By The Prowler on 4.26.06 @ 12:08AM
If there's nothing to charge her with, why talk of a legal defense fund?
Outed CIA analyst Mary McCarthy is denying
through her lawyers that she was the source for the Washington
Post's Dana Priest in revealing the secret
prisons that housed terrorists overseas. McCarthy's lawyers,
though, aren't throwing cold water on the notion that McCarthy may
have had political inclinations and agendas that came into play
with what even they termed unauthorized or undisclosed contacts
with journalists.
Perhaps that's why the Howard Dean and others
at the Democrat National Committee are looking to some of their
donors to set up a legal defense fund for McCarthy.
"If Scooter Libby can have a legal defense fund
and website, then McCarthy should have one too," says a DNC
staffer. "The DNC wouldn't set it up, we'd have some of our donors
do it on the outside. There are plenty of consultants willing to
help on this one, we think."
The whole legal defense fund notion is interesting if only
because McCarthy is claiming that there is no need for one. The FBI
has not received a request from the CIA to formally investigate her
activities while an active CIA employee, and McCarthy claims she
wasn't the source. So case, closed, right?
Well, not quite. Republicans in both the House and the Senate
view McCarthy as the first of what they believe are four or five
individuals who used access to information for political
purposes.
"Going back to the Presidential election in 2004, there was a
lot of negative information coming out of Democratic campaigns,"
says a former Bush Administration staffer. "And it wasn't the kind
of stuff that was readily available from opposition research. This
was leaked material. A lot of it wasn't national security related,
but it established a pattern that has followed form for almost two
years now. There is orchestrated leaking, and the FBI, the CIA and
Congress has to do something about it."
Fairly or unfairly, McCarthy may become a test case, and given
her interest in the law, it should be quite the learning experience
for all involved.
topics:
Law
