What Is Heating Up Hoekstra?

Sunday morning the WaPo led with this:

In a sharply worded letter, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee has told President Bush that the administration is angering lawmakers, and possibly violating the law, by giving Congress too little information about domestic surveillance programs.

Cheap shot artists (OK, yours truly) pointed out that the Hoekstra letter said nothing about "domestic" programs.  Mr. Hoekstra appeared on Fox News and said nothing about "domestic" programs.

And come Monday, the WaPo cuts and runs (but waits until paragraph eight):

Hoekstra's remarks left unclear the nature of the intelligence programs he alluded to in his letter. He did not specify whether they involved domestic surveillance...

Enough unseemly gloating!  What program might Hoekstra have had in mind? 

The Wapo offers two guesses: either the recently disclosed SWIFT program, or something to do with Hoekstra's recent interest (with Rick Santorum) in the hunt for WMDs in Iraq.

The NY Times offers no guesses, but talks to official who are sure that Hoekstra is not fussed about the SWIFT program.

And Stephen Spruiell at NRO offers the best guess we have seen so far - Hoekstra's pique relates to this recent Russ Tice story from May 11 (timeline fits):

Russ Tice, an NSA intelligence analyst fired last January in the wake of revelations about the agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program, is finally getting his chance to tell what he says are even more explosive secrets to Congress.

Rice said that the Senate Armed Services Committee has invited him to testify sometime next week about “very sensitive programs and operations at NSA and DoD (Department of Defense) that likely have violated the law and the constitution.”

The ultra-secret NSA operations are called special access programs, or SAPs.

[Mid Course Correction - Spruiell gets a "Not Tice, go fish" response from the House Intel Committee flack.  Well, it is *still* a good guess.]

We round out the various guesses below, in an increasingly disjointed post that ought to go straight to rewrite:

What program might Hoekstra have had in mind?  The WaPo does not know, but Charles  Babington provides some interesting speculation.  Was it the SWIFT monitoring program?

[The letter] was written five weeks before newspapers divulged that the administration has been secretly tapping into a vast global database of confidential financial transactions for nearly five years. It was unclear yesterday whether Hoekstra and other top-ranking lawmakers had been briefed on that program by the date of the letter.

Well.  It may be unclear, but certainly some members of Congress have been receiving briefings, and the NY Times dismisses that suggestion:

But officials have said he was not referring to the National Security Agency's wiretapping operation or to the Treasury Department's bank monitoring program, both of which he was informed about.

The next guess is much more interesting and plausible:

Hoekstra also had shown deep interest in an April report by the National Ground Intelligence Center regarding 500 chemical munitions shells that Iranian troops had buried in the 1980s, which were uncovered in 2004. Hoekstra and Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) have said the shells justify claims that deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but the administration has not embraced those assertions. On June 29, Hoekstra complained in a letter to Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte about an administration background briefing for reporters that played down the shells' significance.

Sources said yesterday that they believe Hoekstra did not hear of the report on the shells until after he wrote to Bush.

Hmm.  This is how Hoekstra described his state of mind to Fox News:

"We can't be briefed on every little thing that they are doing," Hoekstra said. "But in this case, there was at least one major — what I consider significant activity that we have not been briefed on...

...In the letter, Hoekstra said the failure to brief the intelligence committees "may represent a breach of responsibility by the administration, a violation of law and, just as importantly, a direct affront to me and the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies."

I am intrigued by his self-correction - "at least one major — what I consider significant activity...".

That downsizing from "major" to "what I consider significant" does not make sense in relation to the SWIFT monitoring program - is there really anyone arguing that SWIFT was not a major program?

But clearly this hunt for WMDs in Iraq has attracted a range of viewpoints.  Maybe Hoekstra is irked that the Admin is not trumpeting whatever success it may be having in that search; surely that would be "an affront" to the people Hoekstra described as "the members of this committee who have so ardently supported efforts to collect information on our enemies".

It's a thought.  Actually, it is a pretty amusing thought - if Hoekstra is steaming because the Administration is sitting on discoveries of WMDs in Iraq, the last couple of days of fevered speculation in the WaPo and Times, or amongst bloggers, will appear to have been quite misdirected.

Or would be, if it is ever reported.  One imagines that certain secrets are too important for the Times to publish.  But then again, a newly assertive Republican Congress may pry news of Saddam's WMDs out of Bush's reluctant hands by October 2006.  Keep a little candle flickering - its a wild guess, but the WaPo is offering it.

[UPDATE: Stephen Spruiell of the NRO Media Blog has a very interesting guess involving Russ Tice, former NSA guy who claimed to have been involved with the leaks to James Risen.  And the timeline of the WMD speculation seems to be off - Santorum says in a June 21 interview (with Hugh Hewitt?) he went to Hoekstra for help with the WMD material "two weeks ago"; June 7 would be roughly three weeks *after* Hoekstra's May 18 letter.  Beyond that, Hoekstra cites 'whistleblowers' as driving his request, not troubled Senators.  H/t to crosspatch in the comments.]

MORE:  Let's add that the Times' follow-up makes no mention of Mr. Hoekstra's recent interest in WMDs, although they wring their hands in puzzlement in this paragraph:

The criticism of the White House was particularly surprising coming from a Republican committee chairman who has been an important ally of the Bush administration. Mr. Hoekstra has vigorously defended the administration's handling of a number of controversial issues, including the N.S.A. operation, the prewar intelligence on Iraq, and the treatment and interrogation of terrorism suspects.

Mr. Hoekstra has also been an outspoken critic of government employees who leak classified information to outsiders and of the news media for printing articles about it, and he has suggested that tougher legislation may be necessary.

Let me restate the obvious - if Hoekstra wants the Administration to declassify some good news about Saddams's WMDs, his behavior is not mysterious.  Admin reluctance, OTOH, could be as simple as wanting to make assurance triple sure before risking whatever credibility they may have on this topic.  And it might help Santorum in a tough race this fall.

MORE:  In the comments, "crosspatch" was way ahead of the Wapo on WMDs [and is now backpedaling a bit, as anybody who hypothesizes from time to time will do].

Comments

[crosspatch]

Some old material from Fox:

Hoekstra and Santorum lamented that Americans were given the impression after a 16-month search conducted by the Iraq Survey Group that the evidence of continuing research and development of weapons of mass destruction was insignificant. But the National Ground Intelligence Center took up where the ISG left off when it completed its report in November 2004, and in the process of collecting intelligence for the purpose of force protection for soldiers and sailors still on the ground in Iraq, has shown that the weapons inspections were incomplete, they and others have said.

...

As a result of this new information, under the aegis of his chairmanship, Hoekstra said he is going to ask for more reporting by the various intelligence agencies about weapons of mass destruction.

"We are working on the declassification of the report. We are going to do a thorough search of what additional reports exist in the intelligence community. And we are going to put additional pressure on the Department of Defense and the folks in Iraq to more fully pursue a complete investigation of what existed in Iraq before the war," Hoekstra said.

[crosspatch]

Hmm, the comments in that letter might NOT have been WMD related. I am saying that based on this remark by Santorum

RS: Actually, I went to Pete Hoekstra. I found about this from a tip, wrote two letters, one to the head of the Ground Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Center, and one to Director Negroponte, the Director of National Intelligence, asking for the report. It got nowhere until I called Pete two weeks ago and said Pete, have you heard of this report? He had not heard of the report. He was not aware of it. And he didn't know of its existence, took him a few days, but he was able to find out it existed, and then got a copy, and the rest is history.

Two weeks before the 21st of June, when this interview was conducted, would have been the 7th of June. The letter we have been talking about was in May. Unless Santorum's sense of time is skewed somehow, that letter couldn't have been talking about the WMD in early May.

[crosspatch]

This might be a better direction. Might be the Russ Tice stuff.

We should, I suppose, consider ourselves lucky that the NYT didn't find out which programs Hoekstra was referring to and splash their details all over the front page. But I keep wondering: Are these the alleged "special access programs" that disgruntled ex-NSA employee Russ Tice told the Senate Armed Services Committee about last May — at around the same time that Hoekstra sent his letter? On May 12th, Congress Daily reported (via Nexis):

A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said Thursday he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens. Russell Tice, who worked on what are known as "special access programs," has wanted to meet in a closed session with members of Congress and their staff since President Bush announced in December that he had secretly authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens without a court order. In an interview late Thursday, Tice said the Senate Armed Services Committee finally asked him to meet next week in a secure facility on Capitol Hill.

Oh, and he references the article on this site in his article.

[jr]

Peter's thinking about november

[Sara (The Squiggler)]

TM -- OT but have you seen this?

Save Patrick Fitzgerald

In Dennis Byrne

President Bush faces a major test of his integrity when, or if, he ever gets around to reappointing Patrick Fitzgerald as U.S. Attorney in Chicago. The nation needs to know that Bush's failure to back Fitzgerald will betray a gapping hole in the conscience of the president. While most of America may think of Fitzgerald as the aggressive prosecutor in the Valerie Plame affair and the bombing of the World Trade Center, those of us in Chicago have a closer view of the man. He is one of the few government officials left in Chicago and Illinois that loathes corruption, and who is in a position to do something about as the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois. In that role, he has put away former Illinois Gov. George Ryan and a host of other grafters. He is scrutinizing current Gov. Rod Blagojevich's administration for its hiring practices. And he is hot on the trail of the corruption that pervades Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's City Hall. Score another for Fitzgerald as a federal jury this week convicted Daley's patronage chief and three other men on charges that they engaged in an elaborate and long-running scheme to reward the mayor's campaign workers with choice jobs.

You need to read the whole thing.

[crosspatch]

I just now saw Hoekstra on a Fox interview. It looks like it is the Russ Tice stuff. He said they were made aware of several "programs" that they had not be briefed on, asked the President about them, and have now been briefed.

[crosspatch]

Of course, the huge story for me is how the heck a HARD COPY of the classified letter ended up at the NYT. This wasn't a mention of the letter given to them by a leaker, this was a copy of the actual letter itself. There should have only been two copies of it, one with Hoekstra and one with the President.

[Tom Maguire]

Well, then, it looks like we have Russ Tice to kick around again - he emerged during the NSA "scandal" last January, and "lurker" even dropped this story in a comment last May:

Russ Tice, an NSA intelligence analyst fired last January in the wake of revelations about the agency’s warrantless eavesdropping program, is finally getting his chance to tell what he says are even more explosive secrets to Congress.

Rice said that the Senate Armed Services Committee has invited him to testify sometime next week about “very sensitive programs and operations at NSA and DoD (Department of Defense) that likely have violated the law and the constitution.”

The ultra-secret NSA operations are called special access programs, or SAPs...

[Other Tom]

"Mr. Hoekstra has also been an outspoken critic of government employees who leak classified information to outsiders..."

Well, there are outsiders, and then there are outsiders. It appears that the leaker in this case complied precisely with the Intelligence Whistleblower's Protection Act, which provides that people in intelligence agencies who are troubled by an agency's actions may "blow the whistle" to specified members of congressional intelligence committees. The New York Times and the Washington Post are not on the list of authorized recipients of such disclosures. Would anyone expect them to make any reference to this legislation in their reporting? Don't hold your breath...

[maryrose]

Is Tice going to be charged for leaking or is his testimony to Congress a way to get him off the hook? It seems we discussed at length his involvement in illegal leaking. Is this a plea deal for him? I don't think we considered him a whistleblower at the time.

[Monor]

It's okay about the satellites spying on US citizens, but some people think that is actually a laser and maybe foreign like, so maybe it's something like we don't like them CIA types even if they're just them analysts..................

[brenda taylor]

i think this all has to do with goss and he is still working behind the scenes.at least i hope so he was not finished with the leakers nor should he have been.

[Redcoat]

Other Tom:

I take great encouragement from the fact that these people went the legal route provided to them,rather than leaking.

It does demonstrate that following the rules works,those with genuine concerns had them redressed.

It ruins the arguement of the leakers would like to make that they had no choice to go to the press.

I think the deciding factor in going the legal route, and employing the Statutory remeds,as opposed to leaking to the press is ideological in nature.

[Jane]

I don't know if this has been posted, but this letter was sent on the same day that Hayden was nominated, which seems to put greater emphasis on the paragraph omitted by the times.

[Other Tom]

Redcoat: One of the many infuriating aspects of this whole leaking morass is that the MSM never, ever mention the statutory avenues that are legitimately available to concerned intellgence personnel.

[windansea]

In the case of the SWIFT program leak, the Department of Justice and the Treasury Department are both attempting to confirm how much material damage the Times's stories have wrought.

"We aren't going to get into specifics in public now, but I think when we brief the House and Senate in the coming days we will be able to make a clear and persuasive case that the SWIFT leak has severely set our efforts back on a number of fronts and on a number of investigations," says a Treasury official familiar with the preparations of the Congressional briefings. "Depending on where we come out of things, some of us are of a mindset to recommend that as much information as possible that we can allow to be declassified should be declassified, so that the American people can see just how much damage the Times has caused."

[Redcoat]

Other Tom:

"One of the many infuriating aspects of this whole leaking morass is that the MSM never, ever mention the statutory avenues that are legitimately available to concerned intellgence personnel."

I don't think you ever will see that,it cuts the "no oversight" and "the leakers had no choice" arguments off at the knees.

Without those, and the dubious "public's right to know" arguments,the only motivation they are left with is naked partisanship.

[Lurker]

Who leaked the H letter?

[crosspatch]

Yeah, that's what I want to know. The letter had to have been stolen and given to the media.

[crosspatch]

See, here's the thing that bugs me. This wasn't a report or something that had a wide distribution. This was apparently private letter from Hoekstra to the President. Neither of these parties would have an interest in leaking it, I don't think.

[Chuck Simmins]

I saw somewhere, perhaps Fox, that it is possible that these programs were discussed with Congress, not the Intelligence Committee. It was speculated that one unnamed program had been briefed to the Armed Services Committee. A turf war, in other words.

I believe the Congressman has demonstrated exactly why briefings to Congress should be kept to a minimum. This entire matter should never have become public. That it has is a black mark for the Congressman, and for the White House in allowing it to get this far.

[crosspatch]

Okay, Chuck, but how did the PDF of the letter itself become available? I can understand someone talking about it, but how did someone get hold of a physical copy of the letter?

This would lead me to ask what computers members of Congress use for classified materials. Do they use a pool of computers in a secure area? If so, is it possible someone has gained accesss to someone else's files?

[Reduc]

The leaks are all CIA. CIA is one of two agencies created by and traditionally thought of by those employees as responsible to (only)Congress. Why whould someone on the intelligence committee want the President to veryify what Congress has been doing since the beginnings of NSA? The NSA leaker was probably a CIA operations officer using NSA assetts domestically on political groups. Plame did this out of her 'Brewtser's Millions.'

The answers are already at the intelligence committee. Any of those can disagree and order a cancellation of any CIA program.

It is encouraging that others are looking for excuses for those on the intelligence committee, but they really do have power over the CIA.

[crosspatch]

The letter itself says copies were sent to:

Steve Hadley
Josh Bolton
John Negroponte

The PDF is obviously of a hard copy of the letter. It doesn't look like an original, but more like a scan of a photocopy. Also, the letter carries no classification stampings.

[crosspatch]

The leaks are all CIA.

I don't think that is true. I believe there are congressional leakers too.

CIA is one of two agencies created by and traditionally thought of by those employees as responsible to (only)Congress.

Huh? Truman created CIA and NSA over the howls of some in congress that he was creating a "police state". There was resistance to his creation of these agencies. Also, congressional oversight wasn't such a major issue before the Church Committee's investigations in 1975/6.

[Extraneus]

It doesn't say anything about Congress in the CIA's mission statement.

[Rick Ballard]

"The leaks are all CIA."

Not unless the NSA changed hands without anyone knowing about it.

The common factor seems to me to be that there is always a suggestion of impropriety expressed as a possibility that a program may be "illegal". What department would receive requests for a determination of legality, should such a question be raised internally within a security agency? And within that department what specific group is detailed to deal with security issues of the highest import? The answer is out there. Not very far out there either.

[Cecil Turner]

I take great encouragement from the fact that these people went the legal route provided to them,rather than leaking.

Except there was obviously leaking as well. And I'm having a hard time figuring where the leaks came from, though the usual suspects (VIPs and their NSWBC cohorts) come to mind.

[Redcoat]

If we stipulate that the letter was physically secure from outsiders, which of the recipiants would have a motive for making it public?

The White House (Bolton)-the letter,at least the parts emphasized by the media,give the impression they were trying to skirt Congressional oversight.

Hadley- Same reason as above

Nergoponte-we know he had a turf battle with Goss, perhaps a message to Hayden,and his new number 2 Kappes, to keep his people on a short leash,but he also gets tarred by the non-oversight charge.

or Hoekstra-affronted there were programs he was not told about,his statements about the C.I.A cabal,and his wanting to move the W.M.D story forward.

My money is on Hoekstra.

[crosspatch]

My money is on an intern someplace who is a journalism major.

[Redcoat]

Cecil Turner

Except there was obviously leaking as well.

I was giving those who went the legal route the benefit of the doubt that they were not leaking.

It's the honourable action,someone who goes the Whistleblower Statute route would not need to leak,and someone who leaks would not need to go the legal route.

But it is Washington, so who knows.

[old maltese]

Copy was sent to *Josh Bolton*.

Should be *Bolten*. Competence in spades here, it seems.

[Redcoat]

Crosspatch
"My money is on an intern someplace who is a journalism major."

Highly probable,and wouldn't surprise me at all.

However, the letter being public benefits Hoekstra in a number of ways.

First, he is holding the White House accountable to Congress, which looks good,the vast middle of the country is probably of the mind that they would rather err on the side of safety in terms of anti-terrorist programs,but it is something that would appeal to some members of the electorate.

Second,he looks very good to the Republican base by his pointing out of the C.I.A Cabal,and tackling the W.M.D issue.

[crosspatch]

Imagine you are someone who is very smart and believes they are good at what they do. You do your analysis, send it up, and it seems that time after time your analysis isn't included in the daily product. You feel they are being ignored. Even worse, you might feel that upper management doesn't even really understand what you are trying to say, and they don't seem particularly interested in learning what you are trying to say either.

Now imagine a new boss gets appointed who doesn't know the business, he is a politician, and be begins to bring in a bunch of his politician buddies. They don't know squat about the business and you sincerely believe they are going to wreck the place. You can't have them removed from office because you are but a peon but what you CAN do is undermine that leadership and see to it that they fail and are replaced.

There can be lots of motivations to leaking, some are political, some aren't.

[Cecil Turner]

I was giving those who went the legal route the benefit of the doubt that they were not leaking.

Again, somebody obviously did. And those negotiating the legal whistleblowing process would presumably have a motive to leak, as well as the requisite knowledge. (Which is also true of the pertinent IG, intel committee members and staff, and others more directly involved with the program.) The legal procedure obviously provides some cover, and the support from the disgruntled intel officer groups leads me to be a little less charitable . . .

[crosspatch]

However, the letter being public benefits Hoekstra in a number of ways.

Except it is so completely out of character for him to leak such a thing based on the letter itself and how it comes down hard on partisan leakers. That is a sword that would cut both ways and Hoekstra would understand that. By leaking the document, he would make a mockery of it. He didn't leak it. At least I feel pretty confident that he didn't leak it.

[Tom Maguire]

My money is on Hoekstra.

Well, Hoekstra did restate the case with enthusiasm on Fox the next day (Sunday) - did he just recover from his surprise about seeing his private mail in the Times that quickly?

I could see "Hoekstra+" scheme - maybe Hoekstra secretly encouraged Negroponte to tip to the Times, so Hoekstra could fulminate on Fox, for instance. But I could easily see Hoekstra as a solo act here.

[Lew Clark]

Here's a "just maybe". Tice is at it again, this time talking to his second choice, Congress. His first choice being the NYT. The Democrats are going to call their press conferences and demand Bush be impeached (ONE MORE TIME!). Hoekstra/Bush, based on lessons learned, are ahead of the curve on this one. Hoekstra writes letter to Bush, NSA briefs House Intelligence Committee, and, when asked why they weren't briefed before, briefer shows copies of three briefings that included this (obviously briefing took place during committee member's nap time).

The more important reason for the letter, however, is the ongoing leak probe. The letter was not for general distribution, and went to only a few. One of the few has been highly suspected as a leaker. letter is leaked and suspects fingerprints are all over it.

[Redcoat]

old maltese

Wrong.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,189307,00.html

[crosspatch]

One of the few has been highly suspected as a leaker. letter is leaked and suspects fingerprints are all over it.

Try getting fingerprints off a document scanned into a PDF!

Intern sees document, makes a copy, scans into PDF, sends email to NYT reporter because said intern is bucking for a job there after college. I would look for an intern with a journalism major. Seriously.

[Redcoat]

Crosspatch,

Except it is so completely out of character for him to leak such a thing based on the letter itself and how it comes down hard on partisan leakers.

There is that,Hoekstra does not seem to be very upset over the leak however.

Cecil Turner

"The legal procedure obviously provides some cover, and the support from the disgruntled intel officer groups leads me to be a little less charitable . . ."

I can't argue with that, I am approaching this form the "what would I do" standpoint.

I should be more cynical.

[clarice]

Cecil, as usual I think you're right. I don't remember where I saw it but Hoekstra and Santorum in their presser described how they'd been stonewalled when they sought this stuff, and then someone from another government office brought it to their attention.They were steamed that the agencies involved had made no effort to search outside the box to provide it to them.

[Redcoat]

Crosspatch

"I would look for an intern with a journalism major. Seriously."

It's a serious point, in your opinion,in whose office would an intern have access to the letter?

We know the White House, in the past, has had interns who are of questionable moral character.

[old maltese]

Redcoat: I'm talking about the pdf linked by Tom.

Hoekstra's letter clearly says *Josh Bolton* in the copy list at the end.

I was noting the incompetence of the letter writer (typist? editor?), not Crosspatch's list, which was taken accurately from the pdf.

[crosspatch]

Hoekstra does not seem to be very upset over the leak however.

True enough, but Hoekstra has been very clear in his criticism of the President for not getting information all along. The WMD issue was the latest iteration of that merry-go-round.

There is really nothing new said in that letter on that subject.

Maybe he's happy because they have now discovered their leaker.

[crosspatch]

My wife served as an intern to a Senator from her state one summer when she was in college.

[Redcoat]

old maltese

Sorry about that.

[crosspatch]

It's a serious point, in your opinion,in whose office would an intern have access to the letter?

Negroponte probably doesn't have interns anywhere near his office. Any of the others could. A document left on a printer next to a copier ... simple to do, there are no markings of classification on the letter.

[Redcoat]

Crosspatch.

So it may have come from Congress,perhaps Hoekstra's office.

I'm sure there are those who are less scrupolous than your wife.

I hope your wife's home State was not Massachusetts,those offices would not be safe for a young woman.

[crosspatch]

Old Maltese,

You can probably chalk that error up to "autocomplete" in the word processor ...

John Bolton
Josh Bolten

Bolton was probably already entered into the spell checker :)