Oct 20 2006
Alleged Intelligence Committee Leaker Could Have Ax To Grind
Update: Reader Ordi notes reports of a possible investigation of Rep Jane Harman, ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. I am not sure what to make of this, I have always felt Harman was the best Democrat ever for the position.
Update: Rep John Boehner comments on the leak. – End Update
Mac Ranger pointed to a Fox News report that named the person allegedly who leaked the recent classified NIE to the NY Times, and Mac noted the person may have an ax to grind. He may be right. The man’s name is Larry Hanauer, and he was displaced when the Bush administration came in. More importantly, he is a member of Jane Harmon’s staff, which makes clear why she is all upset.
Hanauer is listed on posts as someone displaced by Neocons, which makes him a possible source (with a chip) to all those myths about Neocons taking over the assessment of Iraq. It always struck me as someone from the inside spilling their guts to the liberal rags. Here is an example:
As the momentum for war began to build in early 2002, Wolfowitz and Feith beefed up the intelligence unit and created an Iraq war-planning unit in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia Affairs section, run by Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Luti, under the rubric “Office of Special Plans,” or OSP; the new unit’s director was Abram N. Shulsky. By then, Wurmser had moved on to a post as senior adviser to Undersecretary of State John Bolton, yet another neocon, who was in charge of the State Department’s disarmament, proliferation, and WMD office and was promoting the Iraq war strategy there. Shulsky’s OSP, which incorporated the secret intelligence unit, took control, banishing veteran experts‚ — including Joseph McMillan, James Russell, Larry Hanauer, and Marybeth McDevitt‚ — who, despite years of service to NESA, either were shuffled off to other positions or retired.
Seems Hanauer could have an ax to grind. Also, from reading this document he co-wrote, he seems to be of a mind the best application of military power is in peace operations. While I would agree that is one of the better applications we could hope for, it may be he was against force at all costs. A mindset that permeated DC for years.
more coming…
Addendum: It seems Mr. Hanauer is not a fan of the Iraq conflict, at least from what we can tell from his own words at a Council of Foreign Relations event in 2005:
QUESTIONER: Larry Hanauer with Booz, Allen, Hamilton. There’s a lot of discussion about regime change, whether it’s something that we or some other outside force instigates, or whether regime change just comes about through ordinary demographic change over time. But I’m wondering if anyone has given thought to really what comes next. The regime change would change the whole political structure, as Ambassador Palmer has said; it would change the economic structure of the country [Iran]. And I think we’re seeing now in Iraq what happens when we pursue regime change without adequately thinking about the aftermath. So I’m wondering what might come next, and who in the U.S. government is thinking about it?
Is this a smoking gun? Nope. Just some insight into this man from his own words. The conference did not seem all that unreasonable from what I scanned.
From this site of a young man working or visiting the Hill (search on Hanauer), I learned Larry Hanauer did a stint on the staff of NY Rep Joseph Crowley, giving Hanauer a NY connection and probably press contacts with the NY Times. Crowley’s official site is here. So that establishes a path to the NY news media.
AJ
From your vantage point, could this be the potential source of some of the earlier leaks involving the NSA and “secret prisons”? Or perhaps coordinated w/ the source of these other leaks?
Good Captain,
My vantage point is not much better than yours, but the committee this person supported, and Jane Harmon herself, would be the folks on the Hill who would know about the NSA TSP, the SWIFT program, the CIA prisons, FISA etc. Harmon is one of the few on the Hill fully briefed across the board. So to answer your questions it is possible. Likely??? Who knows. Mac will probably be digging beyong what I can find on Yahoo.
AJ,
I did some digging as well and the “Counsel on Foreign Relations is huge as you can imagine with members on both sides of the political spectrum. The list which caught my eyes is this (partial) on the liberal side:
George Stephanopoulis, Arthur Ochs (Pinch) Sulzberger (NYT), Katrina Vander Heuvel (The Nation), Jamie S. Gorelick (9/11 Commission), LARRY HANAUER, Thomas H. Kean (9/11 Commission), Joe Klein (Newsweek), Madeleine Korbel Albright, Samuel Richard (Sandy) Berger, James Earl Carter Jr. (ex-President), Wesley Kanne Clark (ex-Gen), William Jefferson Clinton (ex-President), Ruth Bader Ginsberg (Supreme Court Justice), Lee H. Hamilton (9/11 Commission), JANE HARMAN (D ranking member House Intelligence CA), Vernon Eulion Jordan, Jr., John Forbes Kerry (D-MA), George Stanley McGovern, GEORGE SOROS, Kenneth Ross (Human Rights Watch), John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), Charles B. Rangel (D-NY), the list goes on for several pages….
I wonder what they talk about at this “think tank”…and don’t tell me it’s to swap recipes. No wonder we can’t keep national secrets.
Carol
National Security Leaker – UPDATE – Identified – bumped…
quotTigerhawk writes:All along, I assumed that the leak to the New York Times of the summary findings of the National Intelligence Estimate was just another chapter in the permanent bureaucracy’s continuing war against the Bush administration’s forei…
Is this the same person?
SourceWatch
Thanks again AJ!
TSK9,
Yes – that is the same person
AJ
That kid in the Crowley link was an Irish international intern program participant and Hanauer was his mentor in the program.
House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra suspends Democratic staff member over possible leak of classified info to the NYT (UPDATED 10:02 PM)…
Via the Associated Press:
WASHINGTON – House Intelligence Chairman Peter Hoekstra has suspended a Democratic staff member because of concerns he may have leaked a high-level intelligence assessment to The New York Times last month.
In a letter obtaine…
AJ: you GOTTA see this:
http://newsbusters.org/node/8468
Cindy Sheehan, Paid By Kerry Campaign? Authors Say Yes on Fox News
Posted by Tim Graham on October 20, 2006 – 07:29.
Cindy Sheehan became an instant liberal-media celebrity when she held a vigil outside President Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas and demanded to meet with him (a second time) over the death of her son Casey in Iraq. But is the liberal media only about creating the legend and leaving the negative details out? MRC’s Justin McCarthy reported that on Wednesday’s “Fox and Friends,” Melanie Morgan and Catherine Moy, authors of the book American Mourning, said they found Sheehan was paid by John Kerry’s campaign in 2004 to speak out against President Bush. Said Morgan:
“We have Federal Election Commission documents. I mean we went to an extensive research, we followed the money, that’s how you always figure out what’s going on…We found that John Kerry and Michael Moore personally recruited Gold Star family members just within days and sometimes even at the funerals of their sons to come and work for the campaign in order to undermine the candidacy of George W. Bush at the time. It was shocking and, and really offensive behavior and that’s exactly what happened to Cindy Sheehan who we tracked down. She went on the payroll of John Kerry’s campaign within days after her son’s death as well as her daughter Carly. Ultimately, there was a split between the two because she felt that John Kerry wasn’t radical enough and didn’t have an anti-war agenda that matched hers.”
The authors also appeared on Tuesday’s “Hannity & Colmes” to make their charge:
“It was John Kerry’s political campaign, John Kerry personally, along with Michael Moore, went to Cindy Sheehan just days and a couple of weeks after the death of her son and asked her to make a commercial for him.And they did the same thing, political operatives, they asked the other families.”
This is a pretty explosive charge for the rest of the Sheehan-promoting media to ignore.
Not sure what this means but…..
Rep. Harman Reportedly Under Investigation
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 (UPI) — The U.S. Justice Department is trying to determine whether Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., got improper help from an Israeli lobbying group.
Harman of California is the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee. Time Magazine reports she may have received a boost from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee when Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi wanted to remove her from the committee.
Harman left a voice mail for the magazine calling any suggestions of improper conduct ‘irresponsible, laughable and scurrilous.’ She has retained Ted Olson, the lawyer who formerly served as President George W. Bush`s solicitor general.
Olson told Time Harman did not know of any investigation but decided to retain him after news reports of a probe.
The investigation appears to stem from another probe involving AIPAC. Two former employees have been charged with receiving classified information from Lawrence Franklin, a former Defense Intelligence Agency employee who has pleaded guilty in the case.
Scroll down
http://news.monstersandcritics.com/roundups/article_1213120.php/News_Roundup
Here is the UPI link on the Harman story
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20061020-084527-1381r
At the end of the article:
KIDS ARE PESSIMISTIC ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT: ‘EVERYBODY’ AT FAULT PR
Newswire April 21, 1992, Tuesday
I found the following:
CONTACT: Larry Hanauer of Burson-Marsteller, 212-614-5048, for Arm & Hammer
So I searched Google for Burson-Marsteller and discover that they are a PR firm in New York. So the leaker worked for a major New York PR Firm, yet there doesn’t seem to even be a mention of it in the post from SourceWatch posted by topsecretk9@AJ. Seems odd unless there is a reason for hiding this relationship.
Quote:
History of Burson-Marsteller
In late January 1952, sitting in my small office in the New York Daily News Building, I received a telephone call that changed my life. Harry Leather, a close friend at The New York Times, called to alert me that he had recommended our firm to a Bill Marsteller, owner of an industrial advertising agency in Chicago and Pittsburgh. Marsteller needed a small public relations firm to handle a project for his agency’s largest client, Rockwell Manufacturing Company (now Rockwell International). Rockwell wanted to publicize that its chairman, W.F. (Al) Rockwell Jr., had purchased a helicopter for executive travel – a first.
Eager to add a distinguished name to our client roster, I telephoned Bill Marsteller and said I would be in Chicago the following week. Marsteller was struck by the unqualified recommendations from both Leather and another friend at The New York Times. And though I had already planned to be in Chicago that next week, throughout our subsequent near-40-year association, Bill Marsteller told friends how impressed he was that I “dropped everything and got on a train to Chicago to make a new business call.”
So the New York PR firm where Larry Hanauer worked was founded by two people who were introduced to each other, not once but twice, by mutual friends at The New York Times.
One big happy family it seems!!
SBD
Not sure if my previous post went through or not, so will try again.
I found this article titled:
KIDS ARE PESSIMISTIC ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT: ‘EVERYBODY’ AT FAULT PR
Newswire April 21, 1992, Tuesday
At the end, it says
CONTACT: Larry Hanauer of Burson-Marsteller, 212-614-5048, for Arm & Hammer
A search on Google for Burson-Marsteller reveals a NYC PR firm.
The post by Left by topsecretk9@AJ that linked to SourceWatch didn’t mention Burson-Marsteller. I wonder why??
Quote:
History of Burson-Marsteller
In late January 1952, sitting in my small office in the New York Daily News Building, I received a telephone call that changed my life. Harry Leather, a close friend at The New York Times, called to alert me that he had recommended our firm to a Bill Marsteller, owner of an industrial advertising agency in Chicago and Pittsburgh. Marsteller needed a small public relations firm to handle a project for his agency’s largest client, Rockwell Manufacturing Company (now Rockwell International). Rockwell wanted to publicize that its chairman, W.F. (Al) Rockwell Jr., had purchased a helicopter for executive travel – a first.
Eager to add a distinguished name to our client roster, I telephoned Bill Marsteller and said I would be in Chicago the following week. Marsteller was struck by the unqualified recommendations from both Leather and another friend at The New York Times. And though I had already planned to be in Chicago that next week, throughout our subsequent near-40-year association, Bill Marsteller told friends how impressed he was that I “dropped everything and got on a train to Chicago to make a new business call.”
So the PR firm that Larry Hanauer just happened to work for was founded by not one, but two referrals from The New York Times.
Just one big happy family, aren’t they??
SBD
Someone needs to tell LaHood(Rep-Il)….thanks fella!…….Instead of this story getting on the front page of the Post and Times it will be his remarks about it instead…..ITS ALL ABOUT REVENGE YOU SEE!…….stupid….just stupid
Another Traitor In The Democrats Midst…
And another non-surprise. We have known for years about the ongoing attempts in our MSM and on the left side of the aisle to leak anything damaging to this President and to the Republicans. Security clearences be damned. Now comes news yesterday tha…
AJ–I have a topic for your nimble mind—the new mantra for the Dems is “for the common good”. It is such a scary phrase. It is economical, social, religious. Is this what the American people will buy into? I think they are crazy. Kathie
“For the common good”
translated
“It’s for your own good, Commoners”
“For the common goodâ€
Or simply more communist Pablum for the masses … uncooked of course
I would hope most Americans would understand that phase.