The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
GOP wants outside counsel amid leaks
Despite AG’S testimony, senators seek special prosecutor for probe.
WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday fended off Republican demands that he appoint a special counsel outside of the Justice Department to look into national security leaks.
Holder said he and FBI Director Robert Mueller have already been interviewed by the FBI as part of a fast-moving Justice Department leak investigation.
At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said they want the attorney general to appoint a special counsel to look into the leaks, rather than Holder’s choices, U.S. Attorneys Ron Machen and Rod Rosenstein, who hold political appointments.
Graham and Grassley were referring to a procedure by which a special counsel appointed from outside the Justice Department conducts the leak investigations.
Holder praised the two U.S. attorneys as experienced and highly respected.
“We have people who have shown independence, an ability to be thorough and who have the guts to ask tough questions,” Holder told the committee. “And the charge that I’ve given them is to follow the leads wherever they are, whether it is — wherever it is in the executive branch or some other component of government. I have great faith in their abilities.”
Machen and Rosenstein were appointed to oversee investigations into who leaked information about U.S. involvement in cyberattacks on Iran and an alQaida plot to place an explosive device aboard a U.S.-bound flight.
Not far from where Holder was testifying, Sen. John McCain, President Barack Obama’s 2008 rival and the harshest critic of the White House over the leaks, introduced a nonbinding resolution calling for a special counsel. He was joined by more than a dozen GOP senators in pressing for the measure.
At the Senate committee hearing, Holder told the committee that speed in carrying out the leak probes was an important factor in appointing the two prosecutors. Holder cited the quick interviews of him and Mueller as one illustration of that speed.
“That interview was not some kind of pro forma take it easy interview. I mean, these were serious — a serious interview that was done by some serious FBI agents,” said Holder. “The same thing happened to the director of the FBI as well because we were people who had knowledge of these matters,” that were the subjects of the leaks.