The Corner

re: NSA Executive Charged with Newspaper Leaks

Good for the NSA. But what about the CIA? Take, for example, this passage from The American Prospect, November 10, 2005:

The fact that the agency was leaking isn’t denied by some. “Of course they were leaking,” says [former DIA official] Pat Lang. “They told me about it at the time. They thought it was funny. They’d say things like, ‘This last thing that came out, surely people will pay attention to that. They won’t re-elect this man.’”

Whatever one thinks of George W. Bush, the idea of CIA officials selectively leaking material to influence an election is very, very scary and worthy of a serious investigation.  But to have a serious investigation would mean having serious congressmen, senators, and no-nonsense intelligence professionals who understand the damage political games do to the CIA.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School’s Center for Civil-Military Relations, and a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
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