[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23717-23718]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              THE CIA LEAK

  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I asked for the leader time because I 
wish to respond to some of the remarks I heard on the floor earlier 
regarding the CIA leaks.
  Mr. President, every one of us in this country would be very 
concerned about a leak regarding someone who was undercover and 
operating for the CIA, and we would want to get to the bottom of the 
issue if there were a leak. In fact, that is exactly what is happening. 
But I think it has been distorted and I think it has been blown way out 
of proportion before we really know the facts. So I want to set the 
record straight on a few issues.
  First of all, many people on the other side are asking for a special 
counsel. Right now, the FBI is investigating this as a routine leak. 
The CIA Director, George Tenet, according to Bob Novak, did not request 
the investigation separately in some major way. The CIA Director was 
not involved because this is in fact routine.
  According to Bob Novak, any leak of classified information is 
routinely passed by the CIA to the Justice Department, averaging one a 
week. This investigative request was made in July, shortly after the 
original column was published. This was a routine investigation of 
something that appeared to be a leak and which may be a leak. The 
investigation has been ongoing since July. I think it is certainly 
premature to start making this a political issue, talking about a 
special counsel, when we don't even know the facts yet.
  Bob Novak wrote a subsequent column that appeared today in the 
Washington Post. I think it is very important because it was his 
original column that outed the woman who was a CIA employee. He says 
very clearly, first: I did not receive a planned leak. Now, it has been 
accused on television shows across America that the White House somehow 
leaked information about a CIA operative to the press.
  The man who wrote the story said:

       I did not receive a planned leak. Secondly, the CIA never 
     warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the 
     agency would endanger her or anybody else and, third, it was 
     not much of a secret.

  According to him, this has been well known around Washington and, in 
fact, was even reported in the National Review Online from a 
nongovernmental source before Mr. Novak's column appeared.
  Mr. Novak said an administration official told him this information 
but not the White House. He says this did not come from the White 
House.
  I think it is very important that we tone down the rhetoric on this 
issue. It is an issue that should be investigated. It is being 
investigated. The President has said he wants it to be investigated. He 
has said it is important to him that it be investigated. He wants 
everyone in the White House to be fully cooperative, and the author of 
the story says no one in the White House was involved. So I think we 
need to tone it down.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.

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