[Peace-discuss] DN!: Hersh: Congress Agreed to Bush Request...

[C. G. Estabrook]

Yes.  That's how Daniel Ellsberg wanted to reveal the classified Pentagon 
Papers.  Senator Mike Gravel eventually did it.

"On June 29, 1971, U.S. Senator Mike Gravel (Democrat, Alaska) entered 4,100 
pages of the Papers to the record of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and 
Grounds. These portions of the Papers were subsequently published by Beacon 
Press... The importance of recording the Papers to the Congressional Record was 
that, Article I, Section 6 of the United States Constitution provides that "for 
any Speech or Debate in either House, [a Senator or Representative] shall not be 
questioned in any other Place", thus the Senator could not be prosecuted for 
anything said on the Senate floor, and, by extension, for anything entered to 
the Congressional Record, allowing the Papers to be publicly read without threat 
of a treason trial and conviction.

"Later, Ellsberg said the documents 'demonstrated unconstitutional behavior by a 
succession of presidents, the violation of their oath and the violation of the 
oath of every one of their subordinates', and that he had leaked the papers in 
the hopes of getting the nation out of 'a wrongful war.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers


John W. wrote:
> 
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 9:56 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu 
> <mailto:galliher at uiuc.edu>> wrote:
> 
>     In fact it would have been perfectly legal for members of Congress
>     "to squeal about those secret operations [or] for Durbin et al. to
>     divulge that they knew the 'evidence' given for justification for
>     attacking Iraq was bogus" on the floor of the House or Senate.  The
>     Constitution specifically says of members of Congress in the "Speech
>     or Debate Clause" (Article I, Section 6, Clause 1) that "for any
>     Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in
>     any other Place." --CGE
> 
> 
> I don't understand.  Our legislators can talk about classified matters 
> of national security on  the floor of the House or Senate?