Did Hoekstra Tweet Classified Info?

Michigan Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, used Twitter to inform his followers that he was on a secret trip to Iraq.

“Just landed in Baghdad,” messaged Hoekstra, a former chairman of the Intelligence panel and now the ranking member, who is routinely entrusted to keep some of the nation’s most closely guarded secrets.

Before the delegation left Washington, they were advised to keep the trip to themselves for security reasons. A few media outlets, including Congressional Quarterly, learned about it, but agreed not to disclose anything until the delegation had left Iraq.

Hoekstra is well-versed in security issues and, as Think Progress notes, he wrote a May 2006 op-ed for the LA Times warning about how careful we have to be about security leaks in this electronic information age, blasting Democrats along the way.

But every time classified national security information is leaked, our ability to gather information on those who would do us harm is eroded. … I regret that I see little sign of intolerance for unauthorized disclosures of intelligence to the media from some of my Democratic colleagues today. … We are a nation at war. Unauthorized disclosures of classified information only help terrorists and our enemies – and put American lives at risk.

Hoekstra continued his itinerary updates until Friday morning when, for some reason, he stopped.

Since the cat was already out of the bag Congressonal Quarterly offered up a couple of Hoekstra’s tweets, with no grammatical corrections.

“On the way to Andrews Air Force base.12 hour flight to mid east. Be back on Mon instead of tues. Votes mon. I’ll keep you posted,” he wrote on Feb. 4.

In his last dispatch today, he wrote: “Moved into green zone by helicopter Iraqi flag now over palace. Headed to new US embassy Appears calmer less chaotic than previous here [sic].”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.