[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26134-26135]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               LEAKGATE AND THE INDICTMENT OF LEWIS LIBBY

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, 2 years ago, after the Washington Post 
first reported that ``two senior White House officials'' had exposed 
Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert operative of the Central 
Intelligence Agency, I repeatedly came to the Senate floor to call on 
President Bush to act quickly to identify the leakers.
  After all, this was a potentially illegal act committed by ``senior 
White House officials.'' This should have outraged everyone at the 
White House. President Bush should have taken steps to identity the 
perpetrators forthwith.
  Bear in mind that the number of ``senior White House officials'' with 
the appropriate security clearances and access to knowledge about Ms. 
Wilson's identity could be counted on one hand--two hands at a maximum. 
If Mr. Bush had been serious about identifying the perpetrators, those 
5 to 10 ``senior White House officials'' could have been immediately 
summoned to the Oval Office and questioned by the President. This 
matter would have been resolved literally within 24 hours.
  But that did not happen. There was no outrage. There was no internal 
investigation. There was no angry President Bush demanding answers from 
his senior aides. Instead, we have had more than 2 years of 
concealment, coverup, and contempt.
  Well, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has now broken that coverup 
wide open. Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, Scooter Libby, has 
been indicted for lying and obstructing justice in order to conceal his 
role as one of the two leakers. ``Official A,'' the second leaker, is 
President Bush's top aide, Karl Rove, according to multiple reports in 
the media, quoting senior White House sources.
  But let's be clear, Mr. President, this is about more than Mr. Libby 
repeatedly lying about his role in leaking a CIA agent's identity; this 
is about the Bush administration hiding the fact that it manipulated 
and manufactured intelligence in order to justify the war in Iraq. This 
is about the Bush administration stopping at nothing to attack and 
discredit anyone who dared to question its efforts to ``fix'' the 
intelligence. This is about the United States of America being led to 
war under false pretenses.
  Only one person in this enterprise, Mr. Libby, has been indicted so 
far--though Mr. Rove remains under investigation. But the issue here is 
not strictly: Who perpetrated a criminal offense? The issue is: Who 
else participated in the hardball political campaign to discredit and 
punish Ambassador Wilson--and who instigated that campaign?
  According to Mr. Fitzgerald's indictment, Vice President Cheney's 
office was the hub of a concerted effort to gather information about 
Ambassador Wilson and to counter the assertions made in his famous New 
York Times op-ed. Indeed, according to the indictment, it was none 
other than Vice President Dick Cheney himself who first told Mr. Libby 
about Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a CIA operative and wife of 
Ambassador Joe Wilson.
  Again according to the indictment, on July 12, 2003, Mr. Libby flew 
with the Vice President on Air Force Two, and one of the issues 
discussed on board was how to deal with the news media. Just hours 
later, the indictment says, Mr. Libby told two reporters about Mrs. 
Wilson's status as a CIA agent.
  So this gives rise to several obvious questions: What did Vice 
President Cheney know, and when did he know it? Why did Mr. Libby lie, 
saying that he first learned about Mrs. Wilson's identity from 
reporters? Was he trying to conceal a broader effort, involving the 
Vice President, to go after Ambassador Wilson?
  Vice President Cheney owes a full explanation to the American people.
  Bear in mind that it was Mr. Cheney who was most aggressive in 
pushing the CIA to come up with intelligence to justify an invasion of 
Iraq. The CIA told him definitively that there was no meeting in Vienna 
between Iraqi agents and 9/11 terrorist Mohammed Atta, but Mr. Cheney 
continued to assert in public that this meeting took place. Time and 
again, he exaggerated the case for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, 
including his statement that Iraq had ``reconstituted nuclear 
weapons.'' It was the Vice President and his aides who took the lead in 
responding to those who challenged those and other claims by the 
administration.
  By all accounts, Mr. Libby was a disciplined, cautious staff person 
the antithesis of a rogue operator. It is farfetched to imagine that he 
was freelancing when he outed Mrs. Wilson's identity as a CIA agent.
  So the American people need to hear directly from Vice President 
Cheney: Did he discuss with Mr. Libby whether to tell reporters about 
Mrs. Wilson's identity? When the Vice President read in the media that 
Mr. Libby had claimed that reporters first told him about Mrs. Wilson's 
identity, what did he say to Mr. Libby, given the fact that it was he, 
the Vice President, who first told Mr. Libby about Mrs. Wilson? Why has 
the Vice President not condemned the leaks and lies by his top aide?
  It is very clear why Mr. Libby lied about who told him about Mrs. 
Wilson's identity. It was to frustrate, sidetrack, and stall Mr. 
Fitzgerald's investigation until after the 2004 election. As Mr. 
Fitzgerald said in announcing his indictment, if Mr. Libby had not 
thrown sand in the eyes of the prosecutors, ``we would have been here 
in October 2004 instead of October 2005.'' So Mr. Libby's lies were not 
only about protecting his original source, Vice President Cheney; they 
were also about delaying any indictments by Mr. Fitzgerald until after 
the election. They were about not allowing the election to become an 
``accountability moment,'' which very well could have denied President 
Bush reelection.
  At the same time, we need an accounting from President Bush. Karl 
Rove is the President's closest adviser.

[[Page 26135]]

We now know from multiple accounts in the media, citing senior 
administration sources, that Mr. Rove was one of the two ``senior White 
House officials'' who leaked Mrs. Wilson's identity as a CIA agent to 
reporters. Mr. Rove is still under investigation, and may or may not 
face indictment. But whether or not he is actually indicted, his 
actions were unethical and unacceptable.
  Two years ago, we heard testimony from Vincent Cannistrano, former 
Chief of Operations and Analysis at the CIA Counterterrorism Center, on 
the far-reaching damage caused by the disclosure of Mrs. Wilson's 
identify. He said: ``Twenty years of training and experience and 
millions of dollars were invested in this agent, Valerie Plame 
[Wilson]. . . . The consequences are much greater than Valerie Plame 
[Wilson's] job as a clandestine CIA employee. They include damage to 
the lives and livelihoods of many foreign nationals with whom she was 
connected, and it has destroyed a clandestine cover mechanism that may 
have been used to protect other CIA non-official cover officers.''
  Early on, President Bush stated that he would fire any White House 
official found to have been involved in leaking Mrs. Wilson's identity 
as a CIA agent. To this day, on the White House Web site, you can read 
the transcript of a press conference on June 10, 2004. A reporter 
asked: ``Mr. President, do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone 
found to have [been involved in leaking the CIA agent's name]?'' The 
President responded with an unambiguous ``yes.''
  Today, the President needs to come clean about Mr. Rove's role. He 
needs to publicly acknowledge, as senior administration officials have 
already done anonymously, that Mr. Rove was the second leaker. And then 
he needs to make good on his pledge to fire him.
  I urge President Bush--for the good of the country and for the good 
of his administration--to follow through on his public pledge. The 
President's original instincts were exactly right: It should be 
intolerable to allow someone who leaked a CIA agent's identity to stay 
on in the White House.
  It is also deeply disturbing that Mr. Rove continues to hold a top-
secret security clearance. Like all holders of a top-secret clearance, 
Mr. Rove signed a ``Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement'' 
acknowledging that ``unauthorized disclosure, unauthorized retention or 
negligent handling of classified information by me could cause damage 
or irreparable injury to the United States.'' The signer of the form 
states: ``I have been advised that any breach of this agreement may 
result in the termination of any security clearances I hold; removal 
from any position of special confidence and trust requiring such 
clearances; or the termination of my employment . . .''
  Before signing the nondisclosure agreement, an employee is given 
training and a booklet explaining the nondisclosure rules, which 
include prohibitions against providing classified information--or even 
confirming it--to reporters.
  The facts are plain: Mr. Rove violated the terms of his security 
clearance. If the White House disputes this, then it owes the American 
people a formal Justice Department investigation of Mr. Rove's actions. 
If it is determined that he violated the terms of his Nondisclosure 
Agreement, he should be stripped of his security clearance immediately. 
This is an issue entirely separate from Mr. Fitzgerald's ongoing 
investigation, but it is no less important.
  I am sure that President Bush is concerned about the damage to his 
administration from the leaking of Mrs. Wilson's covert identity. A 
week ago, the Washington Post reported the results of its most recent 
poll. It found that by a ratio of 3 to 1--46 percent to 15 percent--
Americans say that the level of honesty and ethics in the Government 
has declined since Mr. Bush took office.
  I believe it is time for Mr. Rove to go. It is time for President 
Bush to restore honor and integrity to the White House and to demand 
the highest ethical standards from his staff.
  President Bush still has more than 3 years in office. For our country 
to be successful, he must be successful. To that end, I urge the 
President to set a new tone and to chart a new a new course. He should 
begin by asking Mr. Rove to leave and by asking Vice President Cheney 
to give a full and honest accounting of his role in this matter.

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