Considering Rep. Katherine Harris’ track record for handling sensitive information, this probably shouldn’t come as a big surprise, but it’s still the week’s strangest political controversy.
On Monday, Harris insisted she knew information the public did not about “more than 100” thwarted terrorist attacks, which, according to her, could have been just as serious as 9/11. Naturally, she credited Bush for keeping all of us safe.
In an interview after the speech, Harris said she learned from classified information about the 100 potential attacks that have been thwarted since 9/11.
“Actually, it’s been more than 100,” she said. “It’s classified … obviously not classified to me … but things I can’t go into detail about.”
Asked for something specific, Harris seemed to share some secret information.
Harris told the audience that while she was in the Midwest recently, the mayor of Carmel, Ind., recounted how a man of Middle Eastern heritage had been arrested. She said hundreds of pounds of explosives were found in his home.
“He had plans to blow up the area’s entire power grid,” she said.
Pressed after the speech for details about the arrest, Harris said it had not been made public and she asked a reporter not to name the city she mentioned to the audience.
“I probably said too much,” Harris said.
That last part was the only thing she got right. Harris definitely said too much.
On its face, Harris’ remarks were disconcerting, to put it mildly. She appeared to tell hundreds of civilians about a secret terrorist plot. Harris, who is not a member of the House Intelligence Committee, has been in government long enough to appreciate the laws that prohibit the leaking of classified information. At a minimum, I’d like to think she’d be reprimanded and punished for so carelessly sharing secret information.
But, as it turns out, she wasn’t sharing classified information; she was making stuff up.
Officials in Indiana and Washington say they’re dumbfounded by a statement U.S. Representative Katherine Harris of Sarasota made about a terrorist plot to blow up a power grid in Indiana.
During a speech to 600 people Monday in Venice, Harris either shared a closely held secret or passed along second-hand information as fact.
A staff member of the U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which oversees the nation’s intelligence operations, said he had heard of no such plot.
And Indiana officials in the county where the power grid is located were at a loss to explain where the information originated.
So we go from a situation in which a Republican lawmaker is irresponsibly leaking classified information to an instance of the lawmaker simply telling stories with no basis in fact.
Just to make the situation ever stranger, Harris, after getting caught and now looking like a fool, sort of apologized — while sticking to her original story.
Republican Rep. Katherine Harris said Wednesday she regrets concerns caused by her claim that a plot existed to blow up the power grid in Carmel, Ind. City officials disputed the claims of a plot.
“I was told in an open, group setting that a recent situation threatened a Midwestern community and that it had been diffused,” Harris said Wednesday. “I regret that I had no knowledge of the sensitive nature of this situation and any undue concern this may have caused.”
But the Florida lawmaker stands by her statement that the United States has thwarted more than 100 potential terrorist attacks.
Is it unreasonable to think the House leadership should remove Harris from the International Relations Committee, which is frequently briefed on terrorist threats? I think she’s demonstrated that she’s not exactly up for the job.