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.
A truly arrogant jackass.
How I hate these traitors.
Apology not accepted. YOU are not responsible. Perhaps a FReeper not yet born will hoist a glass of Scotch with fellow FReepers in future years when traitors take their last breath. Life is good that way. Life goes on.
Bump-to-the-future.
Sorry, but Men's News Daily?
Philty McNasty.
Heck, we'll know national secrets right away. We could have a daily "Leaky Leahy Thread".
Is there a cure for Leaky....Depends
I knew there were clear thinking people in them thar hills.
Beat me to it...didn't see the Depends...touche
I have a question - with a decided propensity for voters in your state to elevate such clowns in your various legislatures (no offense, our state has a few as well) how is it that your state has such "liberal" firearms laws? One would think they would have tidied up that glaring unacceptableness long ago...
FBI Director's reply - F off a hole.
When this atheist commie pinko takes his last breath, I hope he is lucid enough to see the sign on the pearly gates, "Sorry, your application was denied!"
If Leahy is immune from being indicted, they might as well let Aldrich Ames out of prison, dust him off, and give him a job as a Senate staffer.
What's the damn difference?
The director of the FBI has no legal power to issue indictments.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1747113/posts?page=18#18
To: SmithL
I do not think Leahy has a Clearance to review the details.
I do not think the Intelligence Committee is permitted to provide details to other Senators who do not have the proper Clearance.
It is against the law (I do believe) to attempt to gain access to Classified Information for which one does not have a Clearance.
If Leahy pursues such a path, it would behoove the President to make a referral to the Justice Dept on possible espionage activity by the Senator.
The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse but to the Executive the Authority to protect this Country.
18 posted on 12/06/2006 6:18:25 PM PST by Prost1 (Fair and Unbiased as always!)
I wonder how often Leaky gets a Depends diaper (or a case of them) in the mail at his congressional offices. I also wonder how often he calls in the bomb squad to open it. Shouldn't we be able to file a FOIA request to get this vital information. Inquiring minds want to know.
**Sen. Leahy to FBI Director: Give Me Secret Information**
LOL! To Leaky Leahy?
No, FBI, keep those secrets to yourself!
The rural moonbats ( largely back to the land ex hippies)KNOW that they must protect their own families and property from wild animals and crooks. It takes about 2 to 3 hours after 10 pm for a Vermont State Police Officer to respond to an emergency call. The County Sherrifs work 9 to 5.The moonbat legislature repeadedly refuses to hire more than a skeleton state police force, not wanting to interfere with the middle age hippies who grow grass at home.
We will never change on the gun control issue, I hope!
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