Frist Screws Up Leak to Drudge

A leak suspected to have come from the office of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) complicated, confused and nearly derailed a joint effort by Senate and House Republican leaders to seek an investigation of the unauthorized release of classified information.

Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) both eventually signed a letter Tuesday calling for the Senate and House intelligence committees to conduct a joint investigation of how The Washington Post discovered of the existence of CIA-run detention and interrogation facilities in eight foreign countries.

The request for the investigation was intended to give Republicans political momentum on the issue of national security at a time when Democrats have recently scored public-relations victories on national security.

Instead, the premature release of Frist and Hastert’s letter set off a chain of events that drew attention to what some House Republicans call the inability of the Senate to coordinate with them.

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