Reply #22: THE WHITE HOUSE = Press Briefing by Dana Perino - April 25

[L. Coyote]

This was the "embargo on truth" offer.
WH offered to talk if in secret, w/o transcription, and, of course, without taking an oath to tell the truth.

==================
Press Briefing by Dana Perino - April 25, 2007
THE WHITE HOUSE - Office of the Press Secretary
http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=texttrans-english&y=2007&m=April&x=20070425145823eaifas0.2171289


PRESS BRIEFING BY DANA PERINO
White House Conference Center Briefing Room
12:10 P.M. EDT

MS. PERINO: Good afternoon. I have no opening statements, I'll just go straight to questions. ......

Roger.

Q: On the Sara Taylor authorized subpoena by the Senate Judiciary Committee today, if one is issued for her, would it be the intent of the administration to resist that subpoena?

MS. PERINO: I think I'm not going to go down the hypothetical road. But what I would submit to the House and Senate Judiciary committees is that if they wanted to take us up

on our offer to have the four officials provide an interview up there without a transcript, and then if they would provide -- we would provide them with documents going to and from the White House, which was an extraordinary offer on our part, that we would consider adding additional officials to those interview requests.

Q: That offer, though, has been on the table for several weeks now. Is there anything happening on that?

MS. PERINO: No, the ball is in the Democrats' court.

Q: Can you explain the objection to a transcript?

MS. PERINO: I think what we have tried to explain is that there is a long tradition in history of not having presidential close advisors testify in front of Congress. But we do want to be responsive to the Congress, and in order to do that, we thought that an interview and a hearing -- an interview is not a hearing, and that's what we offered. ....