Courtesy of ‘People For the American Way’:

Members of George W. Bush’s administration leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent to the press. That agent was the wife of one of the administration’s political foes. Knowingly leaking the identity of an undercover agent puts the lives of the agent and her sources in danger and is a violation of federal law, punishable by up to ten years in prison. Right now, only John Ashcroft’s Justice Department is looking into this. Given Ashcroft’s record, such an investigation is not credible and Americans deserve better.

While the White House claims it will comply with an Ashcroft-led investigation into the identity leak, that is clearly not enough. Sign the petition to demand that Ashcroft designate an independent investigator and that Bush and his administration comply fully and openly with that investigation.

A major public outcry is the only way to end the ongoing cover-up and keep the guilty from going free. Don’t let them get away with it.

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Background on the Leak:

According to Robert Novak, “two administration officials” revealed the identity and work of the undercover CIA operative, which was subsequently published in Novak’s column.

Novak’s column focused on the exposed agent’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, and his revelation that the Bush administration asked him to investigate the bogus story that Iraq attempted to purchase “yellowcake” uranium from Niger and then ignored his findings.

According to the September 28th Washington Post, a Bush administration official said that two White House officials leaked the information to selected journalists to discredit Wilson. Only Novak was willing to print the information.

(Interestingly, President Bush’s top political advisor, Karl Rove, was allegedly fired in ’92 by George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign for vindictive leaking to the same Robert Novak. – Esquire Magazine, 1/2003)

The exposure of the agent is so reprehensible that President Richard Nixon’s Watergate-era aide, John Dean, was moved to write: “If I thought I had seen dirty political tricks as nasty and vile as they could get at the Nixon White House, I was wrong…Nixon never set up a hit on one of his enemies’ wives.”

DEMAND AN INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION

PFAW © 2003