Tweet
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush did not know about a White House effort to leak the identity of a CIA agent but tried to protect staffers who were involved in one of the biggest scandals of his administration, former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told Congress on Friday.
McClellan said he did not think Bush was involved in a 2003 effort to blow the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband had accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.
But Bush, through his chief of staff, ordered McClellan to tell reporters that White House staffers Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby were not behind the leak, even though they both turned out to be involved, McClellan told the House Judiciary Committee.
Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in the leak might have been greater, McClellan said.
"I do not think the president in any way had knowledge about it," McClellan told lawmakers. "In terms of the vice president, I do not know. There is a lot of suspicion there."
McClellan, who was White House spokesman between 2003 and 2006, recently released a book that accuses the White House of conducting a propaganda campaign to make the case to invade Iraq. He says Libby and Rove deceived him about their role in the Plame leak.
McClellan said Bush should fully explain what he knew about the leak and how he decided to invade Iraq. The White House was "less than candid and less than honest" as it made its case for war, he said.
McClellan's book, released last month, caused an uproar in Washington and raised new questions about whether Bush and Cheney directed staffers to smear war critics, like Plame's husband, and then block a subsequent investigation. Continued...
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...edName=topNews
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush did not know about a White House effort to leak the identity of a CIA agent but tried to protect staffers who were involved in one of the biggest scandals of his administration, former Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told Congress on Friday.
McClellan said he did not think Bush was involved in a 2003 effort to blow the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband had accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the Iraq war.
But Bush, through his chief of staff, ordered McClellan to tell reporters that White House staffers Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby were not behind the leak, even though they both turned out to be involved, McClellan told the House Judiciary Committee.
Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in the leak might have been greater, McClellan said.
"I do not think the president in any way had knowledge about it," McClellan told lawmakers. "In terms of the vice president, I do not know. There is a lot of suspicion there."
McClellan, who was White House spokesman between 2003 and 2006, recently released a book that accuses the White House of conducting a propaganda campaign to make the case to invade Iraq. He says Libby and Rove deceived him about their role in the Plame leak.
McClellan said Bush should fully explain what he knew about the leak and how he decided to invade Iraq. The White House was "less than candid and less than honest" as it made its case for war, he said.
McClellan's book, released last month, caused an uproar in Washington and raised new questions about whether Bush and Cheney directed staffers to smear war critics, like Plame's husband, and then block a subsequent investigation. Continued...
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNe...edName=topNews
Comment