Priceless

In response to the Washington Post article, CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons, which exposed secret torture prisons, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) wrote a letter to intelligence committee chairmen about the recent leak of information to the Washington Post about secret CIA detention centers in Europe.

Methinks they spoke a bit too soon. Trent Lott later revealed that he thinks it was a GOP Senator who leaked the info to the Washington Post last week. He says the details had been discussed at a GOP Senators-only meeting last week, and that many of those details made it into the WaPo story.

Apparently, as CNN reports "Trent Lott stunned reporters by declaring that this subject was actually discussed at a Senate Republican luncheon, Republican senators only, last Tuesday the day before the story ran in the Washington Post. Lott noted that Vice President Cheney was also in the room for that discussion and Lott said point blank 'a lot of it came out of that room last Tuesday, pointing to the room where the lunch was held in the capitol.' He added of senators 'we can't keep our mouths shut.' He added about the vice president, 'He was up here last week and talked up here in that room right there in a roomful of nothing but senators and every word that was said in there went right to the newspaper.' He said he believes when all is said and done it may wind up as an ethics investigation of a Republican senator, maybe a Republican staffer as well. Senator Frist's office not commenting on this development. The Washington Post not commenting either." (Video available here: Crooks and Liars)

Best quote on this incident comes from Lott: "We can not remain silent. We have met the enemy, and it is us." (Via Eschaton)