Another Republican leader facing an ethics investigation

For those of you who’ve been jumping up and down for weeks, practically begging for ethics investigations of high-profile Republican lawmakers, I have good news: a GOP senator is about to face a serious ethics probe. The odd part, however, is that the investigation will focus on a scandal that a lot of us had already forgotten about and which the media has completely ignored.

Long time readers of mine may recall that Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) got into a little trouble last August when he divulged classified intercepted messages to the media while serving on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Specifically, Fox News’ Carl Cameron confirmed to FBI investigators that Shelby verbally divulged the information to him during a June 2002 interview, literally minutes after Shelby’s committee had been given the information in a classified briefing.

Shelby was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee for over five years. He, of all people, knows all about legal restrictions on passing classified information over to the media, leaving him no excuse for this kind of recklessness. Hell, it didn’t even meet Fox’s standards and Cameron did not air the information Shelby gave him. What’s more, the leak even led to a low-key federal criminal investigation of Shelby.

Last July, the Justice Department referred its files to the Senate Ethics Committee, which is finally planning to proceed with its own investigation.

The Senate Ethics Committee is moving ahead with an investigation into alleged classified leaks from the Intelligence Committee almost three years ago, a probe that will likely focus on Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), a panel member said.

While Shelby said he had not yet been contacted by the committee, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said last week that he has been informed that the matter would come before the full panel at some point in the near future.

This could get interesting. Ethics Committee Chairman George Voinovich (R-Ohio) and Vice Chairman Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) have the power to dismiss the case, but appear to have chosen not to, putting the investigation in the “preliminary inquiry” stage.

Keep in mind, there isn’t much in the way of doubt about culpability here.

A two-year investigation into how the news media obtained classified intercepted messages has found that Senator Richard C. Shelby, the Alabama Republican and former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was almost certainly a source, a government official familiar with the inquiry said [in August].

Stay tuned.