Posted on 07/11/2005 12:47:25 PM PDT by Pikamax
Press Batters McClellan on Rove/Plame Link
By E&P Staff
Published: July 11, 2005 3:30 PM ET
NEW YORK At numerous press briefings last week, not a single reporter asked White House Press Secretary about emerging allegations that top presidential aide Karl Rove was a source, or the source, for Time magazine's Matthew Cooper in the Valerie Plame case. On Sunday, Newsweek revealed a Cooper e-mail from July 2003 that showed that Rove indeed had talked to him about Plame and her CIA employment, although he apparently did not mention that she worked under cover.
This development apparently freed the journalists to hit McClellan hard at this afternoon's briefing. Here is a partial rush transcript. ***
Q: Scott, can I ask you this: Did Karl Rove commit a crime?
MCCLELLAN: Again, David, this is a question relating to a ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to the investigation. And I don't think you should read anything into it other than: We're going to continue not to comment on it while it's ongoing.
Q: Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003, when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliot Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this"?
MCCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that, as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation, we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time as well.
Q: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?
MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...
Q: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?
MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.
Q: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?
MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.
Q: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?
MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.
QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott... because after the investigation began -- after the criminal investigation was under way -- you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.
Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?
MCCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization. And I think you are well aware of that.
We know each other very well. And it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation.
And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this. Because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States.
I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that.
Q: So you're now saying that after you cleared Rove and the others from that podium, then the prosecutors asked you not to speak anymore and since then you haven't.
MCCLELLAN: Again, you're continuing to ask questions relating to an ongoing criminal investigation and I'm just not going to respond to them.
Q: When did they ask you to stop commenting on it, Scott? Can you pin down a date?
MCCLELLAN: Back in that time period.
Q: Well, then the president commented on it nine months later. So was he not following the White House plan?
MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your questions. You can keep asking them, but you have my response.
Q: Well, we are going to keep asking them. When did the president learn that Karl Rove had had a conversation with a news reporter about the involvement of Joseph Wilson's wife in the decision to send him to Africa?
MCCLELLAN: I've responded to the questions.
Q: When did the president learn that Karl Rove had been...
MCCLELLAN: I've responded to your questions.
Q: After the investigation is completed, will you then be consistent with your word and the president's word that anybody who was involved will be let go?
MCCLELLAN: Again, after the investigation is complete, I will be glad to talk about it at that point.
Q: Can you walk us through why, given the fact that Rove's lawyer has spoken publicly about this, it is inconsistent with the investigation, that it compromises the investigation to talk about the involvement of Karl Rove, the deputy chief of staff, here?
MCCLELLAN: Well, those overseeing the investigation expressed a preference to us that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it's ongoing. And that was what they requested of the White House. And so I think in order to be helpful to that investigation, we are following their direction.
Q: Scott, there's a difference between commenting on an investigation and taking an action...
MCCLELLAN: (inaudible)...
Q: Does the president continue to have confidence in Mr. Rove?
MCCLELLAN: Again, these are all questions coming up in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. And you've heard my response on this.
Q: So you're not going to respond as to whether or not the president has confidence in his deputy chief of staff?
MCCLELLAN: You're asking this question in the context of an ongoing investigation, and I would not read anything into it other then I'm simply going to comment on an ongoing investigation.
Q: Has there been any change, or is there a plan for Mr. Rove's portfolio to be altered in any way?
MCCLELLAN: Again, you have my response to these questions.
Two things to keep in mind. When Karl Rove spoke to the reporter - IT WAS AFTER NOVAK'S ARTICLE - the article which had Valerie's name in it.
And .. if Rove was guilty .. why weren't the dems hounding Rove BOFORE THE ELECTION. Surely .. that would have been a way to try to damage Bush .. but I don't remember the dems making any fuss about it at all.
Leni
Dennis Miller for Press Secretary!
Dennis "BOMMER" Miler.....
Of course, in idiot Liberal Land this latest example of attack dog journalism doesn't prove that the Washington press corps is liberal. Oh, no. It merely proves that journalists have very high standards.
Really? When was the last time a seething liberal lunatic mentioned his name because he stuck his foot in his mouth? Never?
If that's being a bad press secretary, I can't think of what being a good press secretary would be.
Bush and Rove LIKE that Scott McClellan looks weak.
He is not there to look strong.
He is there to draw in the press, draw them in, and draw them in some more. They smell blood in the water. They rant, they rave, they damn Karl Rove and pronounce him guilty of a heinous crime, over and over and over. They bully McClellan. They are egged on by his dull, repetitive passivity.
So they get out on that proverbial limb, farther and farther and farther...Meanwhile, back at the tree trunk, Bush and Rove are sawing off the limb. People get sicker and sicker of and madder and madder at the MSM. Their ratings sag even lower. More people turn to Fox, talk radio, the internet, etc.
Now who do you think wins in those forums...
Hmmmmm???
I'm confused however. Let's say Plame was nobody important and everybody knew she was CIA, and lowlevel at that. Doesn't that mean a clerical employee in the CIA was allowed to boondoggle her husband into a glorious and fun-filled trip to Niger on the taxpayer dime? All in order to find out if one of the world's most dangerous dictators had the materials capable of bringing mass destruction to at least a portion of the world?
Folks, if that's the way the CIA routinely operates, then we have a bigger problem on our hands than the outing one agent, or the troubles of a presidential adviser.
That was just awful. McClellan needs to go.
[quote]I'm confused however. Let's say Plame was nobody important and everybody knew she was CIA, and lowlevel at that. Doesn't that mean a clerical employee in the CIA was allowed to boondoggle her husband into a glorious and fun-filled trip to Niger on the taxpayer dime?[/quote]
Why would you want to say that Plame was nobody?
Why would the CIA ask the DOJ investigate the leaking of a low level employee's identity? Why would the DOJ agree to investigate the leaking of a low level employee's identity?
In order to believe that Plame was a glorified secretary, you also have to believe that the prosecutor in the Plame case has spent two years and untold amounts of money investigating nothing. Moreover, why would an investigation of little importance require the President of the United States to retain a lawyer to help him get through over an hour of questioning by a special prosecutor?
In other words, if the Plame case is much ado about nothing, then we have to conclude that Fitzgerald is basically insane. Something tells me he is not.
Why did the CIA ask the DOJ to investigate? Because many Clinton flunkies are still at the CIA and have a vendetta against Bush. The CIA has leaked much info to the press...all negative for Bush.
I am looking forward to watching the libs cry again when they lose this bogus case as well.
I think McClellan did a fine job. He remained calm during a temper trantrum thrown by a bunch of prima donas. It is my opinion he has the second hardest job in the adminstration, only the President has a harder job. The only value of these press briefings is to put the stupidity of the press on display. I say let's continue to highlight their meltdown.
That's what worries me. They can't have it both ways. Either she's a nobody, in which case, no harm no foul for Rove, but bad PR for CIA, or she was more significant, in which case her identity may in fact have been a sensitive issue, and Rove may have goofed.
I don't like either scenario.
It really is not about HER significance.
First, she was more than a mere clerical employee. It seems her portfolio contained the WMD question...what I do not know for sure is was it just about the Middle East? Just about Iraq? Or was it a look worldwide at the WMD threat? But the point is, was she or not a covert agent? If "they" are all upset, it is about that.
Now, indications are that Rove had no idea WHAT she did at the CIA, just that it was common knowledge she worked there. He had no intent to reveal her status there, as he did not know it.
His whole point was that the White House itself did not send Wilson to Niger. It seems the Press thought Wilson was trying to find out things FOR THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION, and had deliciously (for the Press) embarrassed his own "client".
Rove was telling Cooper of Time Mag not to put that in his story, that Wilson was sent by somebody else, not the Administration. Rove threw in there at the last of the conversation that likely he was pushed for the job by his wife who worked at the CIA (which everybody knew...that she worked there).
I see you are wondering how she had such clout if she was not important. I said she was of some degree of importance, not extremely so, but "they" are screaming because it is alleged by some that she was covert.
As to her clout in getting her husband sent on this mission, you have to remember that there are people in the CIA who have been leaking and everything under the sun to try to destroy the Bush Administration. So her suggestion could have been seized upon by them in order exactly to send her husband as the fact finder, knowing that he would write a report which would embarrass the Administration, knowing that even before he went over to Niger. It was a plot to destroy Bush on the matter of Saddam's Iraq and the Nuclear Threat, or lack thereof, in my opinion.
I have heard that Porter Goss, the new Director, has fired a number of people at CIA who had been there a number of years. I for one hope he knew who to fire and that he got the ones who were trying to destroy the Bush Administration.
I am talking about people who were more important than Valerie Plame, who would seize upon her suggestion to send her husband over there, knowing in advance that the fix was in, and do so with great relish, because they despise the Bush Administration for political/personal reasons.
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