At a White House briefing today, Bush toady Scott McClellan broke the administration's silence on the verified documentation of Karl Rove's interactions with Time Magazine reporter Matt Cooper, and the president's intentions regarding Rove's status in the administration
Despite the hair splitting over whether Rove publically identified a CIA operative he knew the CIA wanted to be protected, the President himself thought the outing was criminal
“Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn’t be working here at the White House if they didn’t have the president’s confidence,” McClellan said.With that, the President gave Rove a tacit "thumbs up" and flip flopped on early statements indicating the administration would fire any member of staff for involvement in the Plame affair.
Despite the hair splitting over whether Rove publically identified a CIA operative he knew the CIA wanted to be protected, the President himself thought the outing was criminal
"This is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action."At a February 2004 fundraising stop in Chicago, Bush stated
"I want to know the truth. Leaks of classified information are bad things. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job."He added that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information."
Considering the White House reaction to what we know about Rove's involvement, one has no choice but to wonder how involved the President and other administration officials were in planning and implementing "Operation Plame Out".
The careful orchestration of statements by administration officials and hair-splitting over "naming Plame", "knowingly" (Rove was obligated to ensure any information he gave about anyone in the CIA did not jeopardize the identity of a convert agent/NOC or an operation), and focus on "illegal"/"violated law" makes me wonder if they'd poured over the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 to find loopholes in each section, just in case the strategy back-fired and somehow lead investigators back to the White House.
The careful orchestration of statements by administration officials and hair-splitting over "naming Plame", "knowingly" (Rove was obligated to ensure any information he gave about anyone in the CIA did not jeopardize the identity of a convert agent/NOC or an operation), and focus on "illegal"/"violated law" makes me wonder if they'd poured over the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 to find loopholes in each section, just in case the strategy back-fired and somehow lead investigators back to the White House.
Tags:Rove; Plame; politics; Bush Administration; Foreign Policy; conservatism; media; matt cooper; Downing Street MemorandumSphere: Related Content
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