Thursday, November 29, 2007
When he commuted I. “Scooter” Libby’s 30-month jail sentence for bribery, obstruction of justice and making false statements during a special prosecutor’s investigation into the leak of a CIA agent’s name, President Bush declared the case closed and said it was time to move on.
For four months, the president got his wish: the story disappeared from the front pages and television news headlines.
But on Nov. 19, a bombshell was dropped that has made the CIA leak case a major story again. There is now a stench of a cover-up emanating from the White House.
Given that the source of the new information is none other than former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, an investigation by U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey and congressional inquiry are justified.
McClellan is writing a book about his tenure called “What Happened” and a brief excerpt was made public by the publisher last week.
It has to do with a 2003 news conference in which the press secretary told reporters that aides Karl Rove and Libby were “not involved” in the leak involving CIA operative Valerie Plame.
“There was one problem. It was not true,” McClellan writes. “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.”
Questions
The vagueness of the excerpt prompts numerous questions including this overarching one: How deeply was President Bush involved in the White House’s efforts to mislead the public about the role of aides in leaking the identity of Palme?
“The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information,” the current White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in reaction to McClellan’s claim. She added that it is not clear what the former spokesman meant. He has refused to publicly comment.
An investigation by the new attorney general, Mukasey, and congressional hearings should shed light on what has now become a front-page story — again.
A month before the president commuted Libby’s sentence — it came before the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney had spent even one day behind bars — it was suggested in this space that the move would raise questions of a cover-up. It was noted that Libby’s lies impeded an investigation that could have implicated one of both of his bosses, had it run its normal course.
Now, with McClellan’s contention that all of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in his providing false information to reporters about the outing of CIA operative Plame, the speculation of who knew what, when will continue until all those involved in this sordid campaign of character assassination are forced to answer questions under oath.
Plame’s reaction to the revelation goes to the heart of the matter: “ ... 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.”
That may well be, but it is clear there’s a lot more to this matter — despite the president’s declaration that the case is closed.