Bush didn't know about CIA leak, McClellan says (Reuters)

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Bush didn't know about CIA leak, McClellan says
Fri Jun 20, 2008 12:45pm EDT

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. 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.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2032779420080620

[JDPriestly]

1. If McClellan is right, then Libby and Rove do not have the right

to claim executive privilege. They were acting as rogue agents when they outed Plame. If they don't think that what they did was a crime, they should be willing to talk to Congress about just what happened. What are they hiding if McClellan is right? There is no crime in covering up a crime unless you lied to a federal agent in doing it.

[ColbertWatcher]

3. True. These question/answer sessions the Dems insist on...

...does only one thing: bring things to light.

And it also explains why the GOP don't want to do it.

[BOSSHOG]

5. They make me chuckle

during the libby brewhaha, the gop insisted bush had zero, nip, none, nada conversations with libby about plame (or anything else for that matter) but they claimed executive privilege relative to conversations. I'm a dumbass old fart from Mississippi and I figured that nonsense out.

and if there were no underlying crime as limbaugh et al would have us believe, why did libby have to lie?

Damn if they only got a blowjob, then we'd see some awesome values oriented justice.

[arcadian]

2. *cough**cough* BULLSHIT! *hraugmphrrrrhmphhmp*

n't

[baldguy]

4. If the Pres allows his subordinates the power to commit crimes w/o his knowledge, he's incompetent

If they comity crimes WITH his knowledge - either before or after the fact - thats malfeasance.

[JDPriestly]

6. As I understand it, the president may (but even this is not certain by

any means) claim executive privilege for his communications with his aides, but that the executive privilege does not apply to allegations of criminal conduct. So, if Bush was involved in a cover-up for criminal conduct, that would be a criminal act, and the executive privilege would not apply to protect him from disclosures by his aides regarding their communications with him related to the cover-up. That is the way I understand it, but I don't think the law is established really clearly on this issue.