Anyone else see a problem with a man such as Sen. Leahy getting his grubby little hands on classified information?
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who will chair the Senate Judiciary Committee next year, asked the Justice Department to release two newly acknowledged documents, which set U.S. policy on how terrorism suspects are detained and interrogated.
The CIA recently acknowledged the existence of the documents in response to a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The first is a directive President Bush signed giving the CIA authority to establish detention facilities outside the United States and outlining interrogation methods that may be used against detainees.
The second is a 2002 memo from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel to the CIA’s general counsel regarding interrogation methods that the spy agency may use against al-Qaeda leaders.
“The American people deserve to have detailed and accurate information about the role of the Bush administration in developing the interrogation policies and practices that have engendered such deep criticism and concern at home and around the world,” Leahy wrote Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales.
Leahy asked Gonzales to produce any revisions and analyses of those and other memos. He also requested agency documents that interpret the scope of interrogation practices permitted and prohibited by the Detainee Treatment Act or the Military Commissions Act.
I mean this guy was forced to resign from The Senate Intelligence Committee in 1987 when he leaked classified information about the Iran/Contra deal. He leaked information from a classified briefing on wiretaps to a TV show in 1986. Hell, this man hated Reagans war on terrorism and hates Bush’s war. Do you really think he won’t leak anything he can get his tentacles wrapped around?
Former special forces officer and columnist Geoff Metcalf provided a brief overview of Senator Leaky Leahy’s record of divulging secrets:
* Senator Pat Leahy was annoyed with the Reagan administration’s war on terrorism in the 1980s. At the time he was vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Therefore, “Leaky Leahy,” threatened to sabotage classified strategies he didn’t like.
* Leahy “inadvertently” disclosed a top-secret communications intercept during a 1985 television interview. The intercept had made possible the capture of the Arab terrorists who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered American citizen. But Leahy’s leak cost the life of at least one Egyptian “asset” involved in the operation.
* In July 1987, it was reported that Leahy leaked secret information about a 1986 covert operation planned by the Reagan administration to topple Libya’s Moammar Gaddhafi. US intelligence officials stated that Leahy sent a written threat to expose the operation directly to then-CIA Director William Casey. Weeks later, news of the secret plan turned up in the Washington Post, causing it to be aborted.
* A year later, as the Senate was preparing to hold hearings on the Iran-Contra scandal, Leahy had to resign his Intelligence Committee post after he was caught leaking secret information to a reporter. The Vermont Democrat’s Iran-Contra leak was considered to be one of the most serious breaches of secrecy in the committee’s 28-year history. After Leahy’s resignation, the Senate Intelligence Committee decided to restrict access to committee documents to a security-enhanced meeting room.
Metcalf is on the record saying Leahy should have been indicted, arrested and tried long ago.
So I just cannot see him getting the kind of juicy information he wants to leak to everybody and their mother without a court order.
So much for the Democrats getting tough on terrorists huh?
Like anyone really believed them anyhow.
