Eli Lake and Sarah Carter have a big scoop this morning on news that the CIA "has asked the Justice Department to examine what it regards as the criminal disclosure of a secret program to kill foreign terrorist leaders abroad." As a result of those leaks, the head of the firm formerly known as Blackwater, Erik Prince, has ended up on an al Qaeda hit list. Given that there is just as much disdain for Prince among left-wing Democrats as there is in the al Qaeda organization, one shouldn't expect too much concern about this development from those who screamed loudest about the disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity. But the facts of the crime are eerily similar -- with one key difference: this time it looks like the leak came from Congress and not the administration.
Now the Department of Justice is confronted by a choice. Does Eric Holder make it his top priority to investigate who is behind the leaking of sensitive information that the CIA contends represents a direct threat to American national security? Or, does Holder focus his energy instead on the politically-motivated investigation into CIA interrogators who have already been cleared of wrongdoing once before?
Assuming that Holder does make the right decision, I'm not above speculating on just who leaked the information in question. The source is almost certainly a Democratic member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, given the fact that no one knew of this program's existence until Leon Panetta appeared before that committee and revealed details of the program in June. The top candidate there would have to be Jan Schakowsky, the Illinois Democrat whose made the persecution of Blackwater into her own pet cause. Schakowsky has been a key source for Jeremy Scahill, who wrote Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, a full-throttle hit job of the government contractor. Also in the running is Rush Holt, who recently declared "I'd like to see something on the scope of the Church committee."
While the leaking of classified material damaging to America's war against al Qaeda is a travesty, it does hold forth the delightful possibilty of seeing Reps. Schakowsky and Holt put before a panel of DoJ prosecutors while their core body temperature and heart rate are measured by the polygraph for any signs of lying. The thing about these investigations -- like the investigation into the Plame affair -- is that you never know who's going to get caught in a lie.
