Following in the footsteps of the Bush Administration, President Obama’s Justice Department has approved a subpoena of New York Times reporter James Risen demanding he reveal sources for a chapter in his 2006 book about a botched CIA operation to infiltrate Iran’s nuclear program.
Risen was first subpoenaed about the matter during the Bush Administration, in February 2008. The operation in question, described in Risen’s State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration, began in 2000, during the Clinton years.
This is the second public example of the Obama DOJ aggressively pursuing leak cases. Earlier this month, a former National Security Agency official was charged with crimes in connection with alleged leaks to then-Baltimore Sun reporter Siobhan Gorman.
The Times reports on the details of the case:
Mr. Risen described the operation as reckless, arguing that Iranian scientists may have been able to “extract valuable information from the blueprints while ignoring the flaws.” He also wrote that a C.I.A. case officer, believing that the agency had “assisted the Iranians in joining the nuclear club,” told a Congressional intelligence committee about the problems, but that no action was taken.
Read the whole thing.
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