Tice May Not Be Hoekstra’s WhistleblowerWho got House Intel Chair Pete Hoekstra (R-MI) hot and bothered over secret intelligence programs?
Earlier, I guessed it may be Russ Tice. But I’ve been doing some thinking — and I just talked with Tice. Now, frankly, I’m not so sure. (Tice thinks he could be, but he doesn’t know either.)
Here are a couple reasons I’m leaning away from Tice: First, he says he never told Hoekstra anything.
Tice met with Hoekstra’s staff in early April — and it didn’t go well. “They had a lawyer there, and the lawyer said, ‘If you tell us anything at the SAP [highly-classified Special Access Program] level you could be arrested,'” Tice recalled. “The rest of the meeting comprised of them twisting my arm trying to get me to tell them everything.” (Tice declined.)
How could it be that an intelligence program could be so secret, not even the House Intel chairman could hear about it? That’s a long story, and worth telling. But I’ll save it for another post. For now, it’s enough to wonder how inflamed Hoekstra could get from a whistleblower who didn’t tell him anything — on advice of Hoekstra’s own counsel, to boot.
That brings me to the second reason I’m not sure it’s Tice: Hoekstra hasn’t showed serious concern about extra-Constitutional spying programs in the past. Hoekstra, after all, was the guy who wanted to take down the Congressional Research Service after they questioned why the NSA had not disclosed its domestic surveillance work to more members of Congress. Even in his recently-disclosed letter, he buries his defense of the Constitution beneath paragraphs of angry rhetoric about secret CIA cabals out to get the White House.
So who got Hoekstra so exercised? And what did they tell him?
And perhaps more importantly, why is it coming out now? Hoekstra’s letter was made public after the administration briefed him on whatever secret programs he wanted to know about. Why did the letter come out now — and why, if it wasn’t supposed to be public, did he appear on Fox News Sunday to talk about it?
Update: Confirmed — National Review says no dice on Tice.
