Post Says CIA Scandal Makes Obama Look Tough

In the strange world of The Washington Post, the arrest of a former CIA officer on charges of helping Iran is another indication that the Obama Administration is tough on national security problems.

“The indictment is the latest in a series of cases the Justice Department has brought against alleged leakers of government secrets since President Obama took office,” Post reporter Greg Miller reported.

But the story reveals in the second to the last paragraph that the FBI was investigating the former officer, Jeffrey A. Sterling, back in 2003—five years before Obama was elected and when George W. Bush was President. So the Obama Administration had no alternative but to pursue the case.

The real question is why it took so long to get an indictment.

Perhaps it is because the New York Times reporter who used Sterling as a source refused to cooperate with federal authorities.

The indictment is full of references to “Author A,” identified in press reports as James Risen of The New York Times. The indictment makes it clear that Risen used Sterling as a source for his New York Times articles and 2006 book State of War.  

The Post said, “Federal authorities pressured Risen at least twice to testify before a grand jury investigating the case. [David N.] Kelley, Risen’s attorney, said that the reporter declined to comply and that he does not expect Risen to be called as a witness if there is a trial.”

In a New York Times story about the indictment, reporter Charlie Savage said that Risen “declined to comment about whether Mr. Sterling was his source…”

Clearly, Risen is covering up.

The Times emphasized that Risen said he did not cooperate with federal authorities investigating the case and seeking Sterling’s indictment.

So why wasn’t Risen indicted for obstruction of justice or threatened with contempt and thrown in jail by the Obama Justice Department for refusing to testify?

In terms of motive, the Times said that Sterling is black and believed he was being discriminated against by the agency. This apparently accounts for his alleged treachery in cooperating with the Times and trying to do damage to America.

The stories about the alleged toughness of the Obama Administration in national security cases ignore the inaction in another more prominent case.

In an area where the Obama Administration has an opportunity to file an indictment over the release of classified information, the WikiLeaks case, it has so far done nothing.

Interestingly, the Institute for Public Accuracy, a left-wing group, has warned Attorney General Eric Holder not to pursue espionage charges against Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, because the Espionage Act, under which an indictment could be brought, is supposedly unconstitutional.

Its source of the charge is attorney Robert Meeropol, founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Fund for Children. His parents, atomic spies and communists Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were charged, tried and executed after being found guilty of violating the law.

The advisory board of the Rosenberg Fund includes Angela Davis, the former Communist Party USA official who beat a murder rap; former Rep. Ron Dellums, the Oakland Democrat who once served as a member of the House Intelligence Committee; communist folksinger Pete Seeger; Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights; and even Leonard Peltier, the American Indian activist now in prison for murdering two FBI agents.

Appearing on Russia Today television, the foreign propaganda channel funded by Moscow, Robert Meeropol recently talked about “the fight to protect Julian Assange.”

In this context, far-left activist Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and Global Exchange revealed that she recently got a chance to talk to Holder about the WikiLeaks case, telling him that “it was not right to go after Julian Assange.” She said that he replied, “We’ll see. We’re still investigating.”

Benjamin reports that she told Holder “that if he went after Assange he’d have to go after NYT [New York Times]” and that he replied, “No, that’s different.” The Times is one of five news organizations actively cooperating with Assange’s release of classified information.

Holder also told Benjamin that he would “look into” the FBI’s investigations of domestic Marxist groups being examined for providing support to foreign terrorist organizations in Latin America and the Middle East. Benjamin called the Marxist groups “the peace community” and wants the investigations called off. 

Holder knows a lot about the “peace community,” having played a key role in President Bill Clinton’s pardons of Weather Underground and Puerto Rican terrorists.