Jun 26 2006
Breaking News: Murtha Begged Keller Not To Expose Terrorist Program
Update: First off, thanks to everyone for the patience as our site time warped back to last year for some reason (and left out all our posts since August). Second, as many people noted, Keller did say not all the people who contacted the NYTimes were against publishing the story. If Keller lied about Murtha and tried to make him out to be someone the administration contacted, then Keller is demonstrating a level of incompetence and dishonesty that proves we cannot allow the media to determine what secrets remain secret. – end update
Keller is doing an interview on CNN at 7:05 PM Eastern and has dropped a bomb shell bit of news. There were three people outside the administration who asked the NY Times to not expose the terrorist financial transaction monitoring program. Two of them from the 9-11 Commission where the co-chairs Lee Hamilton and Thomas Keane. The third person who tried to tell the NY Times they should not expose this important program was Democrat Representative John “Jack” Murtha! That’s right – Mad Murtha himself. Of course, this makes sense in an odd way. Murtha would rather not fight terrorism militarily, and this financial tracking program was a good option to military action.
Keller is obviously on the defensive and feeling a lot of pressure – probably corporate pressure. He extended his comment about the administration rationale was ‘half hearted’, as he said in his open letter (which I fisked here). He said that the specific comment was one of many and secondary to the administrations prime concerns. And the prime concern was lack of support by banks if the program became public and public pressure came on them to not participate. Seems King William was not completely straight forward even in his own letter.
The final question showed how unnerved Keller is. Wolf Blitzer asked him if he was concerned about a possible criminal investigation. Keller admitted he and the NY Times have been told of the possibility by administration officials. He tried to claim a prosecution would be tough against the media. More of his fantasizing I am afraid. When someone is warned they have classified information and not to expose it publically, then they bear full responsibility for doing so against the direction of those charged with protecting that information. Keller violated the law knowingly. And he did so to report a non-story. No laws were broken and no one’s rights were violated. The only thing that happened was that terrorists were stopped and peoples’ lives were saved because these people were caught. Now that has just been made harder by King Willaim and his delusions of granduer.
What does it say when the NY Times go so far over the edge even John Murtha won’t follow? I doubt Keller will survive the summer, the NY Times will need a sacrificial lamb, and it is obvious someone pressured Keller to get out and deal with his anti-American acts.
Re: Half-Hearted
Aj,
Check out this letter to Keller from John Snow. He gives Keller a great slapping. It’s found under the headline “My Favorite Treasury Secretary”
http://powerlineblog.com/
AJ:
Maybe Murtha knew that sooner or later the NYT would push it too far and when that happened the media might become a tad hesitant to just go along with every and any source that came along. In the long run the Democrats would not want that. This little partnership they have with the MSM has worled well for them and people like Murtha do not want anyone screwing up a good thing.
Time for Gonzales to Act – Part III…
Henry Mark Holzer, writes a “indictment” on the times, which just may be a harbringer of things to come. Something to think about. If the DOJ were to prepare indic ……
While Keller is without a doubt a TRAITOR, his departure would not change the Times very much. He was hired by the publisher to do his bidding; if the publisher would replace him with another individual of identical ilk, what would that change?
It is the whole organization that is rotten, top to bottom! Only a major shareholder rebellion could have a positive impact, but given the Times financial set up that possibility is simply day dreaming.
To complicate matters, the major news organizations are competing against each other to see which can do more harm to the US. And the Administration’s lack of serious ACTION cannot but contribute to the repeated treasonous actions of the MSM and to the eventual complete devaluation of the basic concept of Patriotism.
I partially disagree with you Luc. A successful prosecution against the Times would have a definite “chilling effect” felt across the land. Whether the publisher was successfully charged or not, the rules of the game will have unmistakingly changed. I would be very surprised to see many “courageous” journalists if they truly believed they would spend many years in a federal penitentiary. If national security is clearly breached, I for one would be happy to pay my taxes for every journalist and/or editor that disregarded warnings to reveal harmful secrets.
OT – AJ, I tried to leave this comment this morning on a post that I now cannot find. You were posting on the hosting problems you have been having. I wanted to tell you that if you are considering switching, I would highly, highly recommend Blue Host. I recently switched to them after being with another company for over 10 years. I wish I had done it sooner. The service at Blue Host is superb, I cannot sing their praises high enough.
Keller says three people talked to him. Keller says “not all of the three argued against publishing”. I have a feeling Murtha told him to publish it.
I am in agreement with CrossPatch. From the transcript:
——————————————————————————–
BLITZER: The Treasury Secretary John Snow says not only Bush administration officials but others appealed to you not to disclose this information, including Democrats, representatives from the 9/11 Commission, including the chairman and the co-chairman, as well as members of Congress on the Intelligence Committees. Is that true?
KELLER: To the best of my knowledge, three people outside of the administration were asked by the administration to call us. I spoke to one of them. One of them spoke to our Washington bureau chief. One of them spoke to Jill Abramson, our managing editor. All of them spoke, they thought, in confidence, and I don’t think I will breach the confidence of what they said, although I will say that not all of them urged us not to publish.
BLITZER: Because in the letter from the treasury secretary, he specifically refers to former Democratic Congressman Lee Hamilton, who, together with the chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Governor Tom Kean of New Jersey, appealed to you not to print this information. I assume you can confirm Lee Hamilton, since the treasury secretary has disclosed his name.
KELLER: I am happy to tell you who we spoke to. I think I’ll leave it to them to tell you what they actually said, but I will say that…
BLITZER: Who were the three people outside of the administration that asked you not to report this information?
KELLER: Tom Kean, Lee Hamilton and Congressman Jack Murtha.
————————————————————————————
Sec. Snow said Hamilton and Kean asked them to hold back. Therefore, if Keller is telling the truth, Murtha did not, which is what I would expect from him.
My question is, why would the administration ask Murtha to help them out? They might as well ask Osama himself.
I suspect Murtha wasn’t asked. He did it on his own. I believe Sec. Snow only mentioned two people talking to the Times. He might not have known about Murtha’s sabotage mission.
Or maybe Murtha was asked by the Times and not by the administration.
we all know, down deep, there won’t be any prosecution. however, as fred barnes mentioned on fox, there’s no reason rep. king from new york can’t call for hearings where they can perp walk keller on capitol hill and mock him in public under oath. its also not out of the question that they could grand jury him to reveal who gave him ‘classied info’. use the dem tactisc of countless hearings and make life miserable for the times et al.
in the end, keller will probably get a pulitzer……..
I am not sure there won’t be prosecutions. The government needs to choose their battles wisely. The NYT covered their flanks by releasing the information to the LAT and WSJ. To prosecute the NYT, one would also have to prosecute the other papers. One could attempt to get sources out of the NYT and prosecute the leaker. Otherwise finding the leak might be a problem because I suspect there would be many in law enforcement and intelligence circles that had more than just a casual awareness of it.
Do we have any secrets left?
Another reason this cannot pass by without SOMEBODY being held to account:
http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=5458
The Belgian government is investigating the US following terrorist financing to see if it violates international law!!! ARGHHH!
Carol
If I were to get into the conspiratorial state of mind…. I would think that the NY Times’ sources were doing so at the direction of the Bush administration, dangling a tasty morsel out in front of them that they would not be able to resist publishing.
Perfect entrapment, resulting in the nuking of the NY Times and the resigination of Keller.
/conspiracy theory
Why buy these papers, or anything advertised or connected with them. Why pay for media that is endangering each and every one of us as well as the members of our military. We still have the freedom to not associate with traitors, despite all the political correctness going around.