The Senate Intelligence Committee today saw a demonstration of some continuing concern about a newspaper report that the Central Intelligence Agency sponsored drug trafficking activity in Los Angeles. Protesters who said the story was being covered up disrupted an Intelligence Committee hearing at which two former leaders of the Nicaraguan Contras, the alleged beneficiaries of the drug profits, denied that they knowingly received any drug money. NPR's Barbara Bradley reports the Intelligence Committee chairman, Senator Arlen Specter, set aside routine procedure and did not have the protesters ejected. He said he wanted to show that he is not participating in a coverup.
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