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October 12, 2004, Northbrook, IL: Lee Goodman’s Remarks

My campaign has obtained a videotape of a speech made by my opponent, Republican Mark Kirk, that proves he misled the public on a significant matter involving national security. The tape also casts doubt on whether Kirk is able or willing to fulfill his duty as a congressman to oversee the C.I.A. and to protect America from future terrorist attacks.

On June 23, Kirk stood on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and said he is working for the Central Intelligence Agency. If Mr. Kirk was telling the truth when he said he works for the C.I.A, he is in violation of the United States Constitution, Article 1 Section Six, which expressly prohibits any member of Congress from serving in any other office in government while he is a Congressman. If his statement is not true, he should explain why he lied to the Congress. So that the truth or falsity of Mr. Kirk’s statement can be determined, all of the records regarding Mr. Kirk’s work at the C.I.A. should immediately be made public.

Mr. Kirk’s statement was recorded in the Congressional Record, which is the official, verbatim transcript of everything that is said in Congress. Mr. Kirk’s comment went largely unnoticed at the time he made it, because, as often happens in Congress, very few people were paying attention to the debate. He made the statement while arguing in favor of an amendment to a bill regarding U.S. intelligence operations. He apparently wanted the other members of Congress to think that he knew more than they did about the CIA so they would vote the way he told them to. He was trying to look like an expert in intelligence matters.

Here is what Mr. Kirk said: “To my knowledge, there are only three current Members of Congress who work with the CIA: our chairman, Mr. Goss, the author of this amendment; Mr. Simmons; [and here is the crucial statement that Kirk made] and myself, who is detailed to the CIA from navy intelligence.” The person Kirk referred to as the author of the Amendment is Porter Goss, who after the debate on this bill became the new head of the CIA.

Mr. Kirk said he “is detailed” by the Navy to work for the CIA. Mr. Kirk is a reservist in the Navy. In military jargon, when a person is detailed to work somewhere, he is working for the agency he is detailed to. A detailed person is like a temporary worker. Mr. Kirk did not say he was a liaison to the C.I.A. He said he works for the C.I.A.

My campaign issued a news release in order to bring Mr. Kirk’s statement to the attention of the public. Mr. Kirk thereupon admitted to reporters that he had worked for the C.I.A. in the past. Kirk told the reporters, however, that the Congressional Record made a mistake, and that his statement in Congress was that he “was” working for C.I.A., not that he “is” working for the C.I.A. It is unclear from the news stories whether he admits or denies working for the C.I.A. either as of June 23 or at the present time.

At the time he revealed his connection to the CIA, and for a long time before, Mr. Kirk not only voted as a member of Congress on military and CIA matters, he was on the House committee that oversees the CIA and military and votes on their budgets and appropriations. One newspaper observed that if Kirk was working for the C.I.A. at the same time he was voting in Congress on matters related to the C.I.A., he would have a “major conflict of interest.”

Kirk told reporters that he asked that the Congressional Record be changed to reflect the version of his statement that he wanted in the record. The Congressional Record was never changed. It still accurately quotes Mr. Kirk as saying he “is” detailed to the C.I.A.

Kirk also told several news reporters that he had “obtained a videotape of his speech that backs him up.” To our knowledge, Kirk has never made the tape public.

We have now obtained a copy of the speech directly from C-Span, which provided an unedited tape. The tape does not support Mr. Kirk’s version of what he said. It does corroborate the accuracy of the Congressional Record. In the tape, Mr. Kirk can clearly be seen and heard to say that he “is”, present tense, working for the C.I.A.

Mr. Kirk’s comments raise very troubling questions, and the voters deserve very detailed answers. The C.I.A. has a highly controversial history. It operates in secrecy and has often done things that we as a country would not want to admit. The C.I.A. was an early supporter of Saddam Hussein, and it has maintained contacts in Iraq and throughout the Middle East for a long, long, time.

The C.I.A. has recently come under scrutiny in several investigations. It is significant that Mr. Kirk has tried to prevent the Congress from looking into possible violations of the law by the C.I.A. There are indications that the C.I.A. may have had a role in the torture of prisoners in Afghanistan and at Abu Graib prison in Iraq. Mr. Kirk voted against investigating these abuses. There have also been serious questions about errors that the C.I.A. made leading up to the attacks of 9/11. Mr. Kirk also voted against investigating these failures. Congress has also been looking into why the C.I.A.’s intelligence regarding Saddam Hussein’s military capabilities was so faulty. And a very serious question has also been raised about how it was that Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife’s identity as a C.I.A. operative was revealed, and whether that was done for political purposes.

If, while all of this was being discussed in Congress, our Congressman was secretly working for the C.I.A., as he said he was, instead of acting as an independent overseer of the C.I.A., the decisions Congress has been called upon to make regarding the C.I.A. may have been seriously undermined, and our national security jeopardized.

Several questions need to be answered:

1)	Is Mr. Kirk working for the C.I.A.?
2)	If he is working for the C.I.A., who else in government knew about it? Did the President know? Did the Republican speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, know? Did Republican Majority Leader Tom DeLay, whose political action committee has given more money to Kirk than to any other sitting congressman, know?
3)	If Kirk is working for the C.I.A., or has been at any time while he was in Congress, what influence did he have over legislation that affected the C.I.A.? USA Today reported on June 20, 2002 that Kirk is part of what is known in Washington as the “Spy Caucus”.
4)	What impact did Kirk’s conflict of interest have on his decisions? On June 1, 2004, just days before Kirk revealed his C.I.A. connection, Wayne Woolley in an article distributed by the Newhouse News Service discussed the problem of conflicts of interest between service in Congress and service in the military. The article specifically mentioned Kirk as having this problem. Kirk has shown a lack of understanding of the problem. In National Defense Magazine, November 2001 Kirk said “My primary military duty station right now is in the Congress, to vote for the beans and bullets necessary to carry out this war, and to encourage my colleagues in Congress to do the same.”

Kirk has been caught in a very serious conflict of interest that puts our national security in jeopardy. When his conflict was revealed, due to his own boastful efforts to influence the passage of a bill, he denied that he had said what he had in fact said. Now that the proof of Kirk’s deception has been uncovered, he owes the entire nation, and especially the voters in his district, an explanation of his attempt to cover up the truth. He also owes an explanation for every vote he cast relating to military, intelligence, and foreign affairs. He should immediately release all records regarding his service in both the military and the C.I.A., and if he cannot prove that what he said in Congress is false, he should resign. If he can prove that what he said was false, he should explain why he lied about a matter involving our national security, and then tried to cover it up.