WASHINGTON — Pentagon investigators concluded that a senior Defense Department official who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to be the next CIA director leaked restricted information to the makers of an acclaimed film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, and referred the case to the Justice Department, according to knowledgeable U.S. officials. 
 
 The Justice Department received the case involving Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers in September, but so far it’s declined to launch a criminal prosecution, said two senior U.S. officials who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. 
 
 The case involved a determination by investigators of the Pentagon’s inspector general’s office that Vickers provided the makers of the film “Zero Dark Thirty” with the restricted name of a U.S. Special Operations Command officer who helped plan the May 2, 2011, raid on bin Laden’s hideout in Pakistan, one official said. The identities of special forces personnel can be classified in certain circumstances and making them public is against the law, according to experts. 
 
 Vickers, a former Army special forces operator and onetime CIA paramilitary officer, is the top intelligence adviser to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and oversees the Pentagon’s vast intelligence operations. He’s been frequently mentioned as a candidate to replace retired Army Gen. David Petraeus as CIA director. 
 
 “Mike Vickers is an outstanding defense and intelligence professional and is well respected inside the Department of Defense and the intelligence community,” Pentagon spokesman George Little said. 
 
 It was unclear whether the Justice Department review could hurt Vickers’ chances of being nominated to the CIA post. A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the matter. 
 
 “When it comes to even the slightest hint that there may have been an unauthorized disclosure of classified information, there’s actually little choice but to contact Justice,” a senior defense official said. “That doesn’t mean they will do anything with it. This is a routine practice.” 
 
 The Pentagon inspector general’s office is continuing to examine whether there were any other leaks of restricted information to the makers of the film. In a Dec. 4 letter denying a McClatchy Freedom of Information Act request for the findings, the office said the material was “currently part of an open investigation.” A spokeswoman said Monday that the report “has not yet been finalized and issued.” 
 
 Even though the inquiry was launched at the request of Rep. Peter King, R-NY, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, the Defense Department Inspector General’s Office hadn’t informed King or any other lawmaker of its findings by midday Monday, a politically risky decision that could ignite charges that officials were trying to protect President Barack Obama during his tough re-election battle. 
 
 King told McClatchy that the delay in notifying him “raises the question” of whether officials were trying to put it off for political reasons, but he wanted to see the full report before drawing any conclusions. 
 
 “I’m not looking for anyone to be indicted,” he said. “But the IG does not make referrals to the Justice Department as a matter of routine. To me the fact that any information at all would be given to Hollywood producers by this administration is disgraceful.” 
 
 “If it’s wrong enough or questionable enough for the IG to refer it to the Justice Department, that means it shouldn’t have been done.” 
 
 The film, by director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, originally was set for release just weeks before the Nov. 6 election. But it was delayed amid Republican complaints that it could bring Obama votes by glorifying the bin Laden operation. The premier was held last week and the film is due for a limited public release on Wednesday. 
 
 The senior defense official, who requested anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the matter publicly, wrote in an email that Pentagon officials don’t think the case “will amount to anything.” He pointed out that the Pentagon deemed as “unclassified” a transcript of a July 15, 2011, conversation among Vickers, Bigelow and Boal in which Vickers identified the U.S. special forces planner by name as someone who could be made available to brief the filmmakers. The transcript was released to Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog organization, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. 
 
 The investigators found no evidence that White House officials were involved in any leaks of classified materials to the filmmakers, according to U.S. officials familiar with the findings. They reached that conclusion, however, without interviewing any White House officials or Panetta, who was the CIA director at the time of the bin Laden raid. Panetta reassured Congress in June — before the investigators reached their findings — that no classified information had been released to the filmmakers. 
 
 A second U.S. official blamed bureaucratic handwringing for the delay in notifying King, not an orchestrated effort to protect the White House. 
 
 “This does not appear to be a cover-up or a wag-the-dog media stunt,” the U.S. official said. “Rather, this is about who gets to break the law and leak information for their own benefit.” 
 
 (EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE) 
 
 The case is emblematic of an ongoing debate over what information the government deems to be secret, who can disclose classified material and to what degree leaks of such information jeopardize national security. 
 
 Obama’s Justice Department has prosecuted a record number of U.S. officials for leaking secret information to the news media that critics contend shouldn’t have been classified or did no harm to national security. The most prominent case involves the ongoing prosecution of Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, who’s accused of providing thousands of secret and confidential diplomatic and military documents to WikiLeaks, the online whistle-blowing organization. 
 
 In a Dec. 6 report, a presidential advisory panel that studied the classification issue found that “the current classification system is fraught with problems. In its mission to support national security, it keeps too many secrets, and keeps them too long; it is overly complex; it obstructs desirable information sharing inside of government and with the public.” 
 
 “A culture persists that defaults to the avoidance of risk rather than its proper management,” the Public Interest Declassification Board said in recommending an extensive overhaul of the system. 
 
 Steven Aftergood, who runs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, said the release of the U.S. special forces planner’s identity “would most likely be considered sensitive, not for national security reasons, but for personal security reasons. If his name became public, it might raise security considerations for him as an individual.” 
 
 “The boundaries of what is and what is not classified are soft and changeable. In the abstract, this person’s identity might be sensitive but unclassified,” he continued. “It’s very hard to say categorically that such information either would not or would be classified.” 
 
 King requested the investigation in August 2011 over concerns that classified information may have been given to the makers of the bin Laden movie that might have compromised tactics used by U.S. special forces and the methods used by the CIA to gather intelligence. 
 
 Bigelow has said that “to the best of our knowledge” she and Boal didn’t receive classified information. “We never requested classified information or was I aware that classified information was coming my way,” she said in an interview with CBS earlier this month. 
 
 Among its other conclusions, the Pentagon investigators determined that White House and Pentagon officials discussed allowing the filmmakers to interview Vickers. They also found that the meeting with the special operations planner never took place, and that no secret special operations tactics and techniques were revealed to the pair. 
 
 One of the filmmakers attended a June 2011 CIA award ceremony that recognized the Navy SEALs and CIA officers involved in the raid, but no effort was made to protect the special operators’ identities, investigators found. 
 
 The investigation will create more controversy for the movie, which had its premiere Dec. 10 in Los Angeles to widespread acclaim. Human right groups and other critics are complaining that scenes of the CIA’s brutal interrogation of al Qaida detainees erroneously imply that torture provided crucial intelligence that led the agency to bin Laden’s hiding place in Abbottabad, Pakistan. 
 
 King requested the investigation in letters to the Pentagon and CIA inspectors general in which he cited a New York Times report that Bigelow and Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. were given “top-level access to the most classified mission in history.” He also noted Bigelow’s reported attendance at the CIA ceremony. 
 
 King asked the inspectors general to examine whether there had been any consultations between White House, Defense Department and CIA officials on providing the filmmakers access to SEAL team members or undercover CIA officers. He also requested that they look at whether any secret techniques or tactics of the SEALs or the CIA had been compromised and whether leaks about details of the raid to the news media had hurt the CIA’s intelligence collection methods or human sources. 
 
 The Pentagon Inspector General’s Office informed King in December 2011 that it was launching a formal investigation “into actions taken by Defense Department personnel related to the release of information to the filmmakers.” The CIA Inspector General’s Office apparently declined to investigate, telling King in a Nov. 8, 2011, letter that the agency’s Office of Public Affairs was developing a written policy “that will govern future interactions with the entertainment industry.” 
 
 In a May 23 letter, King wrote to Vickers that documents obtained by Judicial Watch in its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit “raise serious questions regarding your central role in providing classified and sensitive information to individuals without appropriate security clearances.” The documents included emails and the transcript of the conversation that Vickers had with Bigelow and Boal in which Vickers disclosed the name of the U.S. Special Operations Command planner. 
 
 In a separate letter the same day, King expressed concerns to CIA Deputy Director Michael J. Morell about his role in the case. Morell became the acting agency chief after Petraeus resigned last month, and his name is among those mentioned as a top contender to replace Petraeus. 
 
 In his letter to Morell, King said the Judicial Watch documents showed that the CIA had given Bigelow and Boal permission to visit at least six CIA facilities. They included secure vaults at the National Counterterrorism Center and possibly “a sensitive, covered facility” outside the CIA headquarters campus in Langley, Va., King wrote. 
 
 The issue provided fodder during Obama’s election battle against former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, with a group of politically conservative former special forces officers producing a video in which they accused the president of taking too much credit for bin Laden’s death and allowing too many leaks of secret information about the hunt. 
 
 (email: mtaylormcclatchydc.com, jlandaymcclatchydc.com) 
 
 12-17-12 
 
 ja-ba AMX-2012-12-17T18:56:00-05:00 ||||| Sources tell ABC News that the Inspector General for the Department of Defense has been preparing a report in which Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers is criticized for giving sensitive information to the filmmakers behind " Zero Dark Thirty." 
 
 Specifically, Vickers is said to have disclosed to the filmmakers the identity of a member of SEAL Team Six - though not a member of the team that conducted the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound. Names of members of that team are not to be disclosed because of the potential for violent retaliation. 
 
 Some in the Pentagon think the Inspector General is holding the report until after the current Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, retires so as to not sully or embarrass him. 
 
 A senior defense official disputed that. "It's wrong for anyone to suggest the investigation has been held up for political reasons or to avoid embarrassment," the official said. "The investigation simply hasn't concluded. These things often take time." 
 
 The official added that Pentagon officials "really don't think this will amount to anything." 
 
 Documents released in May, after the conservative government watchdog group Judicial Watch obtained them through the Freedom of Information Act, revealed that in a July 14, 2011 meeting, Vickers told the filmmakers he would provide them with the name of a "planner, SEAL Team 6 Operator and Commander." 
 
 "The only thing we ask is that you not reveal his name in any way as a consultant because . . . he shouldn't be talking out of school." Vickers said. "This at least, this gives him one step removed and he knows what he can and can't say, but this way at least he can be as open as he can with you and it ought to meet your needs." 
 
 The senior defense official said that Vickers was asked by the Pentagon to talk to "the 'Zero Dark Thirty' filmmakers and others in the entertainment industry to provide unclassified information on the bin Laden operation. He wasn't doing this on his own. It's appropriate for department officials to work with the entertainment industry to try to inform how stories are told - especially those associated with one of the greatest intelligence and military successes of a generation." 
 
 The official said that "Vickers is one of America's top defense and intelligence professionals who has closely guarded secrets for decades, and is highly respected in the Department of Defense and the Intelligence Community." 
 
 -Jake Tapper ||||| The Defense Department Inspector General’s office has been sitting on a report that former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta disclosed “TOP SECRET” information and other sensitive details two years ago at an event attended by a “Hollywood executive” working on the movie Zero Dark Thirty. 
 
 In June 2011, when he was director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Panetta discussed the information at a CIA headquarters event honoring participants in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to an unreleased report drafted by the Inspector General’s office and obtained by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). 
 
 “During this awards ceremony, Director Panetta specifically recognized the unit that conducted the raid and identified the ground commander by name,” the draft report says. “According to the DoD Office of Security Review, the individual’s name is protected from public release” under federal law, the report says. 
 
 “Director Panetta also provided DoD information, identified by relevant Original Classification Authorities as TOP SECRET//SI//REL TO USA, AUS, CAN, GBR, NZL, as well as, SECRET/ACCM,” the report says. 
 
 Panetta was not interviewed for the report, the document says. POGO’s repeated attempts to reach him or a spokesperson for him through the Panetta Institute for Public Policy, his base in California, were unsuccessful. 
 
 “The report is not yet completed,” said Bridget Ann Serchak, a spokeswoman for the Inspector General’s office. “Once it is released, if it is unclassified, it will be posted on our Listserv and in our newsletter as well as on our website.” 
 
 Plugging Leaks 
 
 Disclosures of classified information have taken center stage in Washington recently as the government has ratcheted up actions against leakers, whistleblowers, and journalists. The nation has been struggling to draw the line between truth-telling in the public interest and criminal violations of national security—a debate that runs through the newly opened trial of accused WikiLeaks tipster Bradley Manning, the Justice Department’s pursuit of phone and email records of reporters for the Associated Press and Fox News, and the imprisonment of former CIA agent John Kiriakou for divulging the names of fellow officers. 
 
 James Comey, widely reported to be President Obama's choice to become FBI director, has set his own tough standard. "[S]ome things can't leak," Comey said in a 2007 video clip broadcast last week on the PBS NewsHour. “The flip side of that is, when they do leak, the government has to do something about it, has to, because we care about the rule of law." 
 
 The Inspector General (IG) report obtained by POGO lays out results of an investigation requested almost two years ago by the then-chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Peter T. King (R-NY). In August 2011, he wrote that he was concerned that filmmakers had reportedly received “top level access to the most classified mission in history.” The probe was formally initiated in December 2011. 
 
 The fact that the IG’s office has not released its findings has caused consternation among the office staff, people familiar with the probe told POGO. Within the office, there was a push to make findings public as early as a year ago, sources speaking on condition of anonymity said. Last fall, the office took steps toward releasing some version of the report, including putting it through a Pentagon vetting process and preparing talking points to explain the contents, a person familiar with the investigation said. 
 
 Another person with knowledge of the probe said the draft report obtained by POGO matched a copy that person examined in January, when it appeared to be all but ready for release. The IG’s office had gone so far as to include an undated cover letter addressed to the House committee chairman who requested the investigation. 
 
 Message From a Whistleblower 
 
 Appointed by President Obama, Panetta served as CIA director from 2009 to mid-2011 and as Defense secretary from mid-2011 until early this year. 
 
 The unknown fate of the IG report was the subject of a December 2012 email exchange—obtained by POGO—between a congressional staff member and an employee in the IG’s office. The congressional aide mentions having heard that someone in the IG’s office was “sitting on it until Secretary Panetta retires” and asks the IG employee for any information about it. 
 
 The IG employee replies: “That effort . . . has been controlled and manipulated since inception by the IG Front Office.” The employee adds: “There is a version ready to hit the street, been long time ready to hit the street…but we will see if that happens anytime soon. Highly unusual tight controls and tactical involvement from senior leadership on this project.” 
 
 The employee says the matter reflects broader problems within the IG’s office. 
 
 “I have grave concerns that the message and findings are now controlled and subject to undue influence across the board at DoD IG. I have never experienced or seen so much influence or involvement by outsiders now in developing and issuing oversight reports.” 
 
 The IG employee invokes whistleblower status. 
 
 “I consider this protected communications on alleged wrong-doings within the Government.” 
 
 Lame Duck Watchdogs 
 
 The story of the unreleased investigative report illustrates systemic problems that can undermine the independence of inspectors general, federal watchdogs meant to provide a check on executive branch departments and agencies. The Defense Department IG answers not only to Congress but also to the secretary. 
 
 Across various departments, IG posts have gone unfilled for long periods of time, left in the hands of officials serving on an interim basis. Less secure in their jobs, they may be in a weaker position to challenge authority. 
 
 As POGO said in testimony to Congress last year, “It is hard to imagine that an Acting IG known for conducting hard-hitting investigations and audits that implicate high-level administration officials would be asked by that same administration to serve as IG on a permanent basis.” 
 
 The Defense Department IG’s job has been vacant since December 2011, and the office has been headed on a temporary basis by Lynne M. Halbrooks, who is now the principal deputy inspector general. She has sought support to be named permanent inspector general, a presidential appointment that traditionally involves the approval of the secretary. 
 
 Serchak, the IG spokeswoman, said the absence of a permanent inspector general has not affected the office’s work. 
 
 “Nothing’s changed,” she said. 
 
 In January, representatives of the IG’s office told Senate overseers that the Zero Dark Thirty report would not be released until the office had completed two related reports, POGO has been told. 
 
 The IG report also highlights what critics have complained is inconsistent treatment of people who spill government secrets. 
 
 “It’s like Animal Farm,” said one person with knowledge of the investigation. “Some people are more equal than others.” 
 
 In the realm of national security, the government has taken extraordinary steps to plug news leaks, prosecute whistleblowers, and probe news organizations. In contrast, the IG report describes how the Obama Administration threw its support behind a Hollywood project depicting one of President Obama’s most dramatic triumphs – the nighttime SEAL team assault on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where bin Laden – referred to as “UBL” – had been hiding. 
 
 After Panetta became secretary of Defense, senior Panetta aides implored a resistant Special Operations Command to assist, according to the draft IG report. 
 
 “Secretary Panetta wants the Department to cooperate fully with the makers of the UBL movie,” a Pentagon under secretary emailed the head of Special Operations, according to the report. 
 
 Emailing a senior Pentagon colleague during the summer of 2011, Defense Department spokesman George Little offered a glimpse of Panetta’s enthusiasm. “I hope they get Pacino to play [Secretary Panetta],” the report quotes Little as having written. “That’s what he wants, no joke!” 
 
 Inside The CIA’s Big Tent 
 
 Zero Dark Thirty debuted in December 2012. At one time, it had been slated for release before last fall’s election. The producers included Kathryn Bigelow, the Academy Award winning director of The Hurt Locker, about an Army bomb squad in Iraq, and Mark Boal, screenwriter of The Hurt Locker. 
 
 The IG report recounts that Boal was permitted to attend a June 24, 2011, ceremony at CIA headquarters honoring personnel involved in the May 2011 bin Laden raid. The fact that the screenwriter was allowed to attend has been reported previously and has been a subject of controversy. The IG report provides new details about the event—notably, that Panetta’s remarks contained information classified as Secret and Top Secret. 
 
 Excerpt from the unreleased draft report. 
 
 The “SI” part of the Top Secret marking refers to Special Intelligence, another term for communications intelligence, according to a Defense Department classification manual. It applies to electronic intercepts, said Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists. The rest of the Top Secret marking – “REL TO USA, AUS, CAN, GBR, NZL”—means that the information can be released to properly cleared personnel of the United States, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, and New Zealand. 
 
 The “ACCM” part of the Secret marking denotes material protected by “Alternative Compensatory Control Measures,” according to another Defense Department manual. Those measures include a list of people authorized to access the information, the manual says. “Compromise of ACCM program information can present an immediate and real threat to national security and those personnel involved in mission execution,” the manual says. 
 
 The report notes other indications that what was said at the event should be handled with care. The prepared remarks that Panetta delivered “were labeled SECRET//NOFORN”—meaning not releasable to foreign nationals—and a record of the event was made “accessible on the CIA’s classified network,” the report says. 
 
 The IG report does not say what Top Secret or Secret information Panetta provided. It rules out a broad category of sensitive Defense Department information: “tactics, techniques, and procedures,” known as TTPs. The report’s authors concluded that “no classified or sensitive special operations TTPs were exposed” at the event. 
 
 “No Precautionary Measures” 
 
 The IG report says special operations personnel were not pleased to discover that an outsider was at the CIA event. At a reception following the ceremony, Admiral William H. McRaven, one of the raid’s overseers, was introduced to a person “identified as the maker of the ‘Hurt Locker,’” the draft report says. “ADM McRaven and DoD special operators present were all ‘universally surprised and shocked’ that a Hollywood executive attended this CIA Headquarters awards ceremony.” 
 
 “ADM McRaven informed us he was concerned about the possible release of the special operators’ identities,” the draft report says. 
 
 As secrecy surrounding the raid eroded, in part through the appearance of a filmmaker at the CIA event, the military became increasingly concerned that participants in the raid could be targeted for terrorist retaliation. The report notes that McRaven held a meeting with families of special operators to tell them that “additional protective monitoring” would be provided and “to call security personnel if they sensed anything.” 
 
 The probe by the Defense Department IG’s office did not assess the extent of any compromise to CIA sources and methods or intelligence-gathering capabilities, the report says. 
 
 In the run-up to the event, the prospect of a Hollywood executive attending was a subject of concern within the CIA public affairs office, the report says. 
 
 The report says that a CIA public affairs officer tried to prevent the filmmaker from attending. That information is attributed to a Defense Department official who had been in contact with the CIA public affairs officer. However, the day of the event, the CIA public affairs officer allegedly relayed that efforts to keep the filmmaker out failed “and the ‘Chief of Staff’ directed that the Hollywood executive be given access to the event.” 
 
 The report says Panetta’s chief of staff at the CIA—Jeremy Bash, who followed him to the Defense Department in the same role—disputed that account, saying he was not involved. 
 
 Though special operations personnel expected it to be a small event, it was far from that, the report says. “The Director of CIA’s Chief of Staff described it to us as ‘a huge enormous crowd, I mean they built a tent and it was not sensitive, I would say it was not a highly sensitive event. It was pretty much a cattle call’” but “`not open to the public per se,’” the draft report says. 
 
 The special operators attended in uniform with their names displayed and were directed to reserved seats in the front row, the report says. The identities of the SEAL Team members could have been useful leads for anyone trying to gather information about the mission. 
 
 “We found no precautionary measures were taken to protect special operators from being identified by the Hollywood executive at this event,” the draft report says. 
 
 Panetta: “No Unauthorized Disclosures” 
 
 The findings in the draft inspector general’s report seem to be at odds with public statements Panetta has made. 
 
 Panetta told ABC in May 2012 that “nothing inappropriate” was shared with the filmmakers. 
 
 “We’ll try to make sure that we give them accurate information so that the historic record is protected. But you know, we do not share anything that is inappropriate with anybody,” he said on “This Week.” 
 
 At a June 2012 Senate hearing, based on the controversy that was already raging, Panetta was asked about “this accommodation with Hollywood filmmakers regarding the bin Laden raid.” 
 
 He responded forcefully. 
 
 “Look, let me first say as a former Director of the CIA, I deplore the unauthorized disclosures of classified information,” Panetta said. “I think that this is something that does have to be fully investigated, and it has to be very clear that this is intolerable if we’re going to try to protect the defense of this country. We’ve got to be able to protect those who are involved in clandestine operations.” 
 
 Panetta gave the impression that the concerns were unfounded. 
 
 “I also want to make clear that, you know, no unauthorized disclosures were provided to movie producers or anybody else. What we do have is we do have an office at the Pentagon that almost every day deals with people that want to do something about, you know, either a movie or a book or an article or something related to our defense," he told lawmakers. “And we want to make sure that the information that they do use is accurate. And we do assist them with regards to the accuracy of that information. But I can assure you, I’ve asked that question, in this instance, nobody released any information that was unauthorized.” 
 
 Panetta’s alleged disclosures at the CIA event were not the only potential embarrassments for the Pentagon and the Obama Administration in the draft IG report. 
 
 The document says that Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Michael Vickers gave Boal and Bigelow the name of a Special Operations planner of the raid – an “Operator and Commander”—that was protected by law and was “For Official Use Only, not for public release.” 
 
 But, as with Panetta’s alleged mention of the ground commander’s name, the federal laws the report cites with respect to the undersecretary’s disclosure are not specifically focused on covert operators. They deal with, among other things, “personally identifying information” about “any member of the armed forces assigned to an overseas unit, a sensitive unit, or a routinely deployable unit.” The “For Official Use Only” label does not mean the information is classified. 
 
 The report obtained by POGO paints Panetta’s disclosure in more serious terms. It flatly states that, beyond naming the ground commander at the June 2011 ceremony, he revealed information that was classified. 
 
 Santa Delayed 
 
 As recently as December 2012, after repeated delays, the IG’s office was gearing up to release the Zero Dark Thirty report, POGO has been told. 
 
 In the December email chain with a congressional staff member, the IG employee who had been so critical of the IG’s office expressed relief. 
 
 “Senior leadership met on Friday afternoon. Decided subject report you inquired on should be issued.” 
 
 “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause [sic]…DODIG does its mission.” 
 
 As it turns out, that assessment was premature. 
 
 POGO Executive Director Danielle Brian contributed.
– Michael Vickers, a senior Defense official rumored to be a possible replacement for David Petraeus at the CIA, has been referred to the Justice Department after Pentagon investigators concluded that he leaked restricted information about the Osama bin Laden raid to Zero Dark Thirty filmmakers, two senior US officials tell the Miami Herald. Vickers, the Pentagon's undersecretary for Intelligence, gave filmmakers the name of a member of SEAL Team Six who helped plan the raid—though not, ABC News reports, one of the SEALs who actually conducted the raid. But so far, the Justice Department has declined to prosecute. Vickers is Leon Panetta's top intelligence adviser, and it's not clear whether the matter will hurt his shot at the CIA directorship. One senior defense official says it's simply "a routine practice" to refer issues like this to the Justice Department, and adds that Pentagon officials doubt the case "will amount to anything," particularly since a 2011 conversation in which Vickers talked to the filmmakers about the SEAL, mentioning him by name, was deemed unclassified by the Pentagon. The Pentagon says its investigation into possible leaks related to the film is still ongoing. It was launched at Rep. Peter King's request, but his office hadn't been notified of any findings by this week. King says that "raises the question" of whether the delay was for political reasons. The Herald suggests it may have been an effort not to hurt the president's re-election chances, while ABC suggests it was to avoid embarrassing Panetta before he retires.