Posted on 07/23/2005 10:34:08 AM PDT by wagglebee
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."
Mr. Rockefeller is the Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Mr. Durbin is the number two 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.
"The formal request for a leaks investigation would target people who described sensitive details about a new generation of spy satellites to The Washington Post, which published a page-one story about the espionage program Saturday [Dec. 11, 2004]," a Justice Department official told the Associated Press at the time.
But the same official told the AP that Justice "has not decided whether to investigate."
Former Deputy Undersecretary Babbin's comments on Saturday were the first indication that such a probe was actually launched and is ongoing.
"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," he told Crowley.
"The acknowledgement of [the "black ops" program's] existence is not even proper and the acknowledgement of them and the details of them can very well damage national security," Babbin added.
Asked if he thought the three Senate Democrats should have their security clearances revoked for the duration of the leak probe, the former Defense Department official said, "Absolutely and forthwith. I mean, they should have been revoked at the time of the leak."
"There's really not much doubt about the leak having occurred," Babbin told Crowley. "It's in the press records, it's in the Congressional record. We know what they did."
"The only question," he explained, "is how much damage was done by the leak. And that's part of the criminal investigation right now - to do a damage assessment, to figure out how much this is going to cost us strategically and militarily."
Thanks for the flag, friend.
Judge Posner wrote a good article about the choices the media make. Often it's more about entertainment than about info or truth. Plame and Sandy Berger's underpants were sexy. :) I'm not sure about this one.
The MSM ignored it, lefty media acted like everyone had been done a favor that the CIA was exposed.
I do remember it being mentioned on Fox though.
Thanks for the ping!
ping to read later
There is a real Catch-22 for the DOJ here.
This program is so highly classified that most people don't even know that such classifications even exist.
The more they make public the investigation, the more they promulgate the spreading of the information on this plane.
Do you see the problem?
They ARE being investigated, just the media won't hop on it, in any classified manner, for reasons we already know, and the DOJ can't make public what they are doing, for the classified reasons I stated above.
You see, when you really care about classified information, you can't just blast the investigation from the rooftops. A genuine Catch-22.
I also heard Rush talk about this over a week ago,when enumerating the things the Democrats had done that has never hit the front pages, and never brought any repercussions down on themselves.
FReepmail if you'd like more information - that's all I can say on a public board.
The problem is the increased publicity that would be given to the security breach, which involves the highly classified plane.
With Plame, she's out of the dark and a pencil-pusher.
Not so this plane. It's still operational, for one thing.
For another, the classification level is so high on this (black project only begins to hint at the classification level), that to continue to talk about this publicly, only exposes the project to more and more eyes.
As I wrote to STARWISE, it's a genuine Catch-22 for those who really care about the promulgation of highly sensitive information.
Even the NRO isn't that widely known, as one of those 3-letter agencies.
Sometimes, to protect classified information, people HAVE to keep their mouths shut!
And we know that the media isn't going to pick this up and run with it, when it's Democrats involved. I mean, WE know that, right?
But that doesn't mean that I don't think we should continue to ask that it be investigated and pound as many heads as we can. I just sent the text of this article to Rush's "private email", asking him that if he's going to continue to talk about the Plame/Rove fiasco, why can't he bother to mention this one?
We'll see if Rush picks up on it. He has come back from vacation, and while I haven't heard anything about the Rove/Plame crap, he picked up right where he left off, a week ago. He has finally gotten around to the stem-cell research and Sen. Frist, and it took 2-1/2 hours for him to get to it!
I think we should work very hard to keep it alive.
Brit Hume has mentioned it, along with the fact that Kerry revealed the name of a current undercover CIA agent, on the floor of the Senate.
I sent the text of this thread to Rush - asking him about making it more public, since he came back from a week's vacation and picked up on the Plame/Rove thing as though we were all still talking/thinking about it - and I am definitely NOT.
The DOJ has a policy of not taking about ongoing investigations, so they may not be in a position to make this more public, and the CIA, for Heaven's sake, doesn't like any of the publicity that the plane has received to date.
But it is true that Goff, head of CIA, is not going to let this one go quietly into the night. One of the things he has had squarely in his sights, are the CIA folks who have been leaking anything, but especially leaking information during the President's re-election campaign, that was very unfavorable to the President. Portor Goff does not like "talkers". Look at those he's "let go" or who have resigned.
As I wrote above, the Catch-22 to this story is that the plane is an ongoing project, involves the NRO and is so highly classified (as all black ops projects are).
"pull their credentials, now!"
I'm not sure that there are any credentials or security clearance for senators unless they serve on certain committees.
I've sent Rush an e-mail on this. I think if a lot of FReepers do the same, it will probably get his notice.
What these old tenured, soured and jaded civil servants have done at CIA, FBI and maybe even DOJ is outrageous .. treasonous. I hope Goss wastes no time dealing severely with these snakes. A strong message needs to be sent NOW .. and with NO diplomacy. I wish he could do it publicly .. but that would hurt the greater good that's got to be protected, above all costs.
Whatever happened to this investigation? Is it still ongoing?
Was that the one John Kerry was talking about too?
From what I can tell, investigations of 'Rats NEVER really go anywhere.
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