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Cia name leak from whitehouse { September 30 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/30/MN309591.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/30/MN309591.DTL
Democrats call for independent probe into possible leak
Name of CIA agent may have come from White House
Bryan Bender, Wayne Washington, Boston Globe
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback
Washington -- Democratic leaders Monday demanded an independent investigation to determine whether senior White House officials illegally leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent to exact revenge on her husband, one of the most vocal critics of the Bush administration's policy on Iraq.
Led by Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, scores of lawmakers and presidential candidates called for an independent inquiry -- the first since the independent counsel law expired in 1999. They argued that the review now being conducted by the FBI could not be objective in a Justice Department led by Attorney General John Ashcroft, a Bush appointee.
"We do not believe that this investigation of senior Bush administration officials, possibly including high-level White House staff, can be conducted by the Justice Department because of the obvious and inherent conflicts of interests involved," Daschle wrote in a letter to President Bush and Ashcroft cosigned by three other Democratic senators. "Therefore, we strongly urge the immediate appointment of a special counsel to investigate this matter."
The White House rejected the calls, saying that the Justice Department is the "appropriate agency" to conduct the inquiry and that the president's staff would fully cooperate.
Meanwhile, White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied that the president's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was involved in revealing the information, which reportedly was relayed to at least six journalists. McClellan said that Rove, who controls the White House's political operation, was not to blame. "I've made it very clear that he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was," McClellan said.
But former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife's identify was first disclosed in a July 14 article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, told the Globe in an interview Monday that, "I have full confidence that (Rove), at a minimum, condoned it and did nothing to stop it." Wilson said that at least one reporter told him that Rove said after the Novak column was published that Wilson's wife was "fair game."
A Justice Department official said a preliminary investigation is under way.
"That's to determine whether there needs to be a full-blown investigation," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Publicly revealing the identify of an undercover intelligence official is a violation of federal law, punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Exposing secret agents is considered a breach of national security because it could endanger not only them but also their sources.
CIA Director George Tenet requested the investigation, officials said, after the agency completed an internal review of the potential consequences of identifying Wilson's wife, who sources said works in the CIA's operations directorate gathering intelligence on weapons of mass destruction. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, would not say whether the review concluded that sources were jeopardized.
The allegations have created a firestorm in Washington. McClellan's White House news briefing Monday was at least as intense as the grilling the president's spokesman endured earlier this year over how a discredited report that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger appeared in the president's State of the Union address.
Wilson had been sent by the CIA to investigate the claim, which was made by British officials. A former acting ambassador to Iraq, Wilson said he found no evidence supporting the charge. Later, after it was repeated in Bush's address,
Wilson disputed it and continued criticizing the White House's case for the invasion of Iraq.
Wilson said Monday that he did not know the motive for leaking his wife's identity. But he said he could only surmise that it was to silence him or prevent others from speaking out against the administration's Iraq policy. "It appears to have just been for pure revenge," Wilson said. "That is reprehensible."
Since the nation no longer has an independent counsel law, which called for a panel of judges to appoint a special prosecutor in cases where it was warranted, a special counsel is the next best option, officials said.
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