Jay Rockefeller: “There have been statements made on the floor today-- which I was not here to listen to because I was in a Commerce…”

“There have been statements made on the floor today-- which I was not here to listen to because I was in a Commerce Committee meeting--expressing concern, outrage, et cetera, about what is happening with the Senate Intelligence Committee's inquiry into the prewar Iraqi intelligence. We have heard charges that a draft memo taken from the Intelligence Committee spaces and provided to the media somehow represents a plan to discredit what the Intelligence Committee is doing and to politicize the inquiry. These charges are inaccurate and unfortunate. I wish to speak to them as vice chairman of that committee. I would suggest to my colleagues that there is in fact reason for concern today, but it is not because of the content of this draft staff memo--a memo which, for the record, was not approved by me, was not given to any other member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, nor to any other staff person, my own staff on the Intelligence Committee, nor to any other member of the Senate, nor anybody else. It was an internal draft memo.”