| Welcome to The New Coffee Room. We hope you enjoy your visit. You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| Condi Leaked Secrets? | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 23 2006, 06:51 AM (76 Views) | |
| Rick Zimmer | Apr 23 2006, 06:51 AM Post #1 |
|
Fulla-Carp
|
Of course, we know that no one in the Bush Admininstration ever leaks official secrets for political reasons. Bush just declassifies them whenever he needs them released for political purposes. That way, our security is compromised, but at least no law is broken. Such loyal Americans! It's just too bad their loyalty is to their own political skin not to the US. Lobbyists' Lawyers Say Rice Leaked Information The secretary of State and three other officials are to be subpoenaed. The defense says they told secrets to employees of a pro-Israel group. By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer April 22, 2006 ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Lawyers for two lobbyists accused of conspiring to obtain secret defense information said Friday that they intended to prove that senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, provided the lobbyists with some of the sensitive information. Ratcheting up their defense against espionage charges, the lawyers, representing former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, got tentative clearance from U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III to subpoena Rice and three other officials in the case. It was unclear whether Rice and the other officials would agree to be questioned or to testify. Ellis put off trial of the closely watched case, previously set to begin May 23, until Aug. 7. The escalating legal battle could redefine the way information is circulated in Washington. The charges are part of a Justice Department crackdown on leaks of classified information that officials say hurt national security. Some interest groups and media organizations say the case could chill their rights under the 1st Amendment. At a hearing Friday, Abbe Lowell, the lawyer for former AIPAC employee Steven J. Rosen, said the testimony of Rice and the other officials was necessary to show that they also had disclosed sensitive information and that some of the disclosures at the crux of the indictments might have been authorized. Each of the officials "has real-life dealings with the defendants in this case. They'll explain what they told Dr. Rosen in detail," Lowell said. "Day One … Rice tells him certain information. Day Two … [someone else named in the indictment] tells him the same thing" or similar information. Ellis approved subpoenas for David Satterfield, deputy chief of the U.S. mission to Iraq; William J. Burns, U.S. ambassador to Russia; and retired Marine Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, in addition to Rice. Prosecutors disputed the allegation that Rice had improperly leaked information, and opposed the subpoenas. Rice "never gave national defense information" to Rosen, Assistant U.S. Atty. Kevin DiGregory told Ellis. Rosen and former AIPAC employee Keith Weissman are charged with collaborating with former Pentagon analyst Lawrence A. Franklin to collect secret defense information about the Middle East. Franklin was sentenced Jan. 20 to more than 12 years in prison for giving classified information to Rosen, Weissman and an Israeli diplomat. Ellis also approved a defense subpoena for Franklin. The indictment alleges a conspiracy dating to 1999, including meetings with two other government officials at which secret information was disclosed. Those officials are not charged in the case. Though they are not identified in the indictment, one of them is reported to be Satterfield. According to prosecutors, Rosen and Weissman assiduously acquired information about a range of secrets, including a sensitive analysis of U.S. policy in Iran. AIPAC fired them last year, saying they acted contrary to the best interests of the organization. Lowell did not say in court what information Rice and the other officials might have provided, and declined to elaborate afterward. "This is not a stunt," he said, leaving the courthouse. The charges were brought under the 1917 Espionage Act, which has been used mostly to prosecute government employees accused of betraying the nation's secrets. Ellis has called the case unprecedented and is considering a motion by the defense to dismiss the indictment on grounds that the espionage law is unconstitutional. Such a move would obviate a trial. Lowell argued Friday that the law infringed on the 1st Amendment rights of lobbyists to petition the government. He said the government's interpretation of the World War I-era statute would clear the way for prosecutions of journalists who obtained classified information in the course of their reporting. DiGregory said that Rosen and Weissman had knowingly broken the law and that the case was about stealing rather than speech. Prosecutors recently submitted to Ellis a classified exhibit "demonstrating the willfulness of the defendants' criminal conduct in this case," according to a court filing. |
| [size=4]Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul -- Benedict XVI[/size] | |
![]() |
|
| George K | Apr 23 2006, 07:11 AM Post #2 |
|
Finally
|
If she broke the law, she should be tried and prosecuted. Time will tell. |
|
A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
![]() |
|
| Larry | Apr 23 2006, 07:11 AM Post #3 |
![]()
Mmmmmmm, pie!
|
Blatantly stolen from another forum...... http://junkyardblog.net/ Democrat Senators to Face Lie Detector? It’s regarding the CIA leaks. http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_11976.shtml If this happens, get ready for Washington to explode: During the Bush Administration, a nexus of politicians, government workers and members of the news media have worked overtime in leaking classified information. From the secret terrorist prisons to the National Security Agency’s super-secret surveillance program, intelligence officials and the Bush Administration have had to watch their counterterrorism efforts neutralized for political reasons. Special agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation recently interviewed dozens of employees at the CIA, the NSA and other intelligence agencies as part of an intense and wide-reaching investigation. Many employees who possess security clearances at the CIA, FBI, the Justice Department and other agencies received letters from the Justice Department forbidding them from discussing even unclassified intelligence programs. But people such as former deputy-undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin don’t think the Justice Department investigators and prosecutors have the guts to indict a US senator. Babbin said it would cause a battle royal on the Hill, if not a constitutional crisis. He did say however, that any senator or Congressional staffer that holds a security clearance can be asked at any time to take a polygraph. The individual can of course refuse to take the test, but failure to do so is reason to remove that person’s security clearance. Babbin further said that Senators Rockefeller, Durbin, and Wyden, and some on their staffs will soon be requested to take polygraphs. Pick up your jaw, which probably hit your desk when you read that. But here’s the thing: There is really no difference between a Senator leaking classified material to an enemy spy and a Senator leaking to a journalist. Not just because many journalists have an anti-Americand particularly anti-Bush point of view (and not just because the AP employs people like photographer Bilal Hussein, who may have actually been working with the paramilitaries in Iraq). It’s basically no different because Senators have no right to de-classify classified information, and because if they hand it over to a journalist, it will work its way to the eyes of enemy agents not long after the journalist publishes it. So, if Senators leaked damaging classified material to the press, they ought to lose their seats in the Senate and they ought to be prosecuted. Maybe, at last, we’ll restore some sanity on this war if some prosecutions regarding all these leaks do go forward. The Durbins and Rockefellers of the world may think they’re immune from prosecution because they’re political big-wigs. If that’s what they think, they should be disabused of that notion, and I can’t think of a better way to do that than get them in front of a polygraph. -------- I guess the Rice thing will be a good diversionary tactic to take the focus off all those crooked democrats, eh Rick? |
|
Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
![]() |
|
| QuirtEvans | Apr 23 2006, 07:23 AM Post #4 |
|
I Owe It All To John D'Oh
|
I wasn't aware that the Secretary of State was immune from subpoenas, even in the imperial Bush Presidency.
Senators and their staffs aren't immune either. God help them if they lied under oath. I don't think they can be *forced* to take polygraphs, though. The only people who can be required to take a polygraph are those who signed an agreement to do so as a condition of employment, and that certainly doesn't include Senators. |
| It would be unwise to underestimate what large groups of ill-informed people acting together can achieve. -- John D'Oh, January 14, 2010. | |
![]() |
|
|
|
| « Previous Topic · The New Coffee Room · Next Topic » |








10:53 AM Jul 11