2 to check for White House leaks
Holder assures that prosecutors will ‘doggedly follow facts’
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder appointed two prosecutors to investigate possible leaks of classified information by the Obama administration.
Holder named Ronald Machen, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, and Rod Rosenstein, U.S. attorney for Maryland, to head the probe, according to a statement Friday from the Justice Department.
“I have every confidence in their abilities to doggedly follow the facts and the evidence in the pursuit of justice wherever it leads,” Holder said in the statement.
Before becoming U.S. attorney, Machen helped lead the white-collar and internal investigation practices at the prominent Washington law firm of WilmerHale. He served as an assistant U.S. attorney from 1997 to 2001.
Machen is leading a political-corruption probe of officials in the District of Columbia.
Rosenstein was an associate independent counsel who worked for Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr from 1995 to 1997. He was co-counsel in the fraud trial of Jim and Susan McDougal, the former real-estate partners of Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The McDougals were convicted in a trial that also resulted in the conviction of then-Arkansas Gov. Jim Guy Tucker.
President Barack Obama’s administration has been accused of leaking information about a U.S. cyber-attack against Iran’s nuclear program and Obama’s personal role in directing drone attacks against terrorists to boost his electionyear national security bona fides. The disclosures have prompted calls from lawmakers for an investigation and possible prosecutions.
Obama said Friday that White House officials didn’t leak classified intelligence to journalists. In response to a question, he said anyone who leaked “will suffer consequences” and, in some instances, the disclosures could lead to criminal charges.
“The notion that my White House would purposely release classified national security information is offensive,” Obama said. “It’s wrong.”
In a statement Wednesday, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the senior Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the disclosures were “grossly irresponsible” and said there is a “deeper political motivation” for leaks.
The CIA won’t respond to a House Intelligence Committee request for information about leaks of classified data, Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican and chairman of the panel, said Thursday.
Preston Golson, a CIA spokesman, said Thursday there was no intent by the agency to withhold information on the leaks issue.
“We all have to be careful not to jeopardize the DOJ criminal investigation that is running concurrently with the congressional inquiry,” Golson said in an e-mail. Information for this article was contributed by Chris Strohm and Kate Andersen Brower of Bloomberg News and by Pete Yost, Anne Gearan and Wendy Benjaminson of The Associated Press.