The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee complained on Sunday that the fired CIA employee who leaked classified information to the Washington Post about top secret interrogations of al Qaeda suspects was being held to a higher standard than President Bush.
Asked if she saw similarities between Bush's decision to share declassified intelligence on Iraq with the media - and CIA leaker Mary McCarthy, Rep. Jane Harman told "Fox News Sunday: "You bet I do."
"While leaks are wrong, I think it is totally wrong for our president, in secret, to selectively declassify certain information and to empower people in his White House to leak it to favored reporters so they can discredit political enemies," she griped.
"That is wrong, that is unprecedented," Harman claimed. "I have never, ever heard about that happening in other administrations."
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The California Democrat stressed that she didn't mean to defend Ms. McCarthy's leak, which CIA Director Porter Goss has described as doing serious damage to his agency's relationship with European intelligence agencies.
But Harman said McCarthy was being held to "a double standard."
"[Bush] wasn't breaking the law because the president claims to have power that no one else has," she complained.
"He should be reminded that . . . . the inherent powers of the presidency are not unlimited."
Harman charged that Bush had committed a "violation of law" by not briefing the full House and Senate intelligence committees on the NSA's terrorist surveillance program, saying: "I think having a double standard is absolutely wrong."