Specter on Leak: Bush ‘Owes a Specific Explanation to the American People’
Specter on Leak: Bush ‘Owes a Specific Explanation to the American People’
This morning on Fox News Sunday, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) called on President Bush to come clean about the leak of classified Iraq intelligence to New York Times reporter Judy Miller. Specter said that President Bush “owes a specific explanation to the American peopleâ€:
[W]e ought not to have leaks in government. We ought not to have them, and the President is justifiably criticized the Congress for leaking and, of course, the White House has leaked, but we ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated again by the American people.
Full transcript below:
HUME: Is it your view that what the President and the Vice President, as well, did in that matter constituted a leak?
SPECTER: I don’t know, because all of the facts aren’t out, and I think that it is necessary for the President and the Vice President to tell the American people exactly what happened. Brit, I think too often we jump to conclusions before we know what all of the facts are, and I’m not about to condemn or criticize anybody, but I do say that there’s been enough of a showing here with what’s been filed of record in court that the President of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people.
HUME: About the release of this information or what?
SPECTER: Well, he — about exactly what he did. The President has the authority to declassify information. So in a technical sense, if he looked at it, he could say if this is declassified, make a disclosure of it. There have been a number of reports, most recently I heard just this morning that the President didn’t tell the Vice President specifically what to do but just said get it out. And we don’t know precisely what the Vice President did. And as usual, Brit, the devil is in the details. And I think that there has to be a detailed explanation precisely as to what Vice President Cheney did, what the President said to him, and an explanation from the President as to what he said so that it can be evaluated. The President may be entirely in the clear, and it may turn out that he had the authority to make the disclosures which were made, but that it was not the right way to go about it, because we ought not to have leaks in government. We ought not to have them, and the President is justifiably criticized the Congress for leaking and, of course, the White House has leaked, but we ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated again by the American people.
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the President of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people.
Yep… the truth. But, we know we won’t get it. I don’t think the man knows how.
April 9th, 2006 at 1:09 pmWhile Specter and Illinois Republican Congressman Ray LaHood have called on President Bush fro an explanation, the GOP leadership in Congress and his amen corner in the press and online have remained silent.
For more, see:
April 9th, 2006 at 1:10 pm“GOP Cornered by Bush Leak.”
Sounds like he’s just laying the ground work for us, the American people, to be satisfied with a “detailed explanation” from the president. More bull……Sorry………Americans no longer trust general or detailed explanations from this bunch of thugs. It’s time for a Democratic House and Senate to run REAL in vestigations come Nov 2006
April 9th, 2006 at 1:10 pmBush owes faaaaaaa more than an explanation, he needs to resign and submit to trial for his domestic and war crimes
April 9th, 2006 at 1:11 pmmore mealy mouthings from a genuinely spineless spectre of a posturing pomposity.
April 9th, 2006 at 1:15 pmOf course Dubious didn’t tell Deadeye exactly what to do.
Deadeye and Karl had already discussed the matter thoroughly, and only as a matter of formality had to cycle it by the “throne”…. and, of course, setting up to save their own pudgy little selves while they are at it.
Don’t let the Monkey get the Ball.
The Republicans need to do better than this. Spector’s comments are toothless.
If Republicans were serious about the damage Bush has done to the Nation, it’s pride, the Constitution, and Bush’s continual bending of the truth, they would be moving on impeachment this very minute!
April 9th, 2006 at 1:18 pmGeorge Bush owes a lot more than just an explination about 20 years at hard labor more…..
April 9th, 2006 at 1:34 pmSpector often says one thing on camera – watch him in the Senate committee hearings, and he’s not the same.
April 9th, 2006 at 1:38 pmI won’t trust any Republican for a long, long time because of their nasty, partisan and self-serving behaviors disregarding the public, their rights and democratic government.
They can talk the talk, we’ll see what they do.
Golly, in that ‘photo’ Brit looks TOTALLY wasted, I guess his meds kicked in a little early.
April 9th, 2006 at 2:43 pmWas the information that Bush authorized to be disclosed accurate, or had it already been disproven? If it had been disproven, or in fact shown to be inconclusive in the report from which the classified information was released, this is at the least grounds for censure.
April 9th, 2006 at 2:56 pmDoesnt Georgie know that if ya shake it more than twice after a leak,your playing with it?
April 9th, 2006 at 3:09 pmIf the information was okay to leak, it would indicate it was never that importance or relevant, so why the h*ll classify it to begin with? If it was so damn important, leaking it would be treason, in time of war?
April 9th, 2006 at 3:20 pm#11
April 9th, 2006 at 3:22 pmSounds like adult incontienence, someone buy Bush some DEPENDS!
#13, I’ll be washing my brain the rest of the day thanx to that image…..good one.
April 9th, 2006 at 3:28 pmMy worry is that Spector is laying the groundwork for a congressional investigation – this was done in Iran/Contra if I remember correctly to avoid criminal prosecution by offering immunity for testimony to congress and thus preventing conviction in a court of law. Maybe tinhat but immediately made me worry.
April 9th, 2006 at 3:31 pmlike the ol’bown cur name’a ‘Scooter’…make a mess’a your rug…
April 9th, 2006 at 3:38 pmPoor ol’ Arlen….still “trying” to make some sense of what he doesn’t want to know. They are spinning out into a netherworld of dusty, musty lying shit…and #15 has the right idea….what else do they do, but, slathering and panting with dim panic, look ahead to how they can further obscure their ugly sins. God, I want to puke.
April 9th, 2006 at 3:45 pmWhat clip are you guys looking at?
All I hear is Spector reminding Hume that that the Republicans still hold a majority in both House and Senate and that the power to give cover or throw enough dirt on the issue still lies with the Republicans. Spector just indicated that Bush, even where he has committed treason, has absolutely nothing to worry about as long as the matter is left to the Congress.
You do know that “the American people” means the Congress, don’t you?
April 9th, 2006 at 3:50 pmIF arlen wants answers about the leaker in chiefs leaks then he shouldnt oppose the call for censure…..he should embrace it.
April 9th, 2006 at 4:04 pmSpector is sounding tough;watch out Chimp.
April 9th, 2006 at 4:46 pmI suspect that Senator Spector, oops that’s Specter, really is irritated with the leaker in chief. But that doesn’t mean that he won’t help him cover his butt. Unless there have been big changes over the weekend, even the Democrats will help him cover his cute little Texas behind.
April 9th, 2006 at 5:36 pmFrom the Washington Post … hardly a bastion of conservatism.
The affair concerns, once again, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his absurdly over-examined visit to the African country of Niger in 2002. Each time the case surfaces, opponents of the war in Iraq use it to raise a different set of charges, so it’s worth recalling the previous iterations. Mr. Wilson originally claimed in a 2003 New York Times op-ed and in conversations with numerous reporters that he had debunked a report that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Niger and that Mr. Bush’s subsequent inclusion of that allegation in his State of the Union address showed that he had deliberately “twisted†intelligence “to exaggerate the Iraq threat.†The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.
Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson’s charge. In last week’s court filings, he stated that Mr. Bush did not authorize the leak of Ms. Plame’s identity. Mr. Libby’s motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney. In fact Mr. Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife. Mr. Libby is charged with perjury, for having lied about his discussions with two reporters. Yet neither the columnist who published Ms. Plame’s name, Robert D. Novak, nor Mr. Novak’s two sources have been charged with any wrongdoing.
As Mr. Fitzgerald pointed out at the time of Mr. Libby’s indictment last fall, none of this is particularly relevant to the question of whether the grounds for war in Iraq were sound or bogus. It’s unfortunate that those who seek to prove the latter would now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision.
Folks … this is no leak … the President was acting within his powers when he declassified this information (mostly to answer the press). A leak is when someone tells the press (or others) about information that the hierarchy is trying to keep secret … I know President Bush is not a favorite here, but at least stick to things that he actually did wrong (obviously, there’s plenty) … this whole thing smacks of a witch hunt.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:04 pmI am getting sick of Spector always calling for some investigation or another, and then when you watch on C-Span, who is the biggest defender of this administration, but Spector!!!
He is doing this to get the dirt swept under the carpet !
April 9th, 2006 at 7:07 pmGiacomo:
Even Fitzgerald says this was to Punish Wilson!
As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney’s former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a “concerted action” by “multiple people in the White House” – using classified information – to “discredit, punish or seek revenge against” a critic of President Bush’s war in Iraq.
Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040906A.shtml
April 9th, 2006 at 7:12 pmNever forget that this is Arlen “Magic Bullet” ” Iran-Contra” Specter we are talking about here.
April 9th, 2006 at 7:17 pmGiacomo,
April 9th, 2006 at 7:18 pmRegardless of what you think about the leak of information – the facts today tell us that Bush and Cheney KNEW they had leaked (declassified, if you prefer) information, and they ALLOWED the investigation by the prosecutor and grand jury to go forward WITHOUT telling what they knew. I think that is at least obstruction of justice. I don’t know what they call a wild goose chase in the courts. I think this is a felony.
Sen. Specter always talks big, but he always backs down, because he is a Bush butt kisser! Arlen at one time wanted to be a Supreme Court Justice, so he knows that the Bush Regime is out of control and must be impeached, but his allegence to George cancels his upholding law!
April 9th, 2006 at 8:43 pmWhat we need to do is encourage the 70% of Americans who do not vote to get registered and vote on 2006. I’m doing my part in trying to register hundreds of extra voters in my district, and I’m making sure that I know what the potential voters beliefs are before I give him a registration paper. I’m doing everything that I can to get as many blacks, single women, hispanics, and Asians registered so that they can help vote the GOP out of office. I suggest that you all start doing the same.
April 9th, 2006 at 9:38 pmand I’m making sure that I know what the potential voters beliefs are before I give him a registration paper
Perhaps this is a Republican trolling to make Democrats look bad … but surely Matthew is not serious. I’m all for campaigning for a particular side, but don’t you think registering ALL voter types (or at least paying lip service to doing that) would be the more democratic way … what with all the crying the last two elections about “disenfranchised” people … my 2 cents.
April 9th, 2006 at 9:50 pm#29- “At least paying lip service to doing that.” Then why even bother? I feel that Matthew was expressing his feelings, not announcing any plans to copy the actions of some representatives of the Republican party, while “registering” voters. They committed TRULY awful acts, for the sole purpose of preventing Americans of different political parties from participating in our celebrated “Democracy”, by destroying voter registrations that were marked “democrat”, instead of “republican”. They threw them away, tore them up, got rid of them. So when these people showed up at their polling place on Election Day, ready to cast their ballots, they found out that they were NOT listed in the voter rolls. That is so messed up. All Matthew seems to be saying is, ‘If you are a Republican, you need to go to someone else for a registraton form.’ It’s not a plot to deceive the “unsuspecting”. This was the cause of all the ‘hoopla’ from those who were purposely “disenfranchised” by the Republicans. They were not “WHINING”. Do you feel that their outrage was undeserved? “With Liberty and Justice for ALL!” It is the last line of our “Pledge of Allegiance”, it matters. Partisan jerks shame us all.
April 9th, 2006 at 10:44 pmCan someone please explain to me what difference it would have made whether Valerie Wilson sent her husband to Niger or if Tenant had sent him? What he found out there was the same no matter who sent him. Why would outing her as a CIA operative diminish the message?
April 9th, 2006 at 11:35 pmGolly, in that ‘photo’ Brit looks TOTALLY wasted, I guess his meds kicked in a little early.
Comment by Cyra Brown
To Cyra,
April 10th, 2006 at 12:14 amI ‘m in complete agreement with you here. I try to avoid crude remarks about people’s looks, but my first reaction upon seeing this photo was “Who is this stupid-looking guy?” Then when I figured out who he is, it was “And this is the guy who was making snide comments on Camilla ’s appearance (when she married Prince Charles)?”
[...] It’s time for President Bush to stop spinning this story with “senior administration officials” and, as Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) suggests, speak directly to the American people about exactly what happened. [...]
April 10th, 2006 at 9:43 amAbout Bush speaking to the American people……I think we have had enough of his lies and only doing damage to our country. Frankly the only words I want to hear from his lieing mouth are ” guilty, your honor”, just before the shakels are put on him and the iron door slams.. in his ugly face.
Every time I have registered people to vote and got them the absentee ballots to fill out I never once asked what party they were for, didn’t even look. My goal was to make sure every voice was heard. Most of the ones I registered were older vets that haden’t voted for years and in a couple of cases they had never voted. Isn’t that sad. Many said to me why bother,” we never make a difference any way.” “It’s always rigged”, seems they were right, atleast in the last few elections. My comments have always been, if you don’t vote you can’t complain, your letting others decide for you. Every vote count’s. We need to dump the electorial college and the electronic voting machines.
It is being said in many circles we are the majority. The fact we have been hijacked and not done anything about it is the issue. The people of our country are massive consumers and have forfit all else to that end, even liberty and justice. Compound the problem with lazyness and a few that are just plain stupid and we are in a mess. Take our country back……….Blessings, we need them.
April 10th, 2006 at 10:13 am