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June 12, 2012 - 12:11 PM

SENATOR JOHN McCAIN INTRODUCES RESOLUTION URGING ATTORNEY GENERAL TO APPOINT SPECIAL COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE NATIONAL SECURITY LEAKS

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Washington, D.C. ¬– U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) today introduced a Congressional Resolution expressing the Sense of the Senate that the Attorney General of the United States should appoint an outside special counsel to investigate the recent leaks to the news media of classified and highly sensitive information on U.S. military and intelligence plans, programs, and operations. The resolution is co-sponsored by Senators Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Scott Brown (R-MA), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Rob Portman (R-OH), Susan Collins (R-ME), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Richard Burr (R-NC), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Rand Paul (R-KY), John Boozman (R-AR), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Mark Kirk (R-IL) and Saxby Chambliss (R-GA).

The resolution reads, in part:

Resolved, That it is the sense of the Senate that—
(1) the Attorney General should—
(A) delegate to an outside special counsel all of the authority of the Attorney General with respect to investigations by the Department of Justice of any and all unauthorized disclosures of classified and highly sensitive information related to various United States military and intelligence plans, programs, and operations reported in recent publications; and
(B) direct an outside special counsel to exercise that authority independently of the supervision or control of any officer of the Department of Justice;

(2) under such authority, the outside special counsel should investigate any and all unauthorized disclosures of classified and highly sensitive information on which such recent publications were based and, where appropriate, prosecute those responsible; and

(3) the President should assess—
(A) whether any such unauthorized disclosures of classified and highly sensitive information damaged the national security of the United States; and
(B) how such damage can be mitigated.

Read the resolution here.





June 2012 Press Releases