Dec 23 2005
Senators (never) Investigated For Leaking
UPDATE:
Sorry folks, this is old news. Apparently this happened a couple of yeara ago. Here is another article by Babbin last December:
As a result of their revelations to the public and the press, three U.S. Senators — Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), who’s also the ranking Dem on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) — are the subject of a “criminal referral” made on Monday for speaking publicly about this satellite. Such referrals are made to the Justice Department by the administration when criminal conduct is suspected. In this case, it’s not only suspected, it’s evidenced on the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post. A highly reliable intelligence community source told me that the referral had been made because senior administration officials were beside themselves that the three had taken the controversy on funding this project to the press.
The question still stands – why was this not pursued with the same energy as the Plame Game? But it does illustrate a strange penchent for leading dems to expose and cripple programs for no real good reason.
END UPDATE
This is big news if true. Via Clarice Feldman at American Thinker there is a reference to a NewsMax article saying three Democrat Senators are being investigated for leaking classified material to the press.
The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into whether Democratic Senators Dick Durbin, Jay Rockefeller and Ron Wyden leaked details about a secret “black ops” CIA satellite program last December in a move that may have seriously compromised national security, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin said on Saturday.
The CIA made a request to the Justice Department to investigate and possibly bring criminal charges against these three [senators],” Babbin told WABC Radio host Monica Crowley. “My information is that investigation is ongoing.”
Rockefeller is the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Durbin is the No. 2-ranking Democrat in the Senate.
Media reports on the satellite leak last December indicated that the Bush administration was concerned about public comments by Durbin, Rockefeller and Wyden and that the CIA had requested a Justice Department probe.
I agree with Clarice, their security clearances should be yanked, but so should any leadership positions. These leaks endanger our people and cripple our efforts to protect the country from another 9-11. This not the area to play partisan games.
“The fact of the matter is that [Durbin, Rockefeller and Wyden] divulged something that was above and beyond top secret and frankly, they probably blew the strategy and the hundreds of millions of dollars that were being spent to pursue it,” Babbin told Crowley.
Maybe they should be made to pay the money back to the taxpayers as well.
Play Misty for Me…
The Spy Satellite So Stealthy that the Senate Couldn’t Kill identifies the classified program that Rockefeller and his dumb ass buddies leaked.
In July, a Free Republic poster provides additional information from an unidentified article about Misty series type satellites and their capabilities:
From a FAS web link we find the reason for the increase for the program: “A new generation of small intelligence satellites, planned to be launched beginning in 2003, is expected to give U.S. analysts almost constant overhead images of specific trouble spots anywhere in the world.â€
Now we know the real reason for this leak: “The Senators’ objections centered around the fact that none of the satellite’s components were built in their states and that the prime contractor’s PAC overlooked their various funding receptacles†New Misty models are keeping us save thanks to Ronald Ragan and his SDI visions. Sadly, Misty was last spotted in 1997 and is believed to de-orbited.
So how did Levin escape?? He deserves his day in court too!