11
Jul
White House press secretary Scott McClellan: Then and now on Karl Rove
On September 29 of 2003, White House press secretary Scott McClellan told reporters that “if anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration.”
“It,” of course, is the disclosure that administration critic Joesph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. And yesterday, Karl Rove’s lawyer admitted that Rove had told Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper, before Plame’s name surfaced in a Bob Novak column only days after Wilson had blasted the administration in a New York Times op-ed piece, that Wilson’s wife was a CIA employee who had sent Wilson on a mission that helped discredit the administration’s claim that Iraq had tried to purchase large quantities of uranium from Niger.
In the same briefing, McClellan told Helen Thomas, “If you have specific information, bring it to my attention.”
So far as we know, despite unequivocal evidence that he was involved in the leak, and despite that the evidence has been brought to McClellan’s attention — although not initially by Thomas; perhaps that’s an out — Karl Rove is still in the administration.
Associated Press has put together a brief guide to some of McClellan’s other statements on Rove’s possible involvement in the leak. And AP noted in an earlier story the administration’s claim that anyone involved in the leak would be summarily fired.
In September and October of 2003 McClellan said he had spoken with Rove, along with Scooter Libby, a senior aid to Dick Cheney, and National Security Council official Elliot Abrams, and that all three men assured him they were not involved in the leak.
Today, McClellan refused to answer questions about his past statements, saying he couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation. (He heeded the first lesson of press secretary school, which is never to say that your previous statements are no longer operative.)
Also today, Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff told told CNN that White House officials may have obtained Plame’s name from a classified State Department report.
But the problem that people in the White House, Rove among them, may have is how did they know that Valerie Plame, or Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA? What we do know is there was a classified State Department report that said this, that was taken by Secretary of State Powell with him on the trip to Africa that President Bush was then on, and many senior White House aides were on.That classified State Department report appears to have been — or may well have been the source for the information that Rove and others were then dishing out to reporters. And if that’s the case, there still may be — we don’t know yet, but there still may be an instance where classified information was provided to reporters.
Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, insists that Rove did not identify Plame to Cooper by name (he doesn’t remark on what Rove may have told other reporters, and the avoidance of Plame’s name might actually play against Rove in court). The distinction may or may not have a bearing on the criminal aspect of the affair. But whether or not Rove knew Plame was an undercover operative, and whether he identified her as Valerie Plame or Mrs. Joseph Wilson, there remains no doubt that he was among those leaking her occupation to reporters before the Novak column was published.
He was involved in “it.” In fact, he was up to his neck in “it.”
Specific information has been brought to the administration’s attention.
It’s time to fire Karl Rove.
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Rove must be jailed for treason against the United States and perjury….
July 11th, 2005 at 6:52 pmThis administration has been corrupt to the core from the git-go. All the while they professed to be a uniter not a divider; and a faith based administration, while almost every action they have taken as been unChristianlike. They’d have one to believe that one must be a conservative (e.g. republican) to be Christian or religious or persons of faith. All the while they profess this agenda, they continue to wage war on innocent people, (not speaking of Hussein here, am speaking of the innocent people caught int he crossfire here)and attack anyone who opposes their professed agenda as a political adversary, not to be taken seriously. Now that the administration is under fire because of what Rove might or might not have revealed in conversations with reporters, they have absolutly nothing to say either to deny or admit. So we must draw our own conclusions. And as for me, as often and as much as they have lied and misled in the past, I would put this in the same file drawer.
Now do not get me wrong here, I do not fault the administration for these misgivings. I do, however, fault the American public, too lazy to educate themselves, too eager to believe rosy predictions, too quick to accept whatever explanation explains away anything that would require a small amount of brain work or discernment on our part. It’s so much easier and convenient to be beguiled, than it is to develop our own thoughts, views, and analysis of any situation. We just look for whatever supports our own lazy agenda and applaud that and pretty soon we are zapped into a world we do not care for and wonder how we got there.
I really really hope that soon America wakes up from its long term slumber and shakes itself off the doldrums we’ve so easily been lulled into.
July 12th, 2005 at 7:01 pm