There’s been an interesting “evolution” to the White House line when it comes to the Plame leak. The initial argument, which they stuck to for months, was that the White House had nothing to do with the pushback against Joseph Wilson. Slowly but surely, that story broke down as evidence emerged that top White House aides intentionally leaked classified information and, in many instances, lied about it.
Today, Murray Waas moves the ball forward a little more, implicating the president directly in the series of events.
President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Dick Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president’s statement.
Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004, interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.
That’s the bad news. The good news, at least for Bush, is that he told prosecutors that he did not know if Cheney directed “Scooter” Libby to leak classified information to the media and did not direct anyone to disclose Valerie Plame’s identity.
That said, the bad news is not at all encouraging for the president.
One senior government official familiar with the discussions between Bush and Cheney — but who does not have firsthand knowledge of Bush’s interview with prosecutors — said that Bush told the vice president to “Get it out,” or “Let’s get this out,” regarding information that administration officials believed would rebut Wilson’s allegations and would discredit him.
A person with direct knowledge of Bush’s interview refused to confirm that Bush used those words, but said that the first official’s account was generally consistent with what Bush had told Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
If Waas’ report is accurate, and at this point I have no reason to doubt it, and if Bush told prosecutors the truth during his Oval Office “interview,” the president was far more involved with this mess than he ever let on publicly. While the Bush White House pretended to have no real interest in Wilson’s revelations, and at times even denied knowing who Wilson was, the president of the United States was personally instructing the VP to step efforts to discredit the former ambassador, who, not incidentally, was right.
This led to a series of unfortunate events, including the leak of classified information, the outing of a CIA official, a criminal investigation, and the first criminal indictment against a top presidential aide in 130 years.
I hate it when stories like this one come out the day before a major national holiday.