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“ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE VALERIE PLAME MATTER” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H1972-H1973 on April 14, 2005.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE VALERIE PLAME MATTER
(Mr. HOLT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. HOLT. Mr. Speaker, nearly 2 years after a columnist disclosed the identity of a CIA employee, the White House and the Department of Justice have yet to find and hold accountable the person or persons who leaked her name to the press.
We know that at least one, and possibly more, executive branch officials violated their oaths to protect classified information and, in doing so, they squandered an important intelligence asset and may have jeopardized the lives of people with whom she has been in contact. American security was harmed.
Some have offered weak excuses for the disclosure, saying the person's identity was already known or her work was not really important. Those are outrageous excuses. More troubling still is the fact that this was leaked in the context of a political vendetta. According to published reports, the leaker was trying to discredit former ambassador Joe Wilson, who was disputing the administration's assertions that Saddam was trying to unleash weapons of mass destruction on the United States. Of course, we now know Wilson was right.
As President George Herbert Walker Bush stated in a speech to CIA employees a few years ago, ``Those who leak the identity of intelligence operatives are the most insidious of traders.'' What does it say about the ethics and responsibilities of this body and the administration that attempts to find this person have been so anemic?
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