Reid: Anyone Who Divulges Classified Information Should Lose Their Security Clearance

[Blitz]

Excerpts:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats stirred the pot Thursday in the case of presidential aide Karl Rove and the news leak that unmasked a CIA agent, pushing the issue toward the Senate floor, pressing for a congressional investigation and inviting the operative's husband to the Capitol to accuse the White House of a "smear campaign."

Democratic Leader Harry Reid led the effort to push the issue onto the Senate floor, seeking a quick vote on legislation to strip national security clearances from any official who discloses the identity of a covert agent.

"It is up to the president to decide whether or not he will keep his word to fire whoever is responsible for the leak," said Reid's spokesman, Jim Manley. "It is up to the lawyers to decide what laws were violated. Congress has the right and responsibility to state clearly that anyone who divulges classified information should lose their security clearance."

A few paces off the Senate floor, Plame's husband, a former diplomat, criticized Bush's deputy chief of staff and chief political strategist in personal terms.

"I made my bones confronting Saddam Hussein. ... Karl Rove made his bones by dirty political tricks," said Joseph Wilson, who served as U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the first Persian Gulf War. At the news conference hosted by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, Wilson said he has been targeted by a "smear campaign launched from the West Wing of the White House."

Reid introduced his legislation as an amendment to a pending bill that provides funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Win or lose, that increased the odds of a quick debate and vote on the issue.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/....ap/index.html

[Jimmy James]

I wonder if Reid understands what he's saying here. You know the Republicans are going to dig up a Democrat who did something similar and take him down if Rove goes down.

Surely none of you believe this is the first time classified information has ever been improperly divulged.

[CharlestonPhan]

Originally Posted by Jimmy James

I wonder if Reid understands what he's saying here. You know the Republicans are going to dig up a Democrat who did something similar and take him down if Rove goes down.

Surely none of you believe this is the first time classified information has ever been improperly divulged.

classified information divulged? how about flat out stolen from FBI's files and not returned in its entirety? stuffed in his pants and socks, then taken from the FBI building, by Sandy Berger, former national security advisor to Clinton, who knew it was illegal to do so, prior to testifying before teh 9/11 commission. he did not return it all either, saying "he thinks" he threw some of it away.

as for Rove, the lawyer who wrote the statute they are trying to hang Rove with says Rove's accusers "are ignorant."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/ar...TICLE_ID=45266

[Jimmy James]

I thought Berger did what he did at the National Archives, not the FBI. Mind you, they're basically in the same place (I think the FBI is up one block if I remember right).

[zach13]

Joe Wilson said yesterday:

"Wilson acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," he said."

Therefore no crime was committed.

Next subject please

[Wakey]

I hope nobody thinks this is just political?

[Wildbill3]

Originally Posted by zachseau13

Joe Wilson said yesterday:

"Wilson acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," he said."

Therefore no crime was committed.

Next subject please

Hmmm, how long before the locas spin this factoid around?

[CharlestonPhan]

Originally Posted by Jimmy James

I thought Berger did what he did at the National Archives, not the FBI. Mind you, they're basically in the same place (I think the FBI is up one block if I remember right).

you may be right... but either way it was classified info.

[CharlestonPhan]

in addition... if Rove should be fired, i guess we can assume John Kerry should resign his senate seat as well. he outed a covert agent during hearings on Bolton's nomination. and repeated the name a second time even after Bolton responded using the agents alias. i wont hold my breath waiting for Harry Reid to call for Kerry to resign though.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...4/225202.shtml

[ohall]

Originally Posted by CharlestonPhan

in addition... if Rove should be fired, i guess we can assume John Kerry should resign his senate seat as well. he outed a covert agent during hearings on Bolton's nomination. and repeated the name a second time even after Bolton responded using the agents alias. i wont hold my breath waiting for Harry Reid to call for Kerry to resign though.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...4/225202.shtml

That doesn't count. DEM's are not subject to those kind of laws.

[Wildbill3]

Originally Posted by CharlestonPhan

in addition... if Rove should be fired, i guess we can assume John Kerry should resign his senate seat as well. he outed a covert agent during hearings on Bolton's nomination. and repeated the name a second time even after Bolton responded using the agents alias. i wont hold my breath waiting for Harry Reid to call for Kerry to resign though.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...4/225202.shtml

I feel a certain poster is lurking with a certain comment...:spider:

[DonShula84]

Originally Posted by CharlestonPhan

in addition... if Rove should be fired, i guess we can assume John Kerry should resign his senate seat as well. he outed a covert agent during hearings on Bolton's nomination. and repeated the name a second time even after Bolton responded using the agents alias. i wont hold my breath waiting for Harry Reid to call for Kerry to resign though.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2...4/225202.shtml

In that same hearing I believe a Rep said the name also. If I remember correctly, because I assumed that was why no one made a big deal about it because a person from both sides mentioned the name. That was also an accident while Rove did it to discredit/hurt a person who was hostile to the administration.

[Penthos]

Originally Posted by zachseau13

Joe Wilson said yesterday:

"Wilson acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," he said."

Therefore no crime was committed.

Next subject please

Lets stay on this subject because the law states that the agent had to be covert within the past 5 years...

Furthermore, if no crime was commited, then why, after the Novak article came out, did the CIA forward a crime report to the Justice Department saying that a crime was committed? If you recall, Ashcroft subsequently recused himself from the case and the Justice Department had go and find someone to do the criminal investigation, that being Indianna Attorney General Fitzgerald.

[ohall]

Originally Posted by 13isgr81

Lets stay on this subject because the law states that the agent had to be covert within the past 5 years...

Furthermore, if no crime was commited, then why, after the Novak article came out, did the CIA forward a crime report to the Justice Department saying that a crime was committed? If you recall, Ashcroft subsequently recused himself from the case and the Justice Department had go and find someone to do the criminal investigation, that being Indianna Attorney General Fitzgerald.

Her husbands book makes it clear they were back in the USA more than 5-years.

There's no meat here, at least not yet.

[Penthos]

Originally Posted by ohall

Her husbands book makes it clear they were back in the USA more than 5-years.

There's no meat here, at least not yet.

OK guess what it doesn't matter. Turns out the meaing of that quote was taken wrong. BOTH THE AP AND CNN have made clarifications.

Wilson was responding to a question by Blitzer, when he said
"My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity", he was saying that the day Novak printed the story, she lost her clandetine status because he had outed.

She WAS in fact an undercover agent until the day that Novak outed her.