Specter wants answers from top
President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should speak publicly about their involvement in the CIA leak case so people can understand what happened, a leading Republican senator said Sunday.
“We ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated, again, by the American people,” said Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a federal court filing last week, the prosecutor in the case said Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, testified before a grand jury that he was authorized by Bush, through Cheney, to leak information from a classified document that detailed intelligence agencies’ conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
A lawyer knowledgeable about the case said Saturday that Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Libby be the one to disseminate the information.
“I think that it is necessary for the president and vice president to tell the American people exactly what happened,” Specter told “Fox News Sunday.”
Man arrested on White House lawn
A screaming intruder made it onto the front lawn of the White House Sunday while President Bush was at home, before being apprehended by Secret Service officers.
Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahren described the man as “someone who has come to our attention in the past as a fence jumper.”
The bearded man, wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt that said “God Bless America,” jumped the fence outside the White House and ran across the north lawn while repeatedly yelling, “I am a victim of terrorism!”
Members of the Secret Service emergency response team, including one holding a barking dog, chased the man with their guns drawn and surrounded him near the row of cameras set up for television stand-ups.
“I have intelligence information for the president,” he said, waving his arms in the air. “I’m not afraid of you,” he screamed at the officers who were ordering him to the ground with guns drawn.
The man eventually kneeled on the ground and was taken into custody shortly before 4 p.m.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill.
Pilot in bombing sues Air Force
A decorated pilot involved in a friendly fire bombing in Afghanistan that killed four Canadian soldiers is suing the Air Force, accusing it of ruining his reputation.
National Guard Maj. Harry Schmidt says military officials should not have released to the public the scathing letter of reprimand he was given for the bombing.
His lawsuit, filed Friday in federal court, alleges the military violated privacy laws. It seeks unspecified damages.
The disclosure in July 2004 also violated a settlement agreement that spared Schmidt from being court-martialed for the 2002 bombing that killed four Canadian soldiers and injured eight others, said his lawyer, Charles Gittins.
“The government flat-out failed to comply with their agreement,” Gittins said.
Lt. Col. Catherine Reardon, an Air Force spokeswoman, had not seen the lawsuit. “At this point, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the case,” she said Sunday.
On April 17, 2002, Schmidt and another pilot were flying F-16s when they spotted muzzle flashes near Kandahar airport. The Canadians were firing weapons on a training range but Schmidt mistook them for Taliban forces and dropped a 500-pound, laser-guided bomb.
He has said his superiors never told him the Canadians would be conducting live-fire exercises that night.
The second pilot received a letter of reprimand and was allowed to retire from the Guard. He is not a party to the lawsuit.
Compiled from wire reports