[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/03/30/art.hershtsr0330.cnn.jpg caption="Journalist Seymour Hersh sat down with CNN's Wolf Blitzer in The Situation Room Monday."]
(CNN) - The Bush administration established a secret special operations unit unmonitored by Congress with authority to assassinate high-value targets in as many as a dozen countries, New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh told CNN Monday.
A former Cheney aide denied the claim.
Watch both interviews today on The Situation Room at 6 pm ET.
In an interview on CNN's The Situation Room, Hersh said the group - called the Joint Special Operations Command - reported to Vice President Dick Cheney and was delegated authority to assassinate individuals based on their own intelligence.
"The idea that we have a unit that goes around and without reporting to Congress - Congress knows very little about this group, can't get hearings, can't get even classified hearings on it…goes around and has authority from the president to go into a country without telling the CIA station chief or the ambassador and whack someone, I am sorry Wolf, yes I have a problem with that," Hersh said in the interview with Wolf Blitzer.
Cheney aide John Hannah denied the claim. "It's not true," he told Blitzer Monday. "And I think you heard in that interview that there was a little walking back from the original claim that was made in the speech that Mr. Hersh made" in which the reporter characterized the group as an "assassination wing."
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/02/12/art.menendez.gi.jpg caption=" Menendez is chairman of the DSCC."]
WASHINGTON (CNN) - Nearly two years before Election Day 2010, the Senate Democrat charged with expanding the party's already-strong majority sounded a bullish tone Thursday, suggesting the national mood and political environment make it nearly impossible for the GOP to pick up seats.
"The fear should be on the other side,” New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, told reporters in his first briefing since assuming the post formerly held by New York Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Menendez's unyielding optimism may seem surprising given how far out the elections remain, and the fact that the president's party historically loses seats in a midterm election, especially when that party controls both houses of Congress and the White House. The Democratic Party’s decades-long majority status in Congress ended with the first midterm of the Clinton presidency.
But Menendez noted five currently-held GOP seats are set to be vacated in 2010, most of them in traditional swing states: Florida, Ohio, Missouri, New Hampshire, Kansas. Meanwhile, no current Democratic senators have plans to retire, though the president's Cabinet appointments have technically left Colorado, New York, Illinois, and Delaware without an incumbent Democrat.
UPDATE: With New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg removing his name from consideration to be Commerce Secretary, New Hampshire may no longer be an open seat, though Gregg later said he 'probably' would not seek reelection.
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/17/art.palin.gi.jpg caption=" Palin's personal e-mail was reportedly hacked Wednesday."](CNN) - John McCain's campaign said Wednesday it has contacted "appropriate authorities" over a report that Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail had been hacked.
"This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law," campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement. "The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."
The statement came hours after a user on the Web site WikiLeaks said he had gained access to Palin's Yahoo e-mail account and gained access. Screenshots of the e-mail messages and photos of the Alaska governor's family were published on that Web site and later on gossip Web site gawker.com.
FBI Spokesman Eric Gonzalez in Anchorage, Alaska confirms to CNN an investigation is underway.
"We are aware of the allegations and we are coordinating with Secret Service as far as the allegation that someone has hacked into Governor Palin's personal e-mail account," he said. "We are going to be working a joint investigation with Secret Service on this."
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/17/art.palin.gi.jpg caption=" Palin's personal e-mail was reportedly hacked Wednesday."](CNN) - John McCain's campaign said Wednesday it has contacted "appropriate authorities" over a report that Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail had been hacked.
"This is a shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law," campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement. "The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these emails will destroy them. We will have no further comment."
The statement came hours after a user on the Web site WikiLeaks said he had gained access to Palin's Yahoo e-mail account and gained access. Screenshots of the e-mail messages and photos of the Alaska governor's family were published on that Web site and later on gossip Web site gawker.com.
FBI Spokesman Eric Gonzalez in Anchorage, Alaska confirms to CNN an investigation is underway.
"We are aware of the allegations and we are coordinating with Secret Service as far as the allegation that someone has hacked into Governor Palin's personal e-mail account," he said. "We are going to be working a joint investigation with Secret Service on this."
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