CJ
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20020824/ts_nm/attack_leak_dc_3
FBI Said to Target Lawmakers in 9/11 Leak Probe Sat Aug 24, 7:48 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI ( news - web sites) has stepped up a probe of a Sept. 11-related classified intelligence leak, asking 17 senators to turn over phone records and schedules that might reveal contact with reporters, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.
In an Aug. 7 memo sent through the Senate general counsel's office, the FBI asked all members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to hand over records from June 18 and 19, 2002, the Post said.
Those dates are the day of and the day after a classified hearing in which the director of the National Security Agency spoke to lawmakers about two highly sensitive messages the agency intercepted on Sept.
10 hinting at an impending action. It did not translate the messages until Sept. 12.
On June 19 media organizations began reporting the contents of the two messages based on the agency intercepts. The Arabic-language messages said, "The match is about to begin," and "Tomorrow is zero hour."
Sen. Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who heads the committee, said he had received the request and he and members of the committee would comply.
In June, following White House complaints about classified information being leaked, Graham asked Attorney General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) to have the Justice Department ( news - web sites) launch an investigation.
'FULLY COOPERATING'
"We felt the most appropriate way to deal with it was to have an agency like the Department of Justice ( news - web sites), which could look at all the potential sources of that week," Graham said in comments aired on ABC television. "And therefore we are fully cooperating with the FBI's review."
ABC said North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2004, had also received the request and said he would comply.
An FBI spokeswoman would not comment.
The requests suggest the FBI is focusing on senior senators who are members of a panel investigating Sept. 11, who attend most classified meetings and read the most sensitive intelligence agency communications, the Post said.
A similar request did not go to House of Representatives intelligence committee members, it added.
The information requests come at a time when some members of Congress are already disgruntled that an executive branch agency is probing the actions of legislators whose job is to oversee FBI and intelligence agencies.
In recent weeks, FBI agents finished questioning nearly 100 people, including all 37 members of separate House and Senate intelligence committees and some 60 staff members. At the conclusion of their interviews with members and staff, FBI agents typically asked them if they would be willing to take polygraph tests. Most declined, the Post said.
The National Security Agency, based at Fort Meade, Maryland, is one of the government's most secretive intelligence agencies. Much of its information carries a higher classification than other sorts of intelligence. It is illegal to release classified information.
Neither congressional historians nor legal experts could recall any situation in which the FBI was probing a leak of classified information in this way, the Post said.
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