forced lawmakers to answer questions about a letter they were not sure Frist had endorsed.
Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said yesterday that he still had not seen Frist and Hastert’s letter, and on Tuesday, when news of it broke, he was uncertain about what the leaders were requesting, according to a media report of his initial reaction.
“I had the impression that the letter had not been signed,” Lott said, recalling the scene outside the Senate Republican luncheon Tuesday, when reporters asked Republican senators about the news developments.
“Maybe that’s why Pat didn’t get it,” Lott hypothesized, referring to Roberts. “It’s a little glitch. But it did leave Pat — I’m sure it made it a little awkward.”
http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/exp...1005/news4.html
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And they leaked the letter about investigating a leak? Who are these clowns?? |
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| MisterOpus1 |
This issue is really bringing out some key moneyquotes from the GOP leaders:
| quote: | Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist says he is more concerned about the leak of information regarding secret CIA detention centers than activity in the prisons themselves.
Frist told reporters Thursday that while he believed illegal activity should not take place at detention centers, he believes the leak itself poses a greater threat to national security and is "not concerned about what goes on" behind the prison walls.
"My concern is with leaks of information that jeopardize your safety and security -- period," Frist said. "That is a legitimate concern."
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11...s.ap/index.html |
IOW, the illegal activity, we want to go after the whistleblower who rightly came out publicly with this information in the first place. Are they actually being serious here? And considering it's looking like a GOP person leaked this, are they really, truly, honestly being serious?
And on that same, twisted logic, do they have as much passion for someone outing a CIA covert agent working on WMD proliferation during a time of war?
You keep 'em comin' Bill. Plenty of material to throw back at 'cha... |
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