WASHINGTON — With pressure mounting on the Bush administration over its detainee policies, Republican House and Senate leaders asked Tuesday for an investigation into who leaked information to the Washington Post about CIA-run secret prisons abroad.
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) requested that the Senate and House intelligence committees "immediately initiate a joint investigation into the possible release of classified information to the media" about the existence of the prisons.
"Such an egregious disclosure could have long-term and far-reaching damaging and dangerous consequences," the pair said in a letter to Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Responding to reports of the leaders' request for an investigation, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the matter "ought to be taken seriously.... This is a congressional prerogative, and it was a decision that was made by those leaders."
On Nov. 2, the Post revealed the existence of a network of clandestine prisons, some in Eastern Europe, where the CIA is holding suspected terrorists. The administration has not confirmed or denied the report, one that has intensified the debate on Capitol Hill about the administration's detainee policies.
A U.S. official said Tuesday evening that the CIA had filed a report with the Department of Justice indicating that the Post's article might have included classified information.
Such referrals often prompt leak investigations by the Justice Department, but few lead to criminal charges. The recent indictment of former senior White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was a rare exception. And even in that instance, Libby was charged with perjury, making false statements and obstruction of justice, not the release of classified information in the leak of a covert CIA official's name.
Tuesday afternoon, a senior Republican aide on the Senate Intelligence Committee, who spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the issue, said he could not recall an instance in which the panel had investigated an alleged leak of classified information, except when there was suspicion that someone on the panel's staff had been involved.
"If the Justice Department gets engaged, it becomes very problematic to cross paths with them," the aide said.
