All the news that’s fit to leak …

In today’s episode, we learn that CIA intelligence analyst Mary O. McCarthy is accused of being The Source for WaPo reporter Dana Priest’s Pulitzer-prize winning reporting on secret CIA prisons. Ms. McCarthy has been fired from her job. NBC News reports that she is under investigation by the Justice Department. At the very least, Ms. McCarthy would have violated a signed secrecy agreement by leaking information to Priest. The arrest action was part of a determined effort by CIA Director Porter Goss to crack down on leaks.

It also appears that someone at the Agency violated the Privacy Act by leaking Ms. McCarthy’s name and job description to news media, but we weren’t supposed to notice that.

Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post quotes her boss:

Post Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr. said people who provide citizens the information they need to hold their government accountable should not “come to harm for that.”

“The reporting that Dana did was very important accountability reporting about how the CIA and the rest of the U.S. government have been conducting the war on terror,” Downie said. “Whether or not the actions of the CIA or other agencies have interfered with anyone’s civil liberties is important information for Americans to know and is an important part of our jobs.”

The Bush Bitter Enders are howling for McCarthy’s head on a pike, but seems to me people who live with leaky glass plumbing are advised not to throw rocks — Matthew Barakat reports for the Associated Press:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice leaked national defense information to a pro-Israel lobbyist in the same manner that landed a lower-level Pentagon official a 12-year prison sentence, the lobbyist’s lawyer said Friday.

Prosecutors disputed the claim.

The allegations against Rice came as a federal judge granted a defense request to issue subpoenas sought by the defense for Rice and three other government officials in the trial of Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman. The two are former lobbyists with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are charged with receiving and disclosing national defense information.

Condi’s subpoena may well be just a grandstanding tactic on the part of the defense lawyer, so until we hear more I wouldn’t make too much out of this. Still, the Bushies might not want to make a big bad example out of the grandmotherly McCarthy while stories about their own leaks are dripping away in the background. Bad PR, you know. (See TalkLeft for more background on this case.)

Speaking of background drips, this is from a letter to the editor in yesterday’s Kansas City Star by concerned citizen David Langton of Shawnee, KS:

Where are all the Republican voices that were so loud when Bill Clinton stood before the camera and lied to the American people?

There seems to be a belief in moral relativism in the Republicans’ view of President Bush’s behavior.

Bush stood before the camera and told the American people that he would not stand for the leaking of classified information. He also said he would remove anyone from his administration who was involved in such behavior.

When it became clear people in the administration were involved in leaks, he softened his position on their removal.

Now we know the president himself was leaking classified information.

We are now given some tortured logic that it is not a leak of classified information if the president declassifies and leaks it.

Are we also supposed to believe it is not a lie if the president says it’s not a lie?

Yes. That is exactly what we’re supposed to believe. Next question?

Alan L. Light of Iowa City writes in the Quad City Times of Davenport, IA:

You have to wonder why President Bush has allowed millions of dollars to be spent investigating leaks that, he now admits, came from him.

Every time President Bush was asked about White House leaks he said that he knew nothing about it, he would get to the bottom of it, and would punish whoever did it. Does it mean nothing to him to waste millions of taxpayer dollars on a needless investigation? Why didn’t he come forward sooner and just say “Yes, I declassified it?”

What’s even more galling is that the information Bush leaked in order to supposedly “spread the truth” was in fact information that had already been proven wrong months before he authorized it to be leaked. In other words, Bush didn’t want people to see the truth so he intentionally leaked false information, information he knew had been disproved months before, in order to trick the American people into supporting the war in Iraq under false circumstances.

Bush has repeatedly abused power, lied to Congress, lied to the American people, lied to the military, started war on false pretenses, has demonstrated the most egregious incompetence and has placed the nation in a precarious economic and diplomatic condition.

But at least he didn’t lie about sex or we’d have to impeach him.

Snort. Too droll.

Regarding Mary McCarthy’s leak — in a coincidence too perfect to be a coincidence, it’s also reported today that a European Parliament probe into CIA “renditions” in Europe has not found any “illegal activities” on the part of the CIA:

Oddly, the investigator who issued this statement, Gijs de Vries, seems to have been investigating very selectively:

De Vries came under sharp criticism from the EU parliamentarians for refusing to consider earlier testimonies from a German and a Canadian who described to the committee how they were kidnapped and imprisoned by foreign agents, and from a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan who alleged that British intelligence services used information obtained under torture.

”There is so much circumstantial evidence, you can’t close your eyes from the fact that this is probably happening,” Dutch deputy and civil liberties activist Kathalijne Buitenweg said.

The US has never confirmed or denied the renditions. The committee plans to go to Washington to interview former and current CIA officials and Bush administration officials.

The parliament committee is seeking firsthand testimony from people who say they were kidnapped by US intelligence agents and from human rights activists and EU antiterrorism officials to get a better picture of the reported US ”extraordinary rendition” flights.

Rightie blogger Rick Moran puts together the McCarthy and de Vries stories and chuckles, “Interestingly, the leak was about the ‘Secret Prisons’ being run by the CIA overseas. You remember the ‘secret prisons’ don’t you? You know, the ones no one seems to be able to find … Can you say ‘sting?'”

Well yes, I can, and the theory that McCarthy and Priest were fed false information as part of a sting operation to find leakers is an interesting one. But the news story Moran links doesn’t say de Vries found no secret prisons (although other news stories did say that; see below). It says de Vries managed not to find evidence of illegal renditions. The EU Parliament is looking into allegations that the CIA is kidnapping people without due process of law and using European air bases as “rendering” transit points without the host countries’ permission. Their investigation into the existence of secret prisons is separate, the Associated Press story says:

The legislators also are investigating news reports of secret detention centers in Eastern Europe. They are expected to publish a final report on their findings in June.

Other news stories quote de Vries as saying he couldn’t find prisons, although it’s not clear he was looking for them. Dan Bilefsky reports for the International Herald Tribune:

The European Union’s antiterrorism chief told a hearing today that he has not been able to prove that secret C.I.A. prisons existed in Europe.

“We’ve heard all kinds of allegations,” the official, Gijs de Vries, said before a packed chamber of deputies. “It does not appear to be proven beyond reasonable doubt.”

But Mr. de Vries came under criticism from some legislators who called the hearing a whitewash. “The circumstantial evidence is stunning,” said Kathalijne Buitenweg, a Dutch member of Parliament from the Green Party, even if there is no smoking gun.

“I’m appalled that we keep calling to uphold human rights while pretending that these rendition centers don’t exist and doing nothing about it,” she said. ..

..A number of legislators challenged Mr. de Vries for not taking seriously earlier testimony before the committee by a German and a Canadian who gave accounts of being kidnapped and kept imprisoned by foreign agents.

Lisl Brunner of The Jurist reports:

De Vries’ comments to the committee investigating the CIA allegations [official website] were met with criticism from members of parliament, who cited 50 hours of testimony that it heard from alleged victims of rendition and human rights organizations.

Italian MEP Claudio Fava called de Vries’ testimony “completely useless,” while Dutch MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg noted “stunning” circumstantial evidence regarding the existence of the prisons. The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan also testified that he had witnessed rendition programs carried out in that country but could not confirm that they were linked with Europe.

A story in the March 31 Los Angeles Times says another investigator is convinced there are secret prisons.

The United Nations’ special investigator on torture says he is certain that there are secret U.S. prisons in Europe and he wants access to them.

Manfred Nowak said, “I am 100% sure. I have evidence.”

He cited a U.S. refusal to provide details or records of interrogations later used in terrorism trials in Germany. He did not explain how that was proof of the existence of the CIA-run prisons.

Bottom line, the question of whether there are or are not secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe remains open.

Finally, on last night’s Hardball there was a weird exchange among guest host Norah O’Donnell, former congressman and fugitive from justice Joe Scarborough, and Craig Crawford. They were discussing reports that someone close to new White House chief of staff Josh Bolten had leaked plans to redeploy Harriet Miers out of the White House.

Rightie blog NewsBusters (this is the same guy who was outraged that Eleanor Clift used an op ed to state an opinion) provides a partial transcript. Scarborough was certain Bolten would not have leaked that Miers was on her way out without Bush’s permission. Talk about poor Harriet getting stabbed in the back! But Craig Crawford (not quoted at NewsBusters) was dubious. He thought it more likely that Bolten was using a leak to pressure Bush into letting Miers go.

That does it for today’s episode of As the Leaks Drip, unless more stuff happens.

Update: See Glenn Greenwald.