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LETTER TO THE EDITOR To the Editor: Government officials face a steady stream of constitutional tort cases, in which plaintiffs seek money damages for public officials’ claimed violations of their constitutional rights. Providing legal assistance and indemnification to public servants is essential to the protection of the government’s interest, the fair treatment of its employees and officials, and the effective management of any government organization. Providing indemnification preserves the ability of government officials to serve the public and to ensure that candidates are not deterred by the threat of damages suits from entering public service. Dan Knapik was subject to legal action where signs were removed for a very short period of time before they were replaced. Although the plaintiffs filed a federal lawsuit seeking compensatory and punitive damages, no such damages were awarded. A negotiated settlement with the City of Westfield will result in the payment of attorneys’ fees to the ACLU who represented the plaintiffs at no charge to them. Due to the fact that Mayor Knapik was acting in good faith, within the scope of his duties and in the course of his employment, it was necessary that he receive appropriate legal representation and be protected from personal liability within the bounds of applicable policies and laws. Edward M. Pikula, Esq. Attorney at Law
Senate Dems antsy over W.H. release of CIA report By Burgess Everett Politico.com Wondering what happened to the controversial CIA interrogation report that the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to declassify a month ago? So are many Senate Democrats. The response thus far from the Central Intelligence Agency and the White House: crickets. Several Intelligence members are requesting updates and quick public release by the White House of the summary they voted to declassify in April. The document, which contains key findings and conclusions of a five-year probe by the committee, is expected to be highly critical of the CIA’s secret prisons and interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects during the George W. Bush administration. Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has urged the White House to wrest control of the declassification process from the CIA and is demanding rapid action. But, in an interview, she said she has received little feedback from the Obama administration and seemed resigned to a lengthy timetable. “I would hope that it would be short and quick,” said Feinstein. “That may be a vain [effort].” The White House, in consultation with the CIA, has final say over what portions of the summary are made public — and which are redacted. President Barack Obama has said he is committed to declassification, though the CIA is sure to weigh in on which sections of the document could be damaging to intelligence and national security. “I don’t know what the reason is,” said Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is not on the Intelligence Committee but receives separate briefings. “I don’t know if they’re checking out the information to make sure they don’t release something that’s sensitive, but I urge the director [of the CIA, John Brennan] to release it as quickly as possible. I think that’s the only way to rebuild the reputation of the agency.” Asked if Brennan is moving quickly enough, Durbin replied: “Not for my purposes.” Most senators aren’t yet ready to torch the administration over what they see as an inordinate delay in releasing documents that the CIA should be quite familiar with, given that the Intelligence panel and CIA have engaged in an extended debate over the report’s substance since the committee voted in 2012 to approve the entire version of the still-classified 6,600-page report. The summary now undergoing declassification contains that report’s key findings and conclusions. Hanging over all of this is Feinstein’s war of words with Brennan. She accused the CIA of cutting off access to an internal CIA document while her staffers were investigating Bush-era interrogation policies, while the Intelligence Committee has taken heat for removing that internal document from CIA property during the probe. The Senate sergeant-at-arms is now investigating the dispute. That dynamic has served only to increase tensions between the CIA and the Senate during the declassification process — and now Democrats concerned with civil liberties are getting antsy. “I’m patient, to a point. I called on the White House to intervene and take charge of the declassification process. I’m still waiting to hear from the White House,” said Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), a member of the Intelligence Committee. “Patience has a shelf life.” “I would like to see them move more expeditiously,” said Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), another Intelligence Committee member. “It’s never as fast as you’d like.” Intelligence members said that if the summary is not declassified in the next two or three weeks, their frustration will boil over and manifest itself publicly. “I’ll start to get impatient in about two weeks,” said Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats. “The CIA’s had this report for a year now. So they ought to know. It’s not like, ‘Oh, we’re just seeing it for the first time.’” The White House offered no update on the unveiling of the hotbutton document, which Obama can redact at will if he decides See CIA Report, Page 8
Mission Improbable:
Gowdy gets into Benghazi investigation By John Bresnahan, Lauren French, and Jake Sherman Politico.com Speaker John Boehner and House Republicans have decided to create a select committee to expand their investigation into the Benghazi attacks. Beyond that, nothing is settled. In fact, Republicans may be going on something of a mission improbable to yield new information and turn up new clues in a wide-ranging probe that has already spanned 13 hearings, 25,000 pages of documents and 50 briefings. There are questions about what the select committee will set out to do and what it can actually yield. And the man who will head the committee, South Carolina Republican Trey Gowdy, will be following in the footsteps of no less than eight congressional committees in the House and Senate that have investigated the September 2012 attacks on a U.S. mission in Libya. One thing is for certain: The Gowdy probe will last into the fall — keeping Benghazi in the news for the 2014 midterm elections. And it can serve to tarnish Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s name ahead of a potential 2016 presidential bid, though there’s no guarantee it will work. Democrats also claim it will serve as another way to rile up the GOP base as the picture surrounding Obamacare blurs — with enrollment numbers for President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement crossing the 8 million mark. “The speaker has been extraordinarily patient, but it is clear the Obama administration is playing games,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), who has played a high-profile role in the Benghazi probe via his seat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “The focus of the [Gowdy] committee should simply be to find the truth. It is out there, but the House is going to have to pry it out of the White House. The four investigating committees have done a good job finding parts of the truth. A select committee should bring it all together and find all the truth.” The House leadership will have tighter control over picking the roster for this panel than over any of the disparate committees that have previously probed the attacks on the diplomatic outposts in Libya that killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. Gowdy’s committee will immediately take over top billing on Benghazi from Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), whose Oversight and Government Reform Committee has led the way on this issue since October 2012. The sometimes unpredictable Issa has promised to cooperate with Gowdy’s effort, and GOP leaders are hopeful that will happen, although they will keep a close eye on cooperation between all the committees involved in this issue, said GOP sources. Boehner will personally name all the Republicans to the select committee, and it is likely to include members from the four standing House panels that have already conducted Benghazi probes — Oversight and Government Reform, Armed Services, Foreign Affairs and Intelligence, according to GOP lawmakers and aides. Based on precedent, there will most likely be between 10 and 20 members, with Republicans holding a big edge in the ratio of members over Democrats. There is some question about whether Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will even name members to the panel, which Democrats are already dismissing as a partisan joke designed to try to politically damage Clinton and Obama. A senior Democratic source said the party is already mulling over its choices. For its part, the Obama administration dismisses the GOP effort to “get to the bottom of Benghazi” as nothing more than a big waste of time and taxpayer money. Leadership staffers are drafting the resolution to form the Gowdy panel, using as a guideline previous select committees on Chinese spying, global warming and Hurricane Katrina. A draft of the resolution will be circulated inside the GOP leadership by early this week, the sources said. “It’s not that unusual; they’re not that hard to put together,” said a Republican staffer close to the issue. “The biggest problem will be some of the classified information that the [select committee] will have to deal with.” A number of Republicans, especially the more hard-line conservative, tea party-inspired junior members, are making their desire to serve on the Gowdy committee known to Boehner and the Ohio Republican’s top lieutenants, these sources said. Serving on the panel could be a plum position during an election year in which the issue is popular with the GOP base. Names being floated for the select committee include Chaffetz and Reps. Raúl Labrador (R-Idaho) and Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), among others. Logistics are also difficult. The select panel must hire staff with the proper security clearances to handle highly classified material from the CIA and other intelligence agencies and find suitable space and equipment on the House side of Capitol Hill.
The Gowdy committee will also be required to integrate a huge amount of data on the Benghazi attacks already generated by the other committees, especially Oversight, which has spent 18 months on the issue at this point. Issa, who has garnered headlines if not praise for his handling of the Benghazi probe, issued a subpoena to Secretary of State John Kerry last week to demand why the State Department has failed to turn over documents sought by the California Republican’s committee. Kerry has until May 21 to respond to Issa’s subpoena, but White House officials said privately that Kerry is scheduled to be in Mexico. It’s not clear if Issa will sit on the Gowdy panel. On top of all these challenges, two other questions remain for Gowdy’s select committee: What is the key goal, and by when? The House will be out of session all of August and is expected to adjourn by early October so members can campaign for reelection. That leaves 3½ months for the Gowdy committee to do its work and prepare a report for the House, if it is to have any impact by Election Day. The White House will most likely slow-walk its responses to the South Carolina Republican’s panel, although a subpoena to Clinton — considered likely by many Democrats and Republicans — would get huge media coverage. Gowdy, a 49-year-old former federal prosecutor now serving in his second term, believes the same thing as many House Republicans: that the Obama White House is covering up the extent of its role in the explanation of the Benghazi attacks. The Republicans are convinced that the White House, State Department and even the Pentagon are deliberately lying about what happened in the remote Libyan outpost. And they, as well as many hard-line conservative Republicans nationwide, believe that it is the Obama administration’s “Watergate moment,” one serious enough to jeopardize Obama’s hold on the Oval Office, as well as Clinton’s chances of ascending to the presidency should she run. “Well, I have evidence that not only are they hiding [Benghazi information], there is an intent to hide it,” Gowdy said of the Obama White House during a Friday interview on Fox News. “I can’t disclose that evidence yet, but I have evidence that there was a systematic, intentional decision to withhold certain documents from Congress.” Issa has issued eight subpoenas on Benghazi. Although more than 25,000 pages of documents have been turned over to congressional investigators, the State Department demands its documents be returned at the end of every workday, a cumbersome process that means hauling thousands of pages of documents back and forth every day between Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom. “This administration’s focus since that event has been on pursuing those who did harm to Americans, who killed Americans, and bringing them to justice, and taking action to ensure that the failures in security that helped cause this or lead to this event were addressed and changed,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Friday after word of the Gowdy select committee leaked. White House officials privately dismiss as not revelatory the latest round of internal Benghazi emails turned over to the conservative group Judicial Watch in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Boehner, Gowdy, Issa and other House Republicans have complained that the failure by the See Benghazi, Page 8
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