Posted on 12/08/2006 6:14:50 PM PST by Nasty McPhilthy
While Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) isn’t scheduled to takeover as Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee until January 2007, he already sounds as if he’s the man in charge of oversight of our nation’s law enforcement and courts. And considering his history of being kicked off the Senate Intelligence Committee due to his propensity for revealing classified information, Americans should be afraid — very afraid.
On Wednesday, Sen. Leahy — or, as he’s known inside the Beltway, “Leaky Leahy” — rapped FBI Director Robert Mueller for refusing to show how the has curbed terrorist activity in the United States. Mueller said he was unable to talk about the warrantless spying program because it is classified. To reveal this information would also reveal sources and methods which, if known by the enemy, would cause extensive damage to US counterterrorism operation.
“What assurances can you provide that the program is worthwhile?” asked the Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa. “Have arrests been made? Have terror cells been broken?”
The injustice of the last election that saw significant losses for the GOP is that one of the men who angers conservatives in this country is Sen. Specter, a Democrat in Republican clothing. He’s a known collaborator with the Democrats, especially with the likes of Patrick Leahy.
The FBI has briefed congressional intelligence committees on controversial programs, but Mueller said he did not have permission to share that information with other lawmakers — including the judiciary panels that oversee the bureau.
“I am prepared to brief whichever committee, to the extent that I am allowed to,” he said.
In his opening remarks, Mueller provided Specter, Leahy, and other panel members a list of FBI cases targeting terror suspects since the 2001 attacks. They included “Lackawanna Six” who were accused of attending al-Qaeda training camps; an Ohio truck driver who plotted to attack the Brooklyn Bridge; and four men charged with planning to hit synagogues on US and Israeli facilities in the Los Angeles area.
But Mueller did not say if any of the cases resulted from the secret spying program, which was revealed last year. His answer annoyed senators, who said their constitutionally protected oversight was being hampered by the administration’s stonewalling.
“When done poorly or without proper safeguards and oversight, data banks do not make us safer, they just further erode Americans’ privacy and civil liberties,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy
He said the administration “has gone to unprecedented lengths to hide its own activities from the public, while at the same time collecting and compiling unprecedented amounts of information about every citizen.”
Later, Mueller also said the FBI could better fight terrorists if authorities had stronger subpoena power to determine if threats are valid, and if search and surveillance tools granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court could be expanded.
One only wishes Director Mueller would have told Leahy, in front of the TV cameras, that the FBI fears his grubby little fingers getting a hold of any classified information.
In a previous article, I provided readers with a brief history of Sen. “Leaky” Leahy’s experience in handling top security information:
* Senator Pat Leahy was annoyed with the Reagan administration’s war on terrorism in the 1980s. At the time he was vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Therefore, “Leaky Leahy,” threatened to sabotage classified strategies he didn’t like.
* Leahy “inadvertently” disclosed a top-secret communications intercept during a 1985 television interview. The intercept had made possible the capture of the Arab terrorists who had hijacked the cruise ship Achille Lauro and murdered a American citizen. But Leahy’s leak cost the life of at least one Egyptian “asset” involved in the operation.
* In July 1987, it was reported that Leahy leaked secret information about a 1986 covert operation planned by the Reagan administration to topple Libya’s Moammar Gaddhafi. US intelligence officials stated that Leahy sent a written threat to expose the operation directly to then-CIA Director William Casey. Weeks later, news of the secret plan turned up in the Washington Post, causing it to be aborted.
* A year later, as the Senate was preparing to hold hearings on the Iran-Contra scandal, Leahy had to resign his Intelligence Committee post after he was caught leaking secret information to a reporter. The Vermont Democrat’s Iran-Contra leak was considered to be one of the most serious breaches of secrecy in the committee’s 28-year history. After Leahy’s resignation, the Senate Intelligence Committee decided to restrict access to committee documents to a security-enhanced meeting room.
Former Green Beret officer, now columnist, Geoff Metcalf is on record saying Leahy should have been indicted, arrested and tried long ago.
So where did the big mouth go? To the Judiciary Committee where he still has access to classified information and documents. He’s known as a man who’s more than willing to speakout on issues he knows absolutely nothing about. In fact, while attempting to sound as if he were a legal scholar, he’s made several flubs. During a debate on the Geneva Conventions, for example, he finally admitted he wasn’t familiar with the provisions he was debating.
In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, Leahy headed the Senate’s negotiations on the 2001 anti-terrorism bill, the USA Patriot Act. He was more concerned with protecting the civil liberties of the enemy than providing protection for Americans.
Patrick Leahy is not a very honest man either. When Senator Dick Durbin compared US military personnel to Nazis, Leahy said that Durbin made no such comment. Then when told Durbin indeed made the statement on the floor of the US Senate, Leahy amended his own statement claiming Durbin’s comments were taken out of context. When the Durbin tirade was shown to Leahy, he began to denigrate Bush by saying he hurt the Iraqis as much as did Saddam Hussein.
Within the Beltway, Leahy is known as an extremely abrasive and “sneaky” man. He’s the only senator in recent history to have an otherwise mellow Vice President tell him to “go f— yourself.”
And now this blabbermouth, who walks the line between politics and treason, will head one of the Senate’s — the nation’s — more important and sensitive committees.
Leaky wants to supplement his income.
Leahy is concerned with the US Constitution? Who knew?
But its ok for banks to require my ss# and Yahoo, Microsoft, Google to collect personal information?
This man is dangerous.
He has and will continue to do irreparable harm to the United States.
Senator Arlen Spectre is just as bad, as is Senator Ted Kennedy. There are others who should never come into contact with classified information as they cannot be trusted. The Senate should of course police their own, but of course , they will not.
Director Mueller should go before Leahy's committee agreeing to testify, then issue an indictment of Leahy for leaking classified information.
The injustice of the last election that saw significant losses for the GOP is that one of the men who angers conservatives in this country is Sen. Specter, a Democrat in Republican clothing.
I will agree with that statement.
But Presdident Bush backed him in the primary.
Warned Saudi Arabia, Syria and Jordan President Bush was going to war in Iraq before President Bush had so stated.
I think Durbin went on the same junket.
I am saving a special bottle of Scotch to celebrate the day when he no longer skulks and sneaky leakys his way around the Hill.
I apologize to the rest of the country for Vermonts Viper Pit of dishonest politicians, an unparalleled HALL OF INFAMY which sports the names of Jeffords (Traitor), Leahy (Traitor), Vermont's Village Idiot: Howard Dean ( Traitor Moonbat), and Bernie Sanders ( Traitor Socialist Moonbat). Benedict Arnold had nothing on these guys.
Nah. He just wants to pass it on to his friends and allies. Our enemies.
Wow, I agree with that 100%.
Frankly, the feds ought to run a sting on Leahy.
As well you should...and this spoken from a Californian, who is presenting you with Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein and innumerable others.
A sting? Get serious! Leahy has been caught committing treason and his party has placed skates under his treacherous feet. He's above the law like all democrats are, didn't you know? Look at W. Jefferson of Louisianna ... crook and proud of it and his party wants him re-elected for his loyalty!
THE ENEMY IS WITHIN.
No book. He writes for the NYT.
Without any doubt! And our nation is about to pay horribly for it.
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