| Admissions from former administration spokesman Scott McClellan confirm criminal acts by those at the top of the Bush administration. |
| If Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and other administration officials conspired to reveal the identity of CIA covert operative Valerie Plame Wilson, then the question becomes (to paraphrase from the senate Watergate hearings) "What did the President know, and when did he know it?"
In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, [Former White House press secretary Scott] McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis ''Scooter'' Libby were ''not involved'' in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame. ''There was one problem. It was not true,'' McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. ''I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself.'' Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card. ''I am outraged to learn that former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan confirms that he was sent out to lie to the press corps,'' [former CIA operative Valerie] Plame said. ''Even more shocking, McClellan confirms that not only Karl Rove and Scooter Libby told him to lie but Vice President Cheney, presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card and President Bush also ordered McClellan to issue his misleading statement.'' ''Just when you think the credibility of this White House can't get any lower, another shoe drops,'' said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. ''If the Bush administration won't even tell the truth to its official spokesman, how can the American people expect to be told the truth either?'' In the fall of 2003, after authorities began investigating the leak, McClellan told reporters that he'd personally spoken to Rove, who was Bush's top political adviser, and Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff. ''They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved,'' McClellan said at the time. Both men, however, were involved. Rove was one of the original sources for the newspaper column that identified Plame. Libby also spoke to reporters about the CIA officer and was convicted of lying about those discussions. He is the only person to be charged in the case. Source: "Former Aide Blames Bush for Leak Deceit" By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS via NY Times - November 21, 2007 This is not the first time Mr. Rove has been linked to a leak reported by Mr. Novak. In 1992, Mr. Rove was fired from the Texas campaign to re-elect the first President Bush because of suspicions that he had leaked information to Mr. Novak about shortfalls in the Texas organization's fund-raising. Both Mr. Rove and Mr. Novak have denied that Mr. Rove had been the source. Source: "Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer" By DAVID JOHNSTON and RICHARD W. STEVENSON - NY Times - 7/15/05 |
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| Comments | Contributor | Date Submitted |
| Another good question might be "Did Rove act on his own or did someone (maybe Bush) tell him to "leak" the name?" | Linda Denton |
7/13/2005 |
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