Via the LA Times:

“The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee has suspended a Democratic staff member pending an investigation into whether he leaked a high-level intelligence assessment to the news media.

The committee’s top Democrat said the suspension was “without basis.

The staff member, who was not identified, was suspended this week by Chairman Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., his spokesman said Thursday evening. The aide is being denied access to classified information pending the outcome of a review, said the spokesman, Jamal Ware.

The leak to The New York Times of a National Intelligence Estimate on global terror trends caused a political uproar last month. In the assessment, completed in April, analysts from the government’s 16 spy agencies concluded that the Iraq war has become a “cause celebre” for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that probably will get worse before it gets better.

President Bush suggested the document was leaked for “political purposes” weeks before the midterm elections. He later made public four pages of the estimate’s key findings.

In a letter to Hoekstra dated Sept. 29, Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill., a committee member, said the Democratic staffer requested the document from National Intelligence Director John Negroponte three days before a Sept. 23 story by the Times on its conclusions.

“I have no credible information to say any classified information was leaked from the committee’s minority staff, but the implications of such would be dramatic,” LaHood said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “This may, in fact, be only coincidence, and simply ‘look bad.’ But coincidence, in this town, is rare.”

Ware, Hoekstra’s spokesman, said: “Chairman Hoekstra considers security highly important, and the coincidence certainly merits a review.”

The Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, Jane Harman of California, wrote to Hoekstra that she was “appalled” by his action, which was “without basis.”

“I demand that you immediately reinstate the staffer’s access to classified information,” she said”

Why Jane, so he or she can throw more secrets to the wind? She’s amazing. In fact, I’ll bet she knew about the leak and who leaked it. After all it was she who pressed to get the NIE and is pressing for a second NIE not due to next year. The likely scenerio is that Harman requested the document then picked up the phone to call Keller. Hugh if true, and poetic justice if she gets nailed for it. Harmans a political hack and we don’t need any of them on the most important committee in the US Government.

This is going to get good. “Democrat Spies on the House Intelligence Committee during a time of war”…..

Foley who?….

h/t to Mark of Regime of Terror.