Attorney General Eric Holder has appointed two U.S. attorneys to investigate leaks of sensitive national security information. In so doing, he implicitly rejected calls by some Republicans for a special prosecutor (sometimes called an “independent counsel”) detached from normal Justice Department oversight. Holder’s decision likely forecloses further debate on the special-prosecutor route. It should not, however, foreclose continued bipartisan concern over the leaks themselves, or pressure from Congress to investigate these serious breaches of the secrecy properly surrounding intelligence activities.
President Obama has proclaimed, with both his typical narcissism and moral superiority, that “the notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive.” Ironically, even the American Civil Liberties Union rejects Obama’s line, arguing in its lawsuit against U.S. drone strikes: “Allowing the CIA to deny the existence of the drone program while it carries on a propagandistic campaign of officially sanctioned leaks would make a mockery of the classification system.” Indeed.
