Speaking for the Defense
Stephen Spruiell Reporting
Media Blog
As regards the firing of CIA official Mary McCarthy, the Washington Post is in the same untenable position that the New York Times was in during the Judith Miller episode — the editors know something they're not telling, but they go on reporting the story as if they don't know. One undisputed point is that McCarthy had unauthorized contacts with reporters — including, according the CIA, the Washington Post's Dana Priest. But Priest won't confirm or deny that, and she certainly won't talk about what information McCarthy might have given her. The fact that the Post has this information but won't reveal it opens a lot of questions about its reporting on the story — specifically, the tendency of all it's articles about McCarthy to sympathetically portray her as the victim of a CIA witch hunt.
Today, like any good defense lawyer would, the Post questions the validity of polygraph results:
<<< The CIA, the FBI and other federal agencies are using polygraph machines more than ever to screen applicants and hunt for lawbreakers, even as scientists have become more certain that the equipment is ineffective in accurately detecting when people are lying.
Instead, many experts say, the real utility of the polygraph machine, or "lie detector," is that many of the tens of thousands of people who are subjected to it each year believe that it works — and thus will frequently admit to things they might not otherwise acknowledge during an interview or interrogation. >>>
Having just admitted that the real usefulness of polygraph machines is in eliciting confessions from people who believe their lies have been detected, you might think that the Post would mention in this story that Mary McCarthy, according to the CIA, did confess to discussing classified information with journalists. Think again:
<<< The polygraph has emerged as a pivotal tool in the CIA's aggressive effort to identify suspected leakers after embarrassing disclosures about government anti-terrorism tactics. The agency fired a veteran officer, Mary O. McCarthy, on April 20, alleging that she had shared classified information and operational details with The Washington Post and other news organizations, a charge her lawyer disputes.
CIA officials have said that McCarthy failed more than one polygraph examination administered by the CIA, but the details surrounding those interviews remain unclear. Dozens of senior-level CIA officials have been subjected to polygraph tests as part of the inquiry, which is aimed at identifying employees who may have talked to reporters about classified programs, including providing information about the agency's network of secret prisons for terrorism suspects.
"The reason an officer at CIA was terminated was for having unauthorized contact with the media and the improper release of classified information," said Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman. "Don't think in terms of a failure of a polygraph being the reason for termination — the polygraph is one tool in an investigative process." >>>
Did Gimigliano forget to tell the Post what he told Newsweek?
<<< CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano reaffirmed on Monday that an agency official had been fired after acknowledging “unauthorized contacts with the media and discussion of classified information” with journalists. >>>
I doubt it. It's more likely that the Post left this information out of its story because it has a vested interest in preventing McCarthy's prosecution. If the Justice Department decides to step up its investigation of McCarthy for leaking classified information, Dana Priest could be subpoenaed to tell a grand jury about her contacts with McCarthy. Priest would naturally refuse, resulting in possible jail time and thousands of dollars in legal fees for the Post.
But this massive conflict of interest hasn't stopped the Post from rushing to McCarthy's defense, both on the editorial page and in news articles that read as though they were drafted by McCarthy's lawyer.
John Hinderaker raised this same point with regards to the NYT's coverage of the NSA terrorist wiretapping program. Both the NYT and the Post have lost credibility because of their inability to deal with these conflicts of interest. Fair warning to news organizations: If the publication of classified national security information makes you an accomplice, the investigation makes you a full partner in the defense.
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