Frist And Hastert Only Want To Investigate Leaks When It Suits Them

by Steve

The same GOP leadership that couldn’t be bothered to have congressional investigations to determine which administration officials outed Valerie Plame, nor on how the Bush Administration handled all available intelligence leading up to the Iraq war, now moves with great speed to stir up right wing support for a congressional investigation into who told the Washington Post last week about the CIA’s torture camps in Eastern Europe.

I kid you not. At least Nancy Pelosi has it right:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Republican leaders should also investigate possible manipulation of prewar intelligence on Iraq and the disclosure of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity.

"If Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Frist are finally ready to join Democrats' demands for an investigation of possible abuses of classified information, they must direct the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to investigate all aspects of that issue," said Pelosi.

This latest misdirection by Frist and Hastert comes a day after the Democrats said they want to expand the intelligence inquiry that Frist agreed to last week to now include the questioning of administration officials about what they knew when they made their statements on Iraq’s WMDs in the run up to the war.

That's a nice trap that Frist and Hastert just stepped into.

Update: Thanks to tips from several commenters, it appears that Frist and Hastert just got f*cked over by Trent Lott, who admitted on CNN that the leak, if there was one, most likely came from Republicans.