WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to immediately appoint a special counsel, free from the appearance of politics or undue influence, to investigate the "avalanche" of recent national security leaks originating out of the Executive Branch.

“The numerous national security leaks reportedly originating out of the Executive Branch in recent months have been stunning,” wrote Sen. Moran wrote in a letter to the Attorney General. “If true, they reveal details of some of our Nation’s most highly classified and sensitive military and intelligence matters, thereby risking our national security, as well as the lives of American citizens and our allies. If there were ever a case requiring an outside special counsel with bipartisan acceptance and widespread public trust, this is it.”

Click here to read the letter, or find the full text below:

TEXT OF THE LETTER:

The Honorable Eric Holder 
Attorney General 
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530

Dear Attorney General Holder:

The numerous national security leaks reportedly originating out of the Executive Branch in recent months have been stunning. If true, they reveal details of some of our Nation's most highly classified and sensitive military and intelligence matters, thereby risking our national security, as well as the lives of American citizens and our allies. If there were ever a case requiring an outside special counsel with bipartisan acceptance and widespread public trust, this is it.

Press reports indicate that there could be many sources to the leaks within the Administration. In fact, in Jo Becker and Scott Shane's New York Times story, "Secret ‘Kill List' Proves a Test of Obama's Principles and Will" the reporters state they interviewed, "three dozen of [Obama's] current and former advisers." Tom Ricks' recent New York Times review of David Sanger's Confront and Conceal mentions that "Mr. Sanger clearly has enjoyed great access to senior White House officials, most notably to Thomas Donilon, the national security adviser. Mr. Donilon, in effect, is the hero of the book, as well as the commenter of record on events."

You have an important role as a member of the President's national security team, and no Administration should be expected to investigate itself impartially on such a grave and sensitive matter in the midst of an election. Therefore, your recent announcement that two U.S. Attorneys would lead criminal investigations into the instances of unauthorized disclosures of classified information does not ensure a full and thorough investigation free of influence. The U.S. Attorneys are under your personal supervision. An outside special counsel, with the appropriate independence and authority, would ensure that the investigation remains untainted by even the appearance of a politics or undue influence.

Our request for a special counsel is in keeping with the precedent of asking for a neutral investigation when there is either a possible conflict of interest or extraordinary circumstances. In 2005, when President Obama was a sitting senator, he requested a special counsel to investigate the Jack Abramoff scandal, saying "FBI officials have said the Abramoff investigation ‘involves systemic corruption within the highest levels of government.' Such an assertion indicates extraordinary circumstances and it is in the public interest that you act under your existing statutory authority to appoint a special counsel."

In fact, in the Valerie Plame matter, then-Senator Obama went beyond the call for a special counsel, seeking a Congressional investigation, arguing in a letter:

"[t]he United States Congress has a constitutional responsibility to provide oversight of the executive branch, whether a law has been broken or not. It is time for Congress to fulfill that constitutional responsibility in this matter by initiating a thorough investigation. We recognize that a criminal investigation is underway and that a special prosecutor continues to present testimony before a grand jury. These actions in no way preclude Congress responsibility to provide oversight. We urge you to exercise your authority as Congressional leaders by requesting the appropriate committees to begin oversight hearings and an investigation immediately."

In 2007, then-Senator Biden called for a special counsel to investigate the destruction of the CIA enhanced interrogation tapes, stating that the "easiest, straightest thing to do is to take it out of the political realm, appoint a special prosecutor and let them decide, and . . . call it where it is. Is there a criminal violation? If there is, proceed. If not, don't."

In 2003, then-Senator Biden joined a letter calling for an outside special counsel in the Valerie Plame investigation, concluding that, "Public confidence in the integrity of this investigation would be substantially bolstered by the appointment of a special counsel." Then-Senator Biden maintained that even if that case were being handled by professional career prosecutors, the integrity of the inquiry might be called into question if individuals with a vested interest in protecting the White House were still involved in any matter related to the investigation.

If the bar for an outside special counsel were met in the cases of Valerie Plame and Jack Abramoff, it is far exceeded here. We are not talking about a single, isolated instance of a leak; rather, we are looking at "an avalanche of leaks" on national security matters. On a matter of this seriousness, there is clear precedent to appoint an outside special counsel when there is the potential for a conflict of interest, the specter of political influence, or other extraordinary circumstances. As this is clearly the case here, we request that you appoint an outside special counsel immediately.

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On Wednesday, I visited the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) research facility in Rockville, MD to meet with Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and representatives of the University of Kansas to tour the facility and learn more about important research collaborations involving KU. NIH is the focal point for our nation’s medical research and NCATS is a center within NIH focused on accelerating the development of new medical treatments and therapies. To achieve this mission, NCATS requires researchers in a wide variety of scientific disciplines to work together toward a common goal.

KU is uniquely involved with this NCATS collaboration through the university’s Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation. Last year, NIH announced that it was partnering with KU Medical Center and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society to accelerate the development of therapies for rare blood cancers. This partnership, which is one of the first of its kind at NIH, will test whether a generic arthritis drug called auranofin could be useful in treating a form of leukemia. The goal of this initiative is to overcome bottlenecks in the drug discovery pipeline to get discoveries from the lab to the patient bedside faster.

Thanks to Director Collins and his team for the opportunity to learn more about NIH’s strategy for innovating the process for translating scientific discoveries into new treatments. Also, thanks to the following KU representatives for joining me at this meeting: Dr. Scott Weir, Director of the Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation at KU; Dr. Roy Jensen, Director of the KU Cancer Center; Dr. Raymond Perez, Medical Director of the Clinical Research Center at the KU Cancer Center; and Jack Cline, Director of Federal Relations at KU. Click here to see photos from this event.