Fitzgerald Investigation of Leak of Identity of CIA Agent

Just read a news headline that Bush was involved in the leak. Now what?

Now what? Cancel your subscription to the BS "newspaper" and subscribe to a real one.

McClellan in Upcoming Book Ties Bush to CIA Leak Case
UPDATE: Scott McClellan in Upcoming Book Ties Bush to CIA Leak Case -- Dodd Calls for Probe
By E&P Staff
Published: November 20, 2007

To no one's surprise in a world where top White House aides with any president eventually write a book about it, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan will be coming out with his volume in April. It's called "What Happened" and its publisher, Public Affairs, at its Web site now carries this brief excerpt -- which set off a media firestorm on Tuesday.

It also led to a call for a full probe by a top U.S. senator and condemnation from former CIA agent Valerie Plame.

E&P was first mainstream news outlet to report on Monday night that the McClellan excerpt reads:

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

"There was one problem. It was not true.

"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."

AP reported this afternoon: "White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn't clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt and she had no immediate comment. McClellan turned down interview requests Tuesday."

Later Tuesday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ct.) , who is running for president, stated, "Today's revelations by Mr. McClellan are very disturbing and raise several important questions that need to be answered. If in fact the President of the United of States knowingly instructed his chief spokesman to mislead the American people, there can be no more fundamental betrayal of the public trust.

"During his confirmation process, Attorney General Mukasey said he would act independently. Accordingly, today, I call on the Attorney General to live up to his word and launch an immediate investigation to determine the facts of this case, the extent of any cover up and determine what the President knew and when he knew it."

Even later Friday, Valerie Plame released the following statement from her new home in Santa Fe, N.M.: "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 and the American public about two senior White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby who deliberately and recklessly revealed my identity as a covert CIA operations officer. 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. Unfortunately, President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's felony sentence has short-circuited justice.

"Vice President Cheney in particular knew that Scooter Libby was involved because he had ordered and directed his actions. McClellan's revelations provide important support for our civil suit against those who violated our national security and maliciously destroyed my career."

At The Lede blog at The New York Times, Mike Nizza responded earlier: "How exactly was the president involved? Did he take part in a cover-up? Will the next few sentences in the book explain the role of each official? Well, until more of the 400-page book is released, we are left with only a tantalizing bit of fodder for close watchers of the C.I.A.-leak story line to chew on. If Mr. McClellan is the first senior administration official to implicate President Bush in the scandal, we'll definitely know by April 2008, when the memoir is due to hit store shelves. But something tells The Lede that this won't be the last little taste of the book that the publisher will, um, leak to the press."

In its promotional material posted at Amazon.com and elsewhere, the publisher describes the book like this: "In this refreshingly clear-eyed book, written with no agenda other than to record his experiences and insights for the benefit of history, McClellan provides unique perspective on what happened and why it happened the way it did, including the Iraq war, Hurricane Katrina, Washington's bitter partisanship, and two hotly-contested presidential campaigns. He gives readers a candid look into who George W. Bush is and what he believes, and into the personalities, strengths, and liabilities of his top aides.

"Finally, McClellan looks to the future, exploring the lessons this presidency offers the American people as we prepare to elect a new leader."

Deny reality, deny reality, deny reality, if it's at all possible, stick your head further up your ass, deny reality some more.

Gungasnake, thanks for the informative post. I have often scratched my head over the strange disappearance of any discussion of the anthrax attacks since the the first few weeks or months after it happened. If evidence now points to Saddam Hussein, that would explain the paucity or almost non-existence of any news in regard to that issue. For a few obvious reasons, one being it doesn't fit the template that the media has built that Hussein had nothing to do with 911 or anything related to it, such as the anthrax, and secondly it destroys the media template that Bush lied us into war for no reason. After all, Hussein had no capability and was absolutely no threat. That has been what we have been told repeatedly now ever since we began to fail to find WMD in Iraq and the violence continued there.

In regard to McClellan, now that he sees the firestorm he has created, I am wondering what his reaction will be to all of it. Did he expect it to be quietly filed away or what?

P.S. Whether the administration knew about Plame or talked about her, there is nothing new here, and none of this changes how she was outed. It was Novak, fed the information primarily from Armitage, and confirmed by the CIA for one. And we still don't know for sure if she was "covert" as defined by the law that governs this. All of this is so frustrating, all the bull to cut through. In my opinion, Fitzgerald needs to sit on the hot seat and answer a few simple questions.

The truth has that effect, that of raising the hackles of liars.

But nice try anyway at the deception, Okie. Instead of discussing the lies, Okie wants to analyse some inane tangent he dreamed up. Earth to Okie, earth to Okie.

Why is it suddenly McClellan. Why isn't it Scott? Has he fallen out of favor?

Let it be Scott or Scottie. I don't know the guy, JTT, so we aren't on first name basis.

You have no independent evidence that this is true.

You realize that Novak has changed his story 4 times now?

Cycloptichorn

The truth has that effect, that of raising the hackles of liars.

But nice try anyway, at the NEW deception, Okie. Instead of discussing the lies, Okie wants to analyse some inane tangent he dreamed up. Earth to Okie, earth to Okie.

Armitage himself admits it, cyclops. I don't think there is any doubt about that part of this affair. He is now going around claiming it was somebody elses fault, however, that he was just an innocent gossiper or something, and should have known better.

Armitage admitted that he told Novak; but that doesn't mean he was the first one, or that others didn't tell Novak far more.

You are more then willing to believe the account of a liar - Novak and Rove - when you know they've changed their story. Rove didn't say 'oh, I heard that too.' He told his boy all about it. That would be my guess. It's not plausible to look at things any other way, considering that Novak has lied again and again about what has happened.

Cycloptichorn

This is bad; the 'usual suspects' will keep living in denial offering up every lame argument to try to make it go away or not seem as bad. Chances are it will go away with no one getting in trouble. But it is just one more piece of the ugly currupt picture falling in place.

Bloomberg, which is publishing M's book, said that the book will say that Bush was ignorant of the facts.

There is no proof linking Saddam to an anthrax attack on us. Moreover, had Bush known about such an attack, he would have said so.

So how has Novak lied again and again? Given what we have been told about Fitzgerald being such an astute details man that is dogged and determined, it seems to me that if Novak misrepresented anything, he would have gone after him?

You have no idea what Novak told Fitz in the beginning; it is entirely probable that, as his story of the events has changed so often, he has been lying to the media - or, more specifically, to people like you, Okie. He cooked up a story with Rove and Libby that was specifically designed to be easy for folks like you, who don't want to believe that their supposedly moral leaders are criminals, to swallow whole.

Cycloptichorn

Well, it was, do you have a problem with information? Perhaps if you have the final scoop on the anthrax, please let us in on it. Until then, perhaps you aren't but I am interested in pertinent information.

So then all you have is your opinion, and since you don't have any idea what Novak told Fitz either, you just pull out the term "probable" based on nothing but your own speculation?

By the way, the quotes from the book are from a book still being worked on, and are only teasers, so who knows what the result will be in context?

"Osnos says the quotes which appeared on the Public Affairs Books website were part of the roll out of the book catalogues for the spring printings. And he says McClellan had not finished the manuscript for the memoir yet and was working under deadline to have the book completed for the April publishing."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21917188/

As I said earlier in the thread - I noticed the carefully parsed language, and didn't think that this was the bombshell that others seemed to think. Just a way to sell more books by the publisher.

But, I will say: Novak has changed his story over and over again about the events that took place. That's a pretty sure sign of a lie. When someone is lying, there's no reason to assume that their story is the definitive truth of the matter.

Cycloptichorn

That Scott McClelland said what he said is extraordinary as he is putting himself in jeopardy of being charged in a criminal conspiracy.