Chuck Schumer’s hypocrisy

Via AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The investigation into leaks about a domestic spying program should determine whether the motivation was damaging security or revealing a potentially illegal activity, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday.

“There are differences between felons and whistleblowers, and we ought to wait ’til the investigation occurs to decide what happened,” said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

That’s very interesting. I don’t recall Sen. Schumer taking the “wait ’til the investigation occurs to decide what happened” stance when it came to the alleged ‘outing’ of Valerie Plame. In fact, I’m very sure he did not and has not waited until the investigation occurs [read: completed] to decide what Karl Rove was guilty of:

Today U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer and Ambassador Joseph Wilson called for the suspension of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove’s security clearance until the investigation of the leak of CIA Agent Valerie Plame’s identity is resolved. Also, Schumer is co-sponsoring an amendment to Homeland Security spending bill, offered by Sen. Carl Levin which would suspend or revoke security clearances for federal employees who have disclosed classified information.

Schumer said, “I was the first to call for the immediate, independent investigation into the Plame leak, and that investigation is now finally bearing fruit. The bottom line here is simple, and something we all learned as children Γ’β‚¬β€œ if someone can’t keep a secret, don’t tell him secrets. It now appears very possible that Karl Rove can’t keep a secret, even a national security secret. It is simply too great a risk to allow him continued access to classified information if these allegations may be true. The President must cut off Rove’s national security clearance until this investigation comes to a close.”

Note the presumption of guilt, even though he cleverly worded it by using terms like (emphasis mine) “very possible” and “if someone can’t keep a secret.” Sen. Schumer left no doubt as to where he stood on that issue – yet when it comes to leaks that really do have the potential of damaging our national security, we have to “wait” until the investigation “occurs” [again read: is completed – because surely he wouldn’t advocate premature judgement on an ongoing investigation, would he?] before we speculate as to whether the person was a felon or a ‘whistleblower.’ That’s also another fascinating tidbit from his statement. Doesn’t it seem like Schumer is saying “we must find out whether or not an actual crime has been committed here before we start assigning guilt?” Seems so. Another signal of hypocrisy on his part.

Apparently, leaking classified info to the press that could damage our national security is ok to Chuck Schumer, even though surely Schumer is aware that the WH legal team had been advised that this was legal to do, and no doubt also knows that the WH also made sure key members of Congress were kept in the loop as well on this. So it’s not as though the WH kept the whole Congress in the dark about what was happening. People knew – people like Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who now are trying to play the ‘helpless Senator’ by claiming he was told he wasn’t allowed to reveal what he knew to anyone, even though that didn’t stop him in the last few weeks, thanks to a leaker paving the way for him to do so.

Or maybe he was the leaker himself and wanted to wait for the perfect opp. to strike?

In any event, don’t you just love it how these two guys want everyone to think they have our best interests at heart? We know better.

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