Sunday, August 08, 2004

Shelby, Shelby, Shelby

What are we gonna do with you?

Digby has a long post on the incredible case of Richard Shelby (R-AL) who tried mightily during Clinton's administration to get a bill passed that would prosecute anyone who leaked classified information, no exceptions for intent. There'd be a few good Republicans in jail right now if there were such a law. And Mr. Shelby himself would be one of them.

The FBI investigated Shelby's alleged leak of classified documents from 9/11 (the intercepted messages from 9/10 that said "tomorrow is zero day", which were supposedly only read on 9/12) but turned the matter over to the Senate ethics committee.

Shelby defends himself by saying:
"My position on this issue is clear and well-known: At no time during my career as a United States Senator and, more particularly, at no time during my service as Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence have I ever knowingly compromised classified information.
If that's his reasoning, then he owes his current freedom to none other than the hated Bill Clinton. If the Shelby Amendment had been signed into law, it wouldn't matter if he "knowingly" leaked the information or not, he'd be looking at a possible three year stint in a federal prison. (And, if he were a Democrat, he'd already have been forced to resign.)

He is no longer on the Intelligence Committee (they are rotated after eight years) and now serves as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee where his commitment to principle and accountability are once again being tested as he finds himself implicated in the Tom Delay Westar Scandal.

Richard Shelby is neither ashamed or embarrassed by his blatant hypocrisy and lack of candor. Indeed, when the leak story broke, he got right back on his favorite hobby horse and began railing against unauthorized leaks as if this never happened.


Read Digby's post.

Anyway, the confirming stool pigeon at Fox is denying that he said anything.

The leaked information was from a meeting the day before 9-11, but The Washington Post reports the leak itself came during June 2002 interviews Shelby did.

The Post, citing anonymous sources, reports Shelby's role was confirmed to FBI agents by Fox News correspondent Carl Cameron, who denies it.
article

Who knows where all this will go? It's not as if the leaked information is problematic for national security (unless we are talking about the ability of government agencies to hide their ineptitude, but it is another example of blatant hypocrisy and lack of accountability on the part of our representatives, and how much back-and-forth party dirt to expect this campaign season. (A lot.) And we still have three months left.

What seems to be merely an aside in the story of leaks and laws, is the information:

In question are two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency one day before the Sept. 11 attacks. Those messages contained the words "the match begins tomorrow" and "tomorrow is zero day," but they were not translated from Arabic until Sept. 12.
Seattle Times article

More inteptitude, or something intentional? I think we need to hear Sibel Edmonds' testimony.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

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