Specter Wants Answers For Bush Leak
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, The War On Terrorism
Remember, it’s not the legality people are talking about. It’s the consistent leaking and lying people are worried about.
More from the Wash Post:
President Bush and Vice President Cheney need to explain what classified information was authorized to be leaked to reporters in July 2003 and why, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said yesterday.“I think that there has to be a detailed explanation precisely as to what Vice President Cheney did, what the president said to him, and an explanation from the president as to what he said so that it can be evaluated,” Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) said. He was referring to last week’s revelation in a court document that Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, testified that Cheney told him Bush approved leaking parts of a classified document about intelligence estimates of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.
Specter said on “Fox News Sunday” that he had heard yesterday morning about a report, first published by the Associated Press, that a lawyer close to the case said Bush “didn’t tell the vice president specifically what to do, but just said get it out.”
It’s understandable that Arlen wants answers. The Republicans are taking quite a hit on this one, as well as other Bush missteps. In short, this is damage control for the fall elections, which don’t look good for the GOP right now.
This entry was posted on Monday, April 10th, 2006 and is filed under General Politics, The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 10th, 2006 at 5:31 am
Here we go again…
You cannot separate the disclosure of certain portions of the 02 NIE from the legal issues. Clinton did the same back-channel disclosure in the immediate aftermath of Operation Infinite Reach in 1998. His explanation had something to do with the nexus of Iraq, WMD and al Qaeda.
The President as commander-in-chief – as a constitutional matter – simply cannot be guilty of unauthorized disclosure of classified. President Bush has every right to denounce unauthorized leaks of classified at the same time he himself is disclosing classified to support US foreign policy objectives.
Don’t like it? Change the Constitution.
April 10th, 2006 at 6:52 am
Cylinder,
I agree with you on that. But what if the information he declassified was already known to be inconclusive in the same document?
“One striking feature of that decision — unremarked until now, in part because Fitzgerald did not mention it — is that the evidence Cheney and Libby selected to share with reporters had been disproved months before. United Nations inspectors had exposed the main evidence for the uranium charge as crude forgeries in March 2003……
Unknown to the reporters, the uranium claim lay deeper inside the estimate, where it said a fresh supply of uranium ore would “shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons.” But it also said U.S. intelligence did not know the status of Iraq’s procurement efforts, “cannot confirm” any success and had “inconclusive” evidence about Iraq’s domestic uranium operations.”
Deliberately “leaking” or “declassifying” information when all you have is inconclusive evidence supporting it? Surely you see the problem here.
April 10th, 2006 at 7:47 am
maybe not illegal, but I think we should hold the pres. to a little higher standard.
I also find it a little strange that he said he wanted the leaker found and punished. But he was the leaker?!?
BTW: when you start to whine “but Clinton did it” you have already lost the argument.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:13 am
I do not see the problem with the Bush administration declassifying information about the intelligence that lead us to the Iraq war in response to attacks by Joe Wilson, et al.
For those who are outraged by this – will you please explain to me what the problem is here because I’m clearly not seeing it.
Thanks.
April 10th, 2006 at 9:26 am
[...] Donklephant says GOP Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) wants to hear more on Bush possibly authorizing leaks. More: This F*ing War, Jurist tells us evacuees have started voting in the disputed New Orleans election. [...]
April 10th, 2006 at 10:05 am
Don’t be niave Monica. You’re only looking at the White House “justification” because they have to try and cover their collective behinds. It’s not the issue of Bush’s spur of the moment declassification of the NIE, it’s his declassification of only the parts that support his faulty prewar assertion that Iraq had been trying to buy yellowcake, which Wilson’s trip to Niger debunked. So Bush used selective parts of the NIE, the one’s that supported his nonsense that took us to war, while keeping classified the parts that supported Wilson.
Declassification for the purpose of the public good is not the case here. It’s more like declassification to cover his lying a**, which makes this a case of abuse of power.
Other fine points in this debacle are evident in the years of lying about the whole affair. Why did the president claim he did not know who the leaker was, vowed that the leaker would bepunished, and let a multi-million dollar investigation proceed when he knew all along who the leaker was? It doesn’t bother you to be made a fool of by your own employee? Silly me, I expect a higher standard from the POTUS.
If Bush is within his presidential rights to declassify on a whim (of a hat :)), then the illegal part of this whole mess is that he lied to everyone about his knowledge of the leak, played us all for chumps by saying he was ignorant of the facts, and obstructed justice in the Plame case.
Answer these simple questions:
WHY did Bush allow the investigation to proceed if he knew all along who the leakers were?
WHY did Bush go on record to claim he did not know who the leaker was, and would punish them when found out?
It wasn’t a slip, it was calculated and purposeful.
April 10th, 2006 at 10:21 am
Roger -
Wasn’t the discussion of the ‘leak’ about the Plame affair, and not the release of the intelligence information?
April 10th, 2006 at 11:56 am
Monica,
Your own statement, “I do not see the problem with the Bush administration declassifying information about the intelligence that lead us to the Iraq war in response to attacks by Joe Wilson, et al.” brought up the release of the intelligence information.
The WH is using the justification for the leak as a “public interest” leak, and trying to sway the discussion away from the fact that Plame was outed in the process. It’s all tied together. It’s hardly coherent to try and seperate the issues when they are all basically rooted to the same issue.
Whatever. I’ve read about this issue from all sides, read the Fitzgerald PDF report, and have seen the slanting the apologists are trying to do. It won’t wash. Basically because of Bush’s own coverup of the leak while at the same time he was condemming it. That’s a rather telling turn of events, for him to suddenly to confess his involvement in the guise of “public interest” when he’s on public record denying any knowldge of the incident.
As a former Bush supporter, I find the whole mess very enlightening as to the extent this president has gone to fool the people and use his power for other than noble purposes. I had faith he was to bring integrity back to the WH, but if this is his idea of integrity, he can keep it.
Off to work.
April 10th, 2006 at 11:57 am
Monica, I believe the biggest problem with Bush’s alleged ‘declassification’ is that it was not, in fact, a declassification — the paper was still stamped ‘SECRET’ and anyone besides Scooter Libby discussing its contents would be in violation of an Executive Order, and likely subject to criminal penalties.
The President has the authority to declassify documents, but he doesn’t have the authority to have his cake and eat it too.
April 10th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Why did Bush not say who the leakers were? Well according to Fitzgerald it might be because he didn’t know
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/graphics/pdf/libbyplame.pdf pg. 27
[During this time, while the President was unaware of the role that the Vice President’s Chief
of Staff and National Security Adviser had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA
employment, defendant implored White House officials to have a public statement issued
exonerating him. When his initial efforts met with no success, defendant sought the assistance of the
Vice President in having his name cleared.
Don’t assume that because Bush declassified the NIE that automatically means he knows who leaked Plame’s name. One does not follow necessarily from the other. I don’t know if he did. But Bush declassifying the NIE is hardly the smoking gun some make it out to be.
April 10th, 2006 at 1:55 pm
Roger –
You believe that the declassification of the information is why Plame’s name came out – but have you considered that Plame’s name came out because she had recommended her husband, Wilson, for the job/trip and Wilson was claiming it was the VP who had suggested he go? She was involved with this situation for the word go, and Wilson lied to the public by saying that the VP was the one who sent him. This information was produced from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report.
Here is some support to that:
The Senate Select Committee On Intelligence received not only testimony but ACTUAL DOCUMENTATION indicating Wilson’s wife proposed him For trip:
“Some CPD, [CIA Counterproliferation Division] officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife ‘offered up his name’ and a MEMORANDUM to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador’s wife says, ‘my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’� (Select Committee On Intelligence, “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq,� U.S. Senate, 7/7/04)
April 10th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
Neil -
Will you point me towards where you’re getting your information about the information not actually being declassified, and therefore illegal?
From my reseach it looks like on July 19th major news organizations, specifically Knight Ridder, had an article claiming that the Bush administration had released parts of their classified information about the Iraq war.
What is your understanding of when it was declassified?
April 10th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
The President did not release the document itself at the time of the Libby disclosure to Miller et al. He authorized the release of certain information contained within that document. The NIE itself has not to this day been released in its entirety. As far as criminal santions, you need to persuse 18 USC – it is not illegal to disclose classified to persons authorized by the President.
April 11th, 2006 at 10:31 am
Here I go – ready to be ignored one more time . . . .
Why, Monica and Cylinder, among others, are you defending Bush on this? And, why are you ignoring the issue of Bush lying? No one is saying one way or another whether he did something illegal. I think most people assume that it was within the bounds of the law. The point is that the man lectured about leaks and firing people and completely condemned the persons responsible for these types of things. Now, it appears that the person responsible (not in a legal way) was him.
Guys, please stop dodging the real issues here.
April 11th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
And why are you conflating Bush leaking the NIE and Bush leaking Plame’s name? Bush declassify the NIE did not declassify Plame’s name. The NIE has nothing to do with Plame.
Why is this so difficult for people to understand?
April 11th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Jeff,
The point is that everyone wants to know what was and was not declassified, what was or was not authorized by the Pres, and what was or was not leaked and by whom and for what purpose. This post is about Arlen Specter asking Bush and friends for a “detailed explanation” of all this junk. Many people commenting here are acting like they know the answers to all these questions and are already satisfied that nothing inappropriate was done. I think that’s a little strange and very defensive. Don’t you want to know what happened?
April 12th, 2006 at 5:14 am
Because the President is – and always has been – the sole classification and declassification authority. The SoD, the DCI nor the Congress has any power to classify any document that does not derive from the personal order of the President. When the President condemns unauthorized disclosure of classified information he is explicitly exempting himself and those who fall under the delegation of this power by executive order – same as it ever was.
April 12th, 2006 at 5:22 am
I should note here that nuclear and cryptological documents are born classified and as such it could be argued that these fall outside the absolute scope of executive power in classification though as a theoretical matter could be declassified at the whim of the POTUS.
April 12th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Cylinder,
Thanks SO much for NOT answering my question again. I wish you would refrain from parroting your talking points and actually have a debate on this.
April 13th, 2006 at 10:25 am
Something on this matter that I have never understood, what does it matter who sent Wilson? Why would it matter if his wife a respected CIA agent recommended a qualified man in African affairs, who happens to be her husband to investigate controversial claims regarding Africa. And for the recond, I believe the request for the investigation came from an office under the VP, and while you are right, the VP never said “Joe go look into this” it should not matter. The hope of the Plame Leak was to discredit Wilson by stating that the grounds from which he was chosen for the project and the circumstances he was chosen were somehow invalid, because it was his wife who recommended him. Not whether the President approved the NIE to be declassified. The problem is that the are holes in the administrations stories, that smell of coverups and lies. Doesn’t the President have an obligation to clear this up beyond the half-hearted attempt offered as of yet?