Congressman Demands Opponent Return Money Donated by McCarthy

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Fired CIA leaker Mary McCarthy gave money to Joe Sestak, the Democrat in the race for a Pennsylvania U.S. House seat. The Republican incumbent, Congressman Curt Weldon, says Sestak should return the money.

Reports the Philadelphia Inquirer:

U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon called yesterday for Democratic opponent Joe Sestak to return $350 in campaign contributions from Mary O. McCarthy, the CIA investigator fired last week for allegedly leaking classified information to the news media.

Sestak's spokeswoman noted, in reply, that the CIA employee had not been charged with any crime and said she saw no reason for the money to be returned "at this time."

McCarthy, who worked at the National Security Council when Sestak worked there in the 1990s, donated $100 to Sestak on March 1 and $250 on March 11, according to a campaign finance report the Seventh Congressional District candidate filed with the Federal Election Commission.

Weldon, through a campaign spokesman, said he had joined other Republicans in Congress asking for an investigation into what classified information McCarthy may have disclosed to reporters. Agency officials linked her late last week to reports in the Washington Post disclosing the existence of classified CIA prisons in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Weldon "finds it very curious that the individual alleged to have disclosed the classified information ... shows up on his opponent's finance report."