Posted on 01/01/2006 10:38:33 AM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The investigation into leaks about a domestic spying program should determine whether the motivation was damaging security or revealing a potentially illegal activity, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday.
"There are differences between felons and whistleblowers, and we ought to wait 'til the investigation occurs to decide what happened," said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y.
On Friday, the Justice Department opened an investigation into who divulged the existence of President Bush's secret domestic spying program. The New York Times reported last month about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Sen. Mitch McConnell (news, bio, voting record), a Kentucky Republican who appeared with Schumer on "Fox News Sunday," urged the Justice Department to "go after those who breached our national security and endangered Americans in the war on terror."
Bush has acknowledged the existence of the spying program and defended it as essential to securing the nation. He has cited his constitutional powers as well as a congressional resolution issued after the Sept. 11 attacks as legal justifications for the program.
The Times reported Sunday that a top Justice Department official objected in 2004 to aspects of the NSA program and would not sign off on its continued use as required by the administration.
James B. Comey, a top deputy to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, was concerned with the program's legality and oversight, the Times reported. Administration officials then went to Ashcroft, who had been hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, to gain his approval, according to the newspaper, but it was unclear whether Ashcroft gave his approval.
Neither Comey nor Ashcroft would comment on the meeting, according to the Times. White House spokesman Trent Duffy, with Bush at his Texas ranch, declined Sunday to answer questions about any of the administration's internal discussions.
The Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, has called for hearings into the program. McConnell said he would prefer that any hearings be held by the Intelligence Committee, which likely would be in secret.
"We're already talking about this entirely too much out in public as a result of these leaks ... and it's endangering our efforts to make Americans more secure," McConnell said.
Schumer, while supporting a leak investigation, questioned shifting the focus from the administration policy to the person who revealed the information to the press.
"To simply divert this whole thing to just looking at the leaker and saying everything else is just fine is typical of this administration," he said.
Schumer sent a letter Sunday to Specter asking that he call to testify current and former administration officials, including Comey, Ashcroft, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House chief of state Andrew Card. He asked that Specter join him in requesting the administration to waive any executive privilege in connection with their testimony.
What's the motivation?
Oh, I don't know.
Protecting American lives, maybe,, things like that.
btw, Chuckie, what was the motivation for some of your staffers to steal credit reports on a GOP Senatorial candidate in Maryland?
David Boden
Don't look for the MSM to investigate Chuckie. Their investigative energies don't work that way. They only investigate Republicans.
Lyndon Johnson once said of Chuckie that the most dangerous place in Washington, DC was to stand between Chuck and a TV camera.
Hey Chuckie, thanks for once again illustrating why Americans should never ever trust our national security to Democrats!
Methinks a 'culture of collusion' doth exist between the DNC and the old MSM mainstays, the NYT and WaPo and all their old syncophants, to undermine this nation's security and duly elected admiistration.
What's your motivation for that , Chuckie?
---and some Republican Senator should immediately have shoved the info about Shumer's staff spying on opposition candidates down his throat--
I wonder if Chuckie thinks that if a bank robber NEEDS the money, it's okay to rob a bank.
What an A$$ this guy is.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., center, flanked by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., left, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., meets reporters on Capitol Hill, Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005 to discuss the Patriot Act which is due to expire Dec. 31. (AP Photo/Lauren Victoria Burke)
So there could be a motive other than self protection in the **Kennedy drowns Mary Jo** and **Clinton does Monica** events??? I've got it, national security, they were spies.
We're half lost already because an angry mob has not formed outside Schumer's office, demanding his resignation.
Whiney, Cadaver, and Bullethead.
Trying to slant this investigation as going after whistleblowers? Nice try, Chuckie, but even you, one of the slickest of them all, can't sell that load of cr@p.
"There are differences between felons and whistleblowers, and we ought to wait 'til the investigation occurs to decide what happened," said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y.
If a top Democrat liberal senator is saying these things, I begin to feel all warm inside, like maybe it was Rockefeller and his staff that broke the law. Chuckie must be sweating bullets for friends somewhere up on high. Heh.
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Quite the neat trick since LBJ died eight years before Chuckie went to Washington.
BTW, predictable but still disgusting that this story features Schumer as anything but a left wing scum politician attempting to undermine the rule of law. Let's have another vote in Congress, this time on how many support the treason. The American people OUGHT to then see these are people who will get you killed for their political agenda.
What hypocrisy.
"There are differences between felons and whistle blowers"
That's right you putz.
And the so-called Whistle Blowers Act, does not pertain, and/or cover the NSA (or CIA). Anything leaked from those agencys, by anyone, for ANY reason, is a violation of Title 18, Part I, Chapter 37, Sections 793, 794 and 798.
And that's just for starters, moron.
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