WASHINGTON — Sen. Richard Shelby yesterday accused federal law-enforcement officials of abuse after a newspaper reported that federal investigators had concluded he leaked to the media classified messages from the eve of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Washington Post, citing sources familiar with the investigation, reported that the Alabama Republican's role had been confirmed to FBI investigators by Fox News Channel chief political correspondent Carl Cameron. Cameron denied the charge.

The newspaper said the alleged leak was from a June 19, 2002, interview, after a classified briefing to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Shelby at the time was the committee's vice chairman.

A statement from Shelby's office said he "never knowingly compromised classified information."

In question are two messages intercepted by the National Security Agency one day before the Sept. 11 attacks. Those messages contained the words "the match begins tomorrow" and "tomorrow is zero day," but they were not translated from Arabic until Sept. 12.

Shelby's office said, in a statement released yesterday by his spokeswoman, Virginia Davis, "It bears noting that this story represents a grotesque abuse of a public trust on the part of law enforcement."

"For someone in law enforcement to express one-sided, personal views anonymously to the media while the investigation itself is still under way and while the matter is pending before the Senate ethics committee is unprofessional and grossly unfair," Shelby's statement said.

The Justice Department last month referred the matter to the ethics committee.

Justice Department officials declined to comment on the newspaper report or Shelby's accusation.

Cameron acknowledged that the FBI talked to him about the investigation, but he denied naming Shelby as a leaker.

"It's flat wrong," Cameron said. "The sum total of my interaction was to tell them that there was no information they could get from Carl Cameron or Fox News and to refer them to my lawyers."

Cameron said he didn't air the material until after it was reported by CNN. According to The Post's sources, Shelby met with a CNN reporter after he spoke with Cameron, and the network broadcast the information an hour later.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

Commentary:
A US senator is accused of breaking the law and the story goes away. I thought it's necessary to bring it up again, especially since there are so many other intelligence leaks by this White House/

If Shelby leaked classified documents to the press, isn't this one of the biggest stories of the year? He'd be impeached, or at a minimum removed from Intelligence Committee's if he were a democrat.

For the record, I can't think of a reason why these statements were classified in the first place (other than another coverup by the Bush White House).