Let The Beatings Begin: Subpoena Time

For those unaware, Monday will begin the hearings into the NSA leaks. And the Freepers picked up on a Jed Babbin interview on the radio. He was on the John Batchelor show. Now, I can't seem to find a transcript, but the Freepers remembered the gist of the conversation. Below are their words, not mine, and not the transcript.

This is pretty much a verbatim recall...

The topic was the hearings that start on Monday. Babbin said that he had spent much of today talking on backkground with his sources in the intelligence community. He said flat out that they know that Rockefeller is the source of the leak to the NY Times.

The administration is not sure how to proceed. Babbin doesn't think they have the guts to indict a US senator. He said it would cause a battle royal on the Hill, if not a constitutional crisis.

He did say however, that any senator or Congressional staffer that holds a security clearance can be asked at any time to take a polygraph. The individual can of course refuse to take the test, but failure to do so is reason to remove that person's security clearance.

Babbin said further that Rockefeller, Durbin, and Wyden, and some on their staffs will soon be requested to take polygraphs.

If indeed this is true, it has obviously staggering implications. You would have the co-chair of the Senate Intelligence committee unable to in effect, do anything..

Comments......?

Note: There is something, which, IMHO, gives this story a great deal of credibility. If you happened to see any of the committee hearing this week at which Negroponte and Goss testified, right before the hearing ended, Rockefeller made what seemed at the time to be an idiotic statement. He said that he expected that the source of the leaks would turn out to be the Executive Branch...i.e. the White House. Negroponte looked at him like he (Rockefeller) was deranged..It made NO sense to me at the time...but now, with these comments...it makes a lot of sense..he's trying to deflect what he expects is coming his way....Possibly someone can dig up the heatring transcript and post Rockefeller's comments..

I can't find the transcript. I can find the PDF to his statement, but I can't seem to dig up the transcript of the hearing. But I can say this much about Rockefeller:

For the longest time, I've had collegaues bringing him up as the possible leaker. I say possible because it has yet to be proven. People are still innocent until proven guilty in this nation, and this includes the "esteemed" senator from West Virginia. Do I think he might have leaked this to the Times? Extremely probable.

Everyone knows about the dislike that Sen. Rockefeller has for the intelligence community, and we also know of the memo leaked to Sean Hannity that supposedly originated from Rockefeller's office back a couple years ago outlining the Democrats attack plan on the administration for pre-war intelligence. It is my personal opinion, at this point, that he is suspect number one, especially if that finishing comment by him is correct; that is, if he is blaming the White House for a leak that they would have known how damaging the release of the information would be.

It seems unlikely that the White House would have leaked this to the New York Times. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. It is more likely that either a member of the committee or members of their staffs opened their yaps. Regardless of who did it, I hope Jed's wrong. I do hope the Justice Department is prepared and has the guts to indict those responsible, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law.

Porter Goss is completely correct. This leak was extremely damaging to the national security of the nation, and to the intelligence community as a whole. People need to be held accountable, and if Sen. Rockefeller is one of them, then so be it. NO ONE in this nation is above the law.

Publius II