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American Morning
Justice Department Looking into Who Blew Cover of CIA Officer
Aired September 29, 2003 - 08:04 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: The Justice Department looking into who blew the cover of a CIA officer. It involves the former ambassador, Joseph Wilson, who criticized the White House for charging that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. Not long afterward, Wilson's wife was identified as a CIA employee. Wilson says he believes the leak to "Chicago Sun-Times" writer and CNN's Robert Novak came from an aide to the president. The White House denies all of that.
Our national security correspondent David Ensor live in D.C. this morning to talk about the implications.
What are the implications in this -- David, good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well -- good morning.
There are national security and political implications. In the national security terms, it's a felony for an American -- for a government official to identify a CIA cover operative for a lot of reasons, the main one being that Mr. Wilson's wife, assuming she is, indeed, a CIA operative, was working overseas, was dealing with sources. Some of those sources may now be compromised. Information that the U.S. has wanted to have continuing to come in may stop coming in.
So it is a very serious crime to identify a person. In terms of political implications, well, you saw some of those on our air earlier this morning, Bill, when you were talking to Senator Charles Schumer, who said that for the Justice Department to look into this, as the CIA has now requested, isn't good enough. He wants an independent probe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: If you appoint someone of real rock ribbed integrity, I think that's the only way the public will have faith that there will be a complete and thorough and fearless investigation that will go wherever it leads.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR: Now, the White House is saying that they're willing to turn over their phone records of appropriate officials and will cooperate with an inquiry by the Justice Department -- Bill.
HEMMER: David, a couple of questions. This happened back in early July. Why the attention now?
ENSOR: Well, I'm kind of curious about that myself, in a sense. We knew about this. I had a lot of information about it in July. No one was particularly interested back then. Of course, what's happened is that the CIA has filed this request, which they routinely do, I'm told, by officials, something like 20 times a year, a low level person, someone in the general counsel's office at CIA routinely sends a request for a leak to be investigated. This is another one of those.
It's a marker and perhaps the media decided to seize on it.
HEMMER: Yes, and how often is it, David, that the FBI or an investigative branch of the Justice Department gets to the bottom of the source of the leak?
ENSOR: Almost never, Bill, and that is why it is possible for these leaks to occur. Journalists do not like to give up their sources. We had an investigation of us on sources not long ago, Dana Bash and I. We didn't give up our sources. If you give up your sources, you're out of business pretty fast.
So there will be an investigation and, of course, Ambassador Wilson is quoted as saying it might have been a White House official. But it's not likely that we'll ever get the names of who really leaked this from the Bush administration -- Bill.
HEMMER: Thank you, David.
David Ensor working that story in D.C.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Officer>
Aired September 29, 2003 - 08:04 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: The Justice Department looking into who blew the cover of a CIA officer. It involves the former ambassador, Joseph Wilson, who criticized the White House for charging that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. Not long afterward, Wilson's wife was identified as a CIA employee. Wilson says he believes the leak to "Chicago Sun-Times" writer and CNN's Robert Novak came from an aide to the president. The White House denies all of that.
Our national security correspondent David Ensor live in D.C. this morning to talk about the implications.
What are the implications in this -- David, good morning.
DAVID ENSOR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well -- good morning.
There are national security and political implications. In the national security terms, it's a felony for an American -- for a government official to identify a CIA cover operative for a lot of reasons, the main one being that Mr. Wilson's wife, assuming she is, indeed, a CIA operative, was working overseas, was dealing with sources. Some of those sources may now be compromised. Information that the U.S. has wanted to have continuing to come in may stop coming in.
So it is a very serious crime to identify a person. In terms of political implications, well, you saw some of those on our air earlier this morning, Bill, when you were talking to Senator Charles Schumer, who said that for the Justice Department to look into this, as the CIA has now requested, isn't good enough. He wants an independent probe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), NEW YORK: If you appoint someone of real rock ribbed integrity, I think that's the only way the public will have faith that there will be a complete and thorough and fearless investigation that will go wherever it leads.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ENSOR: Now, the White House is saying that they're willing to turn over their phone records of appropriate officials and will cooperate with an inquiry by the Justice Department -- Bill.
HEMMER: David, a couple of questions. This happened back in early July. Why the attention now?
ENSOR: Well, I'm kind of curious about that myself, in a sense. We knew about this. I had a lot of information about it in July. No one was particularly interested back then. Of course, what's happened is that the CIA has filed this request, which they routinely do, I'm told, by officials, something like 20 times a year, a low level person, someone in the general counsel's office at CIA routinely sends a request for a leak to be investigated. This is another one of those.
It's a marker and perhaps the media decided to seize on it.
HEMMER: Yes, and how often is it, David, that the FBI or an investigative branch of the Justice Department gets to the bottom of the source of the leak?
ENSOR: Almost never, Bill, and that is why it is possible for these leaks to occur. Journalists do not like to give up their sources. We had an investigation of us on sources not long ago, Dana Bash and I. We didn't give up our sources. If you give up your sources, you're out of business pretty fast.
So there will be an investigation and, of course, Ambassador Wilson is quoted as saying it might have been a White House official. But it's not likely that we'll ever get the names of who really leaked this from the Bush administration -- Bill.
HEMMER: Thank you, David.
David Ensor working that story in D.C.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Officer>
