Rep. John Conyers. Jr., ConyersBlog: “The truisms of Watergate are the same: it is not the crime, it is the cover up and, when there is a cover up, there is a crime. And the questions are the same: What did the President and Vice President know and when did they know it?”
The Nation, A Grave Indictment, but Grave Questions Remain: “If a senior White House official leaks classified information that identifies an undercover CIA officer to reporters in order to undermine a critic of the administration, he is not entitled to lie about it to FBI agents and a grand jury charged with the task of determining if such a leak violated the law.”
Washington Post (reg. req’d), Valerie Plame, the Spy Who Got Shoved Out Into the Cold “…After she was named in a syndicated column by Robert Novak, Plame had no chance of working again in her chosen field, her friends say, and the strain of remaining at the agency has taken its toll.”
Interview of Tim Russert by MSNBC, October 20, 2005: “Remember, it was George W. Bush, who in the campaign of 2000 said, “When I put my hand on the Bible I will restore honor and integrity to the Oval Office.”
Washington Post (reg. req’d), October 30, 2005, from a new Washington Post-ABC News survey: “Barely a third of Americans — 34 percent — think Bush is doing a good job ensuring high ethics in government, which is slightly lower than President Bill Clinton’s standing on this issue when he left office.”
Lee Strickland – professor, information law and policy, and director, Center for Information Policy, University of Maryland; former senior intelligence officer, CIA: “A critical lesson in this indictment is that intelligence and politics don’t mix. Attempts to politicize intelligence are crucial errors and, whether an administration attempts to influence analysis or deprecate it through leaks, the nation is ill-served. The criminal acts being investigated not only harmed the intelligence abilities of the United States but may also be proven to have been perpetrated to further a political agenda that led to the current costly and inconclusive war in Iraq. There can be no surer example than this to demonstrate the risk of mixing politics and intelligence. The damage from the leak of Ms. Plames identity goes far beyond preventing her from continuing to serve the government in her past role. It truly endangers everyone with whom she has had official contact — from new CIA officers she may have recruited to work in secret roles, to foreign nationals she contacted to provide vital intelligence information on terrorism and other national threats. This is the very pernicious effects of leaking.”
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