Yesterday Rachel Maddow reported on the recent comments of Rep. Pete Hoekstra who told the world that the Fort Hood shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, had email contacts with a radical Yemeni cleric named Anwar al-Aulaqi. Maddow questioned whether al-Aulaqi knew his email was being monitored before Hoekstra made such statements.
Rep. Hoekstra is the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee and so it is possible he was told about the emails in a classified briefing only to then leak the information while trying to frame the Fort Hood shootings as a terrorist attack. Maddow’s staff contacted Hoekstra’s office who directed her staff to another member’s office. A Republican spokesperson then told Maddow that they assumed al-Aulaqi knew he was being monitored but they could not confirm.
This is the kind of story that could die quickly or blow up to become a nightmare for Republicans and Hoekstra. The NSA or CIA could provide some cover for Hoekstra by stating that al-Aulaqi did in fact know he was being monitored before Hoekstra’s statements. On the other hand if an intelligence official comes out to say that al-Aulaqi may not have known he was being monitored, or that Hoekstra leaked classified information, then this story could be huge in the coming weeks. The purposeful leaking of classified information may draw a censure or worse from the House of Representatives.
