Senator Rockefeller comes through with a letter on the NSA intercepts.
He has concerns and is speaking on the floor of the U.S. Senate this very moment about his concerns about John Bolton. What is fascinating about the letter that follows below is that you can sense Rockefeller’s frustration with NSA and with the process involved that he was unable to pursue further questions he has about Bolton and how he used the NSA intelligence information.
Rockefeller has been forced to draw some conclusions from an incomplete data set. He was not allowed to see the names of those U.S. officials that had been provided to Bolton — and he was not able to investigate whether or not there were “other cases” of misuse of information — other than that where Bolton sought out an individual to “congratulate him” based on the intelligence Bolton had seen.
But Rockefeller points to behaviors that further underscore Bolton’s reckless disregard for procedure and process and which collectively amount to the undermining of U.S. foreign policy initiatives and objectives.
Here is the letter:
May 25, 2005
The Honorable Richard G. Lugar
Chairman
Committee on Foreign Relations
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
The Honorable Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Ranking Member
Committee on Foreign Relations
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senators Lugar and Biden:
I write in response to the Chairman’s April 28, 2005 letter asking that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence examine a number of intelligence-related issues that were raised during your Committee’s consideration of the nomination of Under Secretary John Bolton to be the United States Representative to the United Nations.
As you may be aware, I wrote to then-Director of the National Security Agency (NSA), Lieutenant General Michael V. Hayden, on April 20, 2005, requesting any documentation related to Mr. Bolton’s requests for the identity of a U.S. person included in classified intelligence reports produced by the NSA.
In response, General Hayden provided Chairman Pat Roberts and me the opportunity to review all ten NSA documents containing the references to U.S. persons that generated Mr. Bolton’s requests. We were not permitted to retain these intelligence reports and other members of our Committee were not permitted access to them. Additionally, the actual U.S. identities provided by the NSA to Mr. Bolton were not shared with us.
In response, General Hayden provided Chairman Pat Roberts and me the opportunity to review all ten NSA documents containing the references to U.S. persons that generated Mr. Bolton’s requests. We were not permitted to retain these intelligence reports and other members of our Committee were not permitted access to them. Additionally, the actual U.S. identities provided by the NSA to Mr. Bolton were not shared with us.
State Department records indicate that Mr. Bolton requested the minimized identities of nineteen U.S. persons contained in ten NSA signals intelligence reports. These requests were processed by the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). In each instance, the INR request to the NSA, on behalf of Mr. Bolton, included the justification that the identity of the U.S. person(s) was needed in order to better understand or assess the foreign intelligence value of the information contained in the intelligence report. This is the standard justification required by NSA in order for officials to request the identity of a U.S. person contained in a signals intelligence report.
Based on my personal review of these reports and the context in which U.S. persons are referenced in them, I found no evidence that there was anything improper about Mr. Bolton’s ten requests for the identities of U.S. persons.
It is important to note, however, that our Committee did not interview Mr. Bolton, so I am unable to answer directly the question of why he felt it was necessary for him to have the identity information in order to better understand the foreign intelligence contained in the report.
Furthermore, based on the information available to me, I do not have a complete understanding of Mr. Bolton’s handling of the identity information after he received it.
The Committee has learned during its interview of Mr. Frederick Fleitz, Mr. Bolton’s acting Chief of Staff, that on at least one occasion Mr. Bolton is alleged to have shared the un-minimized identity information he received from the NSA with another individual in the State Department. In this instance, the NSA memorandum forwarding the requested identity to State INR included the following restriction: “Request no further action be taken on this information without prior approval of NSA.” I have confirmed with the NSA that the phrase “no further action” includes sharing the requested identity of U.S. persons with any individual not authorized by the NSA to receive the identity.
In addition to being troubled that Mr. Bolton may have shared U.S. person identity information without required NSA approval, I am concerned that the reason for sharing the information was not in keeping with Mr. Bolton’s requested justification for the identity in the first place. The identity information was provided to Mr. Bolton based on the stated reason that he needed to know the identity in order to better under the foreign intelligence contained in the NSA report. According to Mr. Fleitz, Mr. Bolton used the information he was provided in one instance in order to seek out the State Department official mentioned in the report to congratulate him. This use of carefully minimized U.S. person identity information seems to be not in keeping with the rationale provided in Mr. Bolton’s request.
An interview of Mr. Bolton by your Committee may provide a more complete understanding of the extent to which he may have shared with others the nineteen U.S. person identities he requested and received from the NSA. I believe it is a matter that deserves more thorough attention.
I hope this information is of assistance to you.
Sincerely,
John D. Rockefeller IV
Vice Chairman
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
More later.
— Steve Clemons
