Tag Archives: Classified information

Will We Ever Hear The True Story Of Benghazi?

Posted on by

CNS News reported yesterday that the State Department was denying security clearances to the lawyers hired by the whistle-blowers who want to testify to Congress about Benghazi.

The article reports:

Rep. Darryl Issa (R-) is demanding Sec. of State John Kerry grant clearances to attorneys like his partner, Victoria Toensing, who has an active Top Secret security clearance:

“Victoria Toensing, my partner, has just been retained by one of the Department of State whistleblowers who are going to appear before the Issa committee.  On April 26, Congressman Issa sent a letter to the new Sec of State, John Kerry, demanding that the lawyers who are going to represent the whistleblowers be cleared – be given clearances – so they can talk to their clients and the committee about classified information.”

“She (Toensing) got a new top secret security clearance within the last year. And, now, they will not clear her or any of the other lawyers to represent the Department of State people. This is so outrageous,” DiGenova (ormer U.S. Attorney Joe DiGenova, founding partner of the Washington, D.C. law firm of diGenova & Toensing, LLP) said.

The question that comes to mind when I read this is, “How much of the information about Benghazi is classified because it needs to be and how much of the information about Benghazi is classified to save face for someone involved?”

I hope that we have enough people in Congress to pressure the Obama Administration to grant the security clearances to the lawyers so that the attack at Benghazi can be investigated. If there were available forces in the area, America needs to know why they were not deployed and why Americans were left to die.Enhanced by Zemanta

A Slightly Different Take On The Recent National Security Leaks

Posted on by

Andrew McCarthy posted an article at PJMedia about the recent leaks of classified information and the search for the source of the leaks. He points out that a special prosecutor may not be the answer to solving the problem of who is leaking and stopping the leaks.

Mr. McCarthy explains why pursuing the leaks as a criminal matter is probably not a good idea:

The lesson here — of far more political than legal significance — is that President Obama is a reckless custodian of the nation’s secrets. That is yet another good reason why it is so important to defeat him come November. The rest — who said what — is details. It’s the guy in the Oval Office who sets the tone. And that guy, by the way, is fully empowered to declassify whatever information he chooses to declassify, no matter how sensitive, no matter how damaging its disclosure. So if it turns out that Obama effectively approved the leaks, they are probably not actionable disclosures of classified information anyway.

I will admit–that is an angle I had not considered.

Mr. McCarthy further reminds us:

 If the president decides to make information public, it is public — no matter how classified it was before, and no matter who in the government thinks the publicizing of it is a bone-headed move. The president gets to do that — and that’s part of why it matters who the president is.

Classified information belongs to the executive branch. Under the Constitution, the executive power is vested in a single official, the president. As Justice Scalia pointed out in his classic dissent in Morrison v. Olson, this does not mean some of the executive power; it means all of the executive power. The president can make a bad de-classification decision, but it is his decision to make.

It does matter who the President is.

 

Enhanced by Zemanta