Experts: Alleged Bush leak legal, unusual

WASHINGTON — Legal experts said President Bush had the unquestionable authority to approve the disclosure of secret CIA information to reporters but added the leak was highly unusual and amounted to using sensitive intelligence data for political gain.

"It is a question of whether the classified National Intelligence Estimate was used for domestic political purposes," said Jeffrey Smith, a Washington lawyer who formerly served as general counsel for the CIA.

In court papers filed late Wednesday, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald said Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has testified Cheney told him Bush had authorized the leak of secret information from the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq in summer 2003.

Experts said the power to classify and declassify documents in the federal government flows from the president and is often delegated down the chain of command. In March 2003, Bush signed an executive order delegating declassification authority to Cheney.

There are about 4,000 people in the federal government with authority to classify information, according to the National Archives.

The president's authority to keep and reveal secrets also is inherent in his constitutional powers, says J. William Leonard, director of the National Archives' Information Security Oversight Office, and the president does not have to follow any particular procedure in declassifying information.

"It's his authority in the first place," Leonard said.

While Bush's use of classified information may create a political problem for him, it's not a legal issue, said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who frequently represents CIA employees and others involved in national-security issues.

As the author of the executive order governing how information is classified, Bush can declassify something simply by declaring so, Zaid said.

"Since the president is the one who issues the order, ergo he obviously has the authority to classify and declassify information," Zaid said Thursday.

Bush had exercised his authority in cooperating with journalist and author Bob Woodward in writing "Bush at War," an account of the response to the attacks of Sept. 11. "That book is replete with classified information" that Bush declassified by discussing it with Woodward, Zaid says.