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U.S. Senate Democrats Criticize Justice Department’s Leak Investigation By Mike Nartker WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and three other Senate Democrats yesterday criticized the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into the leak of the identity of a CIA operative and reiterated Democratic calls the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the investigation (see GSN, Oct. 8). In a letter sent yesterday to President George W. Bush, Daschle and Senators Joseph Biden (D-Del.), Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) outlined “five serious missteps” in Justice’s investigation so far into the leak. The department began its efforts about two weeks ago, upon CIA request, to investigate the leak of the identity of the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had publicly criticized evidence offered by the Bush administration as justification for war with Iraq. In their letter, the senators criticized the Justice Department for a number of delays in requesting that potentially relevant materials be preserved. For example, the department waited three days after beginning its investigation Sept. 26 to request that the White House order its staff to preserve all relevant materials, the senators said. They also criticized White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales’s decision to wait until the morning of Sept. 30 to transmit Justice’s order to White House staff. “Every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that such a delay is a significant departure from standard practice,” the senators wrote. In addition, the senators criticized the Justice Department’s decision to wait until Oct. 1 before requesting that the Defense and State departments preserve any relevant material their staffs may have possessed. They also repeated claims that Attorney General John Ashcroft is too politically connected to the White House to avoid potential conflicts of interest. White House press secretary Scott McClellan also came under fire in the senators’ letter for remarks he made earlier this week specifically clearing three White House officials of any involvement in the leak — Bush’s senior political adviser Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and National Security Council official Elliott Abrams. During a press conference Tuesday, McClellan said he had determined that Rove, Libby and Abrams had not been involved after speaking with them personally. “Clearly, a media spokesperson does not have the legal expertise to be questioning possible suspects or evaluating or reaching conclusions about the legality of their conduct,” the senators wrote in their letter. The letter called on Bush to appoint a special counsel to oversee the leak investigation, saying that public confidence would be “substantially bolstered” by such a move. The Washington Post reported today, however, that the Justice Department defended its performance so far. “From the time that career prosecutors at the Department of Justice decided to open an investigation, it has been handled professionally and by the book,” the Post quoted Justice spokesman Mark Corallo as saying.
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