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American Morning

Intelligence Leak

Aired September 30, 2003 - 09:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A pair of Jeffs right now here to tackle and take on the political and legal aspects of the investigation of the CIA leak. Our senior political analyst Jeff Greenfield. Our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, a lot of seniors on set today.
As you say, Jeff, I should be kicked out of this club, right. I'm no Jeff.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Too young.

HEMMER: Too young. Not with the right name either.

What do you make of what's happening right now at the White House, given the information Dana Bash is reporting as of 8:30 last night, the Justice Department came in and said hold on to your e- mails, preserve it, don't destroy it.

GREENFIELD: Well, what the White House is doing is perfectly appropriate damage control. That is, for the first time, there is the kind of story in the bush administration in which the waters get roiled, and the press smells something going on that could be damaging, and the last thing in the world the White House wants to be seen doing is in any way impeding it. So it's very simple, the Justice Department calls the White House and says, we're looking to it, and the word goes out, don't destroy any evidence.

You may remember a few decades ago what happens when the White House fools around with intelligence and investigations.

HEMMER: Three decades ago. What's your take on it?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN. SR. LEGAL ANALYST: This is mostly a political problem, and I think likely to remain a political problem, more so than a legal problem, mostly because leak investigations historically fail, because journalists, who are the key witnesses, never talk. It is very difficult to identify who leaked something to a journalist, and that's certainly going to be true here.

Sure, they will look for e-mails they will look for phone records. But in the absence of a journalist saying, you know, he leaked me the story, it's very tough to prove who did this, so it's likely to end in an inconclusive way, as a legal matter.

HEMMER: Pick up on that then, as the political aspect here. What Kamber and May earlier were talking about Democrats smelling blood in the water earlier, true or not? GREENFIELD: Yes, but the other party is almost never the most powerful voice. The problem for the Bush administration on this one is not that Democratic presidential candidates think something went wrong. That's like dog bites bone. It's not even dog bites man. This comes under the heading of a rule that I will's call your own man says so. That is, what the charge is, is that for political reasons, to undermine Joseph Wilson's criticism of the Bush intelligence, somebody in the White House -- or two people, peddled to the press the story.

Well, you don't really want to trust Joseph Wilson. His wife is in the CIA. We all know the CIA has been the skeptics on this. The Republicans are supposed to be the serious people on national security defense, the grownups. They're the ones that care about, supposedly, intelligence and keeping America strong. If the idea spreads politically, as Jeff Toobin said, not legally, that somebody in the Bush White House compromised the identity of the CIA agent for political reasons, that's where the damage is.

HEMMER: You said White House several times. I'll give you a second, Jeff. But just to clarify this, if you look at the transcript that Bob Novak made yesterday in his explanation on "CROSSFIRE," he says he called the CIA, and it was the CIA who told him the name of Joe Wilson's wife.

GREENFIELD: No, he called the White House, not the CIA.

HEMMER: He said he called the CIA.

TOOBIN: After he called the White House.

GREENFIELD: After he called the White House.

But the point is, that there is this other story. The one that kicked all this going was a "Washington Post" story in which a, quote, "senior administration official," that everybody in Washington assumed was CIA director Tenet, complaining that White House people were calling the press to peddle the story of Joe Wilson's wife being in the agency to undermine Wilson's credibility, and that's the part that the White House has to be concerned about.

TOOBIN: And what makes it more troubling for Republicans in general, and the White House in particular, is that here you have the CIA upset at the White House. You have the Justice Department launching an investigation of the White House. These are not Democratic crazies. These are not people who are institutionally opposes to the White House. It's you know, as Jeff was saying, it's your own man. They're the ones who are upset, and it's tough to dismiss the Justice Department and the CIA as a bunch of just Democratic critics.

GREENFIELD: One more point about this, on the Web logs this morning and last night, there has been an effort to kind of say, look, this wasn't that serious. She wasn't a spy, Wilson's wife, she was an analyst. And that Joseph Wilson is well-known as a guy who had serious problems, serious criticisms of the Bush administration, this is all political. I have to say, I don't think that's going to fly. The idea that you skew somebody for leaking the identity of a CIA agent because she was or wasn't under deep cover, that's not going to work, and that's partly why what you heard this morning from the White House. They already are getting the word out that Bush says, I want to be on top of this, don't cover up, Mcclellan said yesterday, if any of our people were involved, they'll be fired.

What the Democrats are smelling is if they can somehow find and link from these stories up to Karl Rove, they would celebrate...

HEMMER: But Joe Wilson is already backing off a bit. He made a speech in Seattle to mention that he's pulling it back now.

GREENFIELD: But now we're going to get questions of who leaked it and who did they work for in the White House, and it will be an interesting...

TOOBIN: Greenfield is right, but then, he's always right.

HEMMER: Smartest man alive, right? Did someone say that?

GREENFIELD: My mother.

Why are we doing this exactly?

HEMMER: Thanks to team Jeff. Talk to you guys again real soon.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired September 30, 2003 - 09:04   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A pair of Jeffs right now here to tackle and take on the political and legal aspects of the investigation of the CIA leak. Our senior political analyst Jeff Greenfield. Our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin, a lot of seniors on set today.
As you say, Jeff, I should be kicked out of this club, right. I'm no Jeff.

JEFF GREENFIELD, CNN SR. ANALYST: Too young.

HEMMER: Too young. Not with the right name either.

What do you make of what's happening right now at the White House, given the information Dana Bash is reporting as of 8:30 last night, the Justice Department came in and said hold on to your e- mails, preserve it, don't destroy it.

GREENFIELD: Well, what the White House is doing is perfectly appropriate damage control. That is, for the first time, there is the kind of story in the bush administration in which the waters get roiled, and the press smells something going on that could be damaging, and the last thing in the world the White House wants to be seen doing is in any way impeding it. So it's very simple, the Justice Department calls the White House and says, we're looking to it, and the word goes out, don't destroy any evidence.

You may remember a few decades ago what happens when the White House fools around with intelligence and investigations.

HEMMER: Three decades ago. What's your take on it?

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN. SR. LEGAL ANALYST: This is mostly a political problem, and I think likely to remain a political problem, more so than a legal problem, mostly because leak investigations historically fail, because journalists, who are the key witnesses, never talk. It is very difficult to identify who leaked something to a journalist, and that's certainly going to be true here.

Sure, they will look for e-mails they will look for phone records. But in the absence of a journalist saying, you know, he leaked me the story, it's very tough to prove who did this, so it's likely to end in an inconclusive way, as a legal matter.

HEMMER: Pick up on that then, as the political aspect here. What Kamber and May earlier were talking about Democrats smelling blood in the water earlier, true or not? GREENFIELD: Yes, but the other party is almost never the most powerful voice. The problem for the Bush administration on this one is not that Democratic presidential candidates think something went wrong. That's like dog bites bone. It's not even dog bites man. This comes under the heading of a rule that I will's call your own man says so. That is, what the charge is, is that for political reasons, to undermine Joseph Wilson's criticism of the Bush intelligence, somebody in the White House -- or two people, peddled to the press the story.

Well, you don't really want to trust Joseph Wilson. His wife is in the CIA. We all know the CIA has been the skeptics on this. The Republicans are supposed to be the serious people on national security defense, the grownups. They're the ones that care about, supposedly, intelligence and keeping America strong. If the idea spreads politically, as Jeff Toobin said, not legally, that somebody in the Bush White House compromised the identity of the CIA agent for political reasons, that's where the damage is.

HEMMER: You said White House several times. I'll give you a second, Jeff. But just to clarify this, if you look at the transcript that Bob Novak made yesterday in his explanation on "CROSSFIRE," he says he called the CIA, and it was the CIA who told him the name of Joe Wilson's wife.

GREENFIELD: No, he called the White House, not the CIA.

HEMMER: He said he called the CIA.

TOOBIN: After he called the White House.

GREENFIELD: After he called the White House.

But the point is, that there is this other story. The one that kicked all this going was a "Washington Post" story in which a, quote, "senior administration official," that everybody in Washington assumed was CIA director Tenet, complaining that White House people were calling the press to peddle the story of Joe Wilson's wife being in the agency to undermine Wilson's credibility, and that's the part that the White House has to be concerned about.

TOOBIN: And what makes it more troubling for Republicans in general, and the White House in particular, is that here you have the CIA upset at the White House. You have the Justice Department launching an investigation of the White House. These are not Democratic crazies. These are not people who are institutionally opposes to the White House. It's you know, as Jeff was saying, it's your own man. They're the ones who are upset, and it's tough to dismiss the Justice Department and the CIA as a bunch of just Democratic critics.

GREENFIELD: One more point about this, on the Web logs this morning and last night, there has been an effort to kind of say, look, this wasn't that serious. She wasn't a spy, Wilson's wife, she was an analyst. And that Joseph Wilson is well-known as a guy who had serious problems, serious criticisms of the Bush administration, this is all political. I have to say, I don't think that's going to fly. The idea that you skew somebody for leaking the identity of a CIA agent because she was or wasn't under deep cover, that's not going to work, and that's partly why what you heard this morning from the White House. They already are getting the word out that Bush says, I want to be on top of this, don't cover up, Mcclellan said yesterday, if any of our people were involved, they'll be fired.

What the Democrats are smelling is if they can somehow find and link from these stories up to Karl Rove, they would celebrate...

HEMMER: But Joe Wilson is already backing off a bit. He made a speech in Seattle to mention that he's pulling it back now.

GREENFIELD: But now we're going to get questions of who leaked it and who did they work for in the White House, and it will be an interesting...

TOOBIN: Greenfield is right, but then, he's always right.

HEMMER: Smartest man alive, right? Did someone say that?

GREENFIELD: My mother.

Why are we doing this exactly?

HEMMER: Thanks to team Jeff. Talk to you guys again real soon.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com