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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 6, 2004

SCHUMER: WHITE HOUSE THWARTING JUSTICE DEPT'S CIA LEAK PROBE

Although White House insists it is fully cooperating with investigation into who leaked CIA agent's identity, it refuses to order employees to comply with FBI request that they sign waivers releasing reporters from confidentiality agreements

When DOJ asked for phone and email records, the White House Counsel set a deadline for employees to comply but White House has yet to set similar requirement for waivers

US Senator Charles Schumer today said the White House is continuing to thwart the Justice Department's investigation into who leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent by not requiring its employees to cooperate with a request made by investigators over the weekend that officials waive the confidentiality of their conversations with journalists regarding the agent's identity.

"When the Justice Department asked for phone and email records, the White House Counsel set a deadline for employees to comply. Now the investigators are asking White House employees to sign waivers releasing reporters from confidentiality agreements but the Counsel's office has been silent," Schumer said. "It took long enough to get the Justice Department to do the right thing with regard to this case, we shouldn't have to keep pestering the White House to cooperate."

Although the White House insists that it is fully cooperating with the investigation, it has not required its employees to sign the waivers. But Schumer wrote in a letter being sent to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card today that "'full cooperation' requires freeing these journalists from their obligations to protect their sources."

In 1998, when Republican Congressional leaders began investigating whether White House officials were leaking information about members of Congress, then-White House Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles informed news organizations that the White House was waiving all confidentiality rights regarding such leaks.

Schumer said that would be a good step, but urged the White House to go further and request signed waivers from each individual employee since some journalists might consider the confidentiality agreement to attach to the person and not the White House itself. The professional prosecutors handling the investigation have determined that they would be aided if White House employees waived their agreements with reporters.

"I know you and the President care passionately about the men and women who serve America and protect us from those who would do us harm. In a post-9/11 world, we have no more valuable soldiers in the war on terrorism than our intelligence operatives. The leaking of this woman’s name was not only a despicable thing to do to her, it threatens our network of operatives and informants, harms our efforts to recruit new informants, and drastically undermines national security. It simply cannot be tolerated," Schumer wrote in his letter.

Last week, Schumer praised the Attorney General's decision to recuse himself from the investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA agent and the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerald to lead the probe. Schumer was the first to call for a thorough investigation of the leak after it appeared in Robert Novak's column. In October, he urged Ashcroft to appoint a special counsel and to formally recuse himself from the Justice Department's investigation into whether senior White House officials illegally leaked a covert CIA operative's identity to the media.

For a copy of Schumer's letter to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card please click here.
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