Pete Hoekstra

Hoekstra: Leaking Classified Info Is Terrible -- Except When GOP Does It

Zachary Roth | June 5, 2009, 12:59PM

Now this is some chutzpah....

You might remember that a few years ago, Washington's Republicans were all up in arms over the fact that classified information about the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program had been leaked to the New York Times. The Justice Department began an investigation into the leak, and congressional GOPers gravely declared what a serious crime this was.

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Nancy Pelosi

In Savaging Pelosi For "Attacking" CIA, GOP Ignores Its Own Record Of Similar Attacks

Zachary Roth | May 20, 2009, 1:08PM

We really shouldn't have to do this. As we've said before, the idea that it's some kind of outlandish and unconscionable slur to point out that the CIA -- the CIA, for chrissakes! -- can sometimes be economical with the truth is absurd on its face. But the Republican attacks on Nancy Pelosi for daring to make that claim just keep coming, so it looks like we're going to have to point this out:

Shocking as it sounds, the GOP hasn't always been so sensitive about harsh criticism of the CIA -- including leveling the charge that the CIA is being deliberately deceptive -- when it's served the party's political interest.

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CIA

Lawmaker: CIA Already Being Probed For Misleading Congress

Zachary Roth | May 19, 2009, 2:25PM

As they go after Nancy Pelosi over those CIA briefings, Republicans have been putting the burden of proof on the Speaker, suggesting that it's all but unheard of for the CIA to mislead others in government. But in fact, the agency is currently being probed for doing exactly that on a different issue -- and the effort was initiated by one of Pelosi's fiercest critics on the torture briefings kerfuffle.

Last night, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who chairs the oversight subcommittee of the House intelligence committee, told MSNBC's Ed Schultz (h/t Democratic Underground):

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Nancy Pelosi

Hoekstra Spokesman: Docs Will Show Pelosi Was Briefed On Waterboarding

Zachary Roth | May 8, 2009, 3:58PM

So Nancy Pelosi has again denied that she was briefed on the fact that we had already committed waterbaording.

But now a spokesman for Pete Hoekstra, the chair of the House intelligence committee, seems to be telling Greg Sargent that as-yet-unreleased documents will prove once and for all that she was.

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Pete Hoekstra

Roll Call: Dem Intel Aide's Access Restored

Paul Kiel | November 20, 2006, 12:54PM

Remember Larry Hanauer, the Democratic aide on the House Intelligence Committee whose clearance was yanked because he was suspected of leaking the Iraq NIE?

House Intel Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) probably hopes you don't, because, as Roll Call reports (sub. req.), Hanauer's access to classified info has been quietly reinstated, "essentially clearing the aide of accusations that he leaked a sensitive report on the Iraq War to The New York Times."

Hoekstra had stripped Hanauer of his access based on remarkably thin evidence -- that Hanauer requested a copy of the Iraq National Intelligence Estimate shortly before the Times reported on the NIE's findings. Nevermind that the Times piece clearly stated that details of the report came from a number of intelligence professionals, with whom the reporters had been speaking for weeks. In fact, as Rep. Ray Lahood (R-IL) admitted, Hanauer was demoted as payback for the Democrats having released, over Hoekstra's objections, a report on Duke Cunningham's dirty doings.

Now Hanauer's been officially (and suddenly) cleared, it seems. Yet another sign that we're in a new era.

Update: A statement from Jonathan Turley, Hanauer's lawyer:

We are grateful that this long nightmare for Larry and his family is now over. It is regrettable that it took this long given the total absence of any evidence linking Larry to the New York Times articles. As we stated at the outset of this controversy, Larry was not and could not have been the source for the New York Times story.

As a result of his name and private telephone number being leaked to the media, Larry has now been the subject of horrible and reprehensible threats.

I hope that the total vindication of Larry will now restore his good name and standing as a professional staff member.

Pete Hoekstra

Hoekstra: Can't Negroponte Do Anything Right?

Justin Rood | November 6, 2006, 12:09PM

"I want a system that is biased in favor of declassification. I want some assurance that they aren't just picking the stuff that's garbage and releasing that. If we're only declassifying maps of Baghdad, I'm not going to be happy."

- Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), House intelligence committee chairman, last March. Hoekstra was frustrated that spy chief John Negroponte was resisting his call to release seized Iraqi documents that Hoekstra was convinced would justify the war in Iraq.

"It looks like they screwed up."

- Hoekstra chiding senior intelligence officials (including Negroponte) yesterday. It was revealed last week that sensitive nuclear secrets were among a batch of Iraqi documents released as part of Hoekstra's favorite declassification program. The documents, which predate the 1991 Persian Gulf War, "show that the Iraqi program may be much further along than anybody ever anticipated," Hoekstra said.