Security Leaks Require A Special Prosecutor

There have been a number of substantial national security leaks that have happened over the past few months. Nearly all of them make President Obama look strong and heroic. These leaks range from a computer virus attack on Iran (how is this anything but an act of war?) to our Nobel Prize winning President picking and choosing which terrorists to target and kill via drone attacks, these are not minor leaks. Back in June both Democrats and Republicans in Congress attacked the White House for these leaks, demanding an investigation. Obama’s response was to declare it “offensive” to suggest the leaks came from the White House. He has since turned the matter over to Eric Holder.

Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) recently suggested the leaks come directly from the White House and they’ve been leaked to make Obama look good. She’s since tried to walk those comments back but obviously she believes the White House is up to something. Whether it goes up to Obama is anyone’s guess. Even if it doesn’t go up to Obama, someone in the White House is trying to bolster his image by leaking national security information that makes him look good. It should be noted that none of these major leaks make Obama or his administration look particularly bad.

This problem has been left for Eric Holder to investigate. It’s safe to say that Republicans and a fair number of Democrats don’t have much confidence in Holder after the Fast and Furious investigation. Holder has made a number of questionable decisions, including failing to prosecute Black Panthers engaged in voter intimidation because they’re black. Most recently he’s failed to prosecute Jon Corzine, who illegally invested and lost over $1 billion in client funds while running MF Global. Corzine is a major Obama campaign bundler and Holder’s former law firm represented MF Global.

Rather than allow Holder to investigate these leaks, a special prosecutor should be appointed. Generally speaking we don’t need special prosecutors for every minor questionable decision or for every minor leak within the government. But when major leaks are occurring and it appears they’re coming from the White House, it’s best for everyone if a special prosecutor investigates. Keep in mind, it was a special prosecutor who filed charges against Scooter Libby during the Bush administration. He revealed the name of a minor covert CIA agent. Surely the leaks coming from the Obama White House are worse than Libby’s error.

So why isn’t there a special prosecutor in the Obama leak case? This is the million dollar question at this point. If it is “offensive” to believe that the leaks are coming from the White House, then surely they aren’t coming from the top. If that’s the case, why isn’t Obama protecting his political interests by having a special prosecutor investigate this? The worst thing that could happen is that some minor, overzealous staffers get prosecuted. By not having a special prosecutor, Obama makes it look like he’s trying to cover something up because only the most liberal Democrat ideologues have faith in Holder at this point. Not appointing a special prosecutor only hurts Obama’s political interests.

The flip here is that Obama knows where the leaks are coming from and is either trying to protect himself or those people. If this is the case, it’s exactly why we have a special prosecutor at the Federal level. Eric Holder isn’t going to prosecute Obama or any of his top advisors, that much is clear. A special prosecutor would have no problem filing charges against anyone but the President. So is Obama protecting himself or others close to him from prosecution? It’s to early to say one way or the other but the issue is open because of the lack of a special prosecutor.

Eric Holder cannot be trusted to fairly investigate these leaks, his track record doesn’t afford him the benefit of the doubt. This is an important national security issue. It’s far more important that we protect our nation’s national security interests than it is to protect Obama’s advisors or low level staffers. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle support having a special prosecutor, everyone wants to put a stop to these security leaks. We need a special prosecutor and until we get one our national security is in jeopardy.