With all the yapping going on about an alleged Democratic leaker at the CIA, let's not forget that Republicans leak, too. (Of course, we can't forget about the Leaker-in-Chief). Glenn Greewald puts it this way:
". . .But if one's political and professional connections to a leaker cast aspersions on the person's integrity and patriotism, there are plenty of aspersions to be cast. Larry Franklin, for instance, is a former Department of Defense official who -- unlike McCarthy -- has actually been convicted of the unauthorized disclosure of classified information, to which he had access as a result of his Pentagon job, and sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Franklin was a top aide to Douglas Feith, the No. 3 official in Bush Defense Department, and had long-standing and very close ties to Paul Wolfowitz, deputy to Don Rumsfeld. He did not merely pass classified information to the American media, but to AIPAC, a group with close ties to a foreign government. Franklin has all kinds of friends in the pro-Bush media who defended him and insisted that he could not possibly be guilty, and had close ties to the highest and most powerful Bush officials.
Recently, close Bush ally, Republican Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, was found by investigators to have leaked highly sensitive, classified information to Fox News' Carl Cameron and CNN's Dana Bash while Shelby served on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- an unauthorized and serious leak which, for some odd reason, the Bush Justice Department refused to prosecute. No Bush followers, at least that I know of, objected to the decision to allow Sen. Shelby to leak with impunity. . . "
More here.
No comments:
Post a Comment