capitolhillblue: Card told * White House 'Hip-Deep' in Plame Scandal

[shockingelk]

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7564.shtml

... Chief of Staff Andrew Card cancelled a weekend schedule of appearances and events to spend the weekend with Bush at Camp David and deliver the bad news personally, White House insiders tell Capitol Hill Blue.

... "We’re hip deep in this and the sharks are circling,” Card told the President.

... According to multiple White House sources, Card laid out a detailed scenario of White House involvement in a staff-directed campaign to destroy administration critic Wilson. That scenario includes:

- A concentrated effort directed by Libby to monitor Wilson’s travel, speeches and activities and develop talking points to attack his credibility and plant false stories about the Ambassador’s activities, statements and motives. Libby’s plan included “outing” Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative. Card told Bush he believes Vice President Cheney was aware of Libby's activities.

- Approval of the program by Rove who helped spread the information to “administration-friendly” reporters, including conservative columnist Robert Novak and New York Times reporter Judith Miller who has since publicly admitted helping spread false administration-based information claiming the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a claim now discredited.

- Attempts by White House personnel to cover up administration involvement in the Plame affair, including Rove-directed public statements by press spokesman Scott McClellan claiming “no White House official is involved” in the leaking of Plame’s name.