Showing posts with label Valerie Plame. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Valerie Plame. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Bush Misled Press on Plame: Scott McClellan

What Happened, a new book by Scott McClellan, the former White House Press Secretary, provides a revealing glimpse of deception and manipulation of the press by the Bush White House.

Raw Story's Former WH Press Sec.: Bush, Rove helped pass along 'false information' on Plame provides the details:

President Bush, Karl Rove, and other top administration officials were "involved" in misleading the White House press corps about the outing of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame, a forthcoming book from former Press Secretary Scott McClellan alleges.

Entitled What Happened, the new tell-all features McClellan's account of his days as the White House's top spokesman -- including a behind-the-scenes look at the Bush administration's handling of the Plame affair, according to a tantalizing excerpt from the book released on its publisher's website.

"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," writes McClellan. "So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby."

But his press performances weren't based on the facts, McClellan continues.

"There was one problem. It was not true," he writes. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President's chief of staff, and the president himself."

....

In related news, has Karl Rove cut and run from George Bush? Some commentators think so.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

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Tuesday, November 13, 2007

U.S. Court: White House Ordered to Preserve Emails, Backup Tapes

CNN reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge Monday ordered the White House to preserve copies of all its e-mails, a move that Bush administration lawyers had argued strongly against.

A judge ordered the White House to keep copies of all e-mails.

U.S. District Judge Henry Kennedy directed the Executive Office of the President to safeguard the material in response to two lawsuits that seek to determine whether the White House has destroyed e-mails in violation of federal law.

...CREW and the National Security Archive are seeking to force the White House to immediately explain in court what happened to its e-mail, an issue that first surfaced nearly two years ago in the leak probe of administration officials who disclosed Valerie Plame's CIA identity to reporters.

Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald revealed early in 2006 that relevant e-mails could be missing because of an archiving problem at the White House.


An archiving problem? Really.

Is that what it was?

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

Visit our Toronto Law Firm website: www.wiselaw.net

EMPLOYMENT LAWCIVIL LITIGATIONWILLS AND ESTATESFAMILY LAW & DIVORCE