Did Mary McCarthy Admit To Leaking Information?
Newsweek's Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff quote one of McCarthy's "friends" as saying "no":
The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, “categorically denies being the source of the leak,” one of McCarthy’s friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy. Beers said he could not elaborate on this denial and McCarthy herself did not respond to a request for comment left by NEWSWEEK on her home answering machine.
The New York Times, on the other hand, says that she did admit to leaking information:
As the inspector general, Mr. Helgerson was the supervisor of Mary O. McCarthy, who was fired Thursday after admitting she had leaked classified information to reporters about secret C.I.A. detention centers and other subjects, agency officials said.
"Agency officials" say she did, her "friend" says she didn't. Which version is right?
The Newsweek account also includes this passage centering on Larry Johnson:
Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who got into a dispute with McCarthy in the late l980s when she was his supervisor and remains critical of her management style, nonetheless says that he “never saw her allow her political [views] to cloud her analytical judgment.” Johnson maintains the Bush White House is “really damaging the intelligence community” by sending a message to career officials that “unless you are a partisan of the party in power, you cannot be trusted.” This message, Johnson says, is destroying the intelligence community’s “professional ethos.”
This has to be some kind of bad joke. Larry Johnson is one of the most partisan hacks out there today. Yes, people will point out that he was once a Republican. Fine. But, he has made it his job to trash the Bush administration the last several years.
Mr. Johnson has repositioned himself as a talking head since leaving the intelligence community. Why does anyone listen to him? I don't know. This is the same guy who told us not to worry about the threat of terrorism just months prior to 9-11.
And, is it part of the "professional ethos" to leak sensitive classified information? Or, to contribute heavily to one political party in the middle of a presidential election year ($7,500 in 2004 alone)?
Contrary to Johnson's statement, she wasn't fired for not being a Republican partisan. She was fired because her own partisanship, ideology, or bureaucratic interests led her to leak classified information.
The fired official, Mary O. McCarthy, “categorically denies being the source of the leak,” one of McCarthy’s friends and former colleagues, Rand Beers, said Monday after speaking to McCarthy. Beers said he could not elaborate on this denial and McCarthy herself did not respond to a request for comment left by NEWSWEEK on her home answering machine.
The New York Times, on the other hand, says that she did admit to leaking information:
As the inspector general, Mr. Helgerson was the supervisor of Mary O. McCarthy, who was fired Thursday after admitting she had leaked classified information to reporters about secret C.I.A. detention centers and other subjects, agency officials said.
"Agency officials" say she did, her "friend" says she didn't. Which version is right?
The Newsweek account also includes this passage centering on Larry Johnson:
Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who got into a dispute with McCarthy in the late l980s when she was his supervisor and remains critical of her management style, nonetheless says that he “never saw her allow her political [views] to cloud her analytical judgment.” Johnson maintains the Bush White House is “really damaging the intelligence community” by sending a message to career officials that “unless you are a partisan of the party in power, you cannot be trusted.” This message, Johnson says, is destroying the intelligence community’s “professional ethos.”
This has to be some kind of bad joke. Larry Johnson is one of the most partisan hacks out there today. Yes, people will point out that he was once a Republican. Fine. But, he has made it his job to trash the Bush administration the last several years.
Mr. Johnson has repositioned himself as a talking head since leaving the intelligence community. Why does anyone listen to him? I don't know. This is the same guy who told us not to worry about the threat of terrorism just months prior to 9-11.
And, is it part of the "professional ethos" to leak sensitive classified information? Or, to contribute heavily to one political party in the middle of a presidential election year ($7,500 in 2004 alone)?
Contrary to Johnson's statement, she wasn't fired for not being a Republican partisan. She was fired because her own partisanship, ideology, or bureaucratic interests led her to leak classified information.
posted by Thomas Joscelyn at 5:46 PM
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