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Update:
Bush vows to fire anyone who committed crime in CIA leak
Monday, July 18, 2005; Posted: 1:37 p.m. EDT (17:37 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush told reporters Monday that if anyone committed a crime in connection with the leak of a CIA agent's identity, "they will no longer work in my administration."
He would not, however, discuss the possible role Karl Rove or other administration officials may have played in the exposure of CIA officer Valerie Plame after her husband questioned a key piece of the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq.
At a brief news conference following a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Bush said, "We have a serious ongoing investigation here, and it's being played out in the press. I think it's best if people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. I don't know all the facts. ... I would like this to end as quickly as possible. And if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."
On Sunday, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper told CNN's "Late Edition" that Rove told him Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent involved with weapons of mass destruction in a July 2003 conversation after Wilson had raised questions about one of the arguments underpinning the invasion of Iraq.
"After that conversation, I knew that she worked at the CIA, and worked on WMD issues," said Cooper, who appeared last week before a grand jury investigating the leak. "But as I made clear to the grand jury, I'm certain Rove never used her exact name and certainly never indicated she had a covert status."
Cooper said Rove ended the conversation by telling him, "I've already said too much."
He also said that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, confirmed the information.
The reporter recounted his 2 1/2 hours before the grand jury in a Time magazine article this week and on Sunday talk shows. In the Time article, he said he asked Libby "if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that, too' or words to that effect."
Cooper told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he regarded that as confirmation of what Rove had told him.
The controversy dates back to the furious debate over the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the claims that Baghdad was harboring a nuclear weapons program in violation of U.N. sanctions. In his 2003 State of the Union address, with war looming, President Bush told the nation that British intelligence had evidence that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa.
Nearly three months after Baghdad fell to U.S. troops, Wilson disclosed that the CIA asked him to travel to Niger in 2002 to investigate that allegation, and that he had reported back to the agency that the report was unlikely. The resulting controversy prompted the administration to back off the claim, though CIA Director George Tenet said Wilson's report had been inconclusive.
Eight days after Wilson's account appeared in The New York Times, syndicated columnist and CNN contributor Robert Novak identified Plame as a CIA operative in a column that suggested that Plame was responsible for sending her husband to Niger to investigate the uranium report. Novak cited two senior administration officials in his column.
A lawyer familiar with grand jury testimony in the case said Friday that Novak told Rove that Plame was a CIA agent, not the other way around. The lawyer said Rove responded to Novak, 'I heard that, too.' "
Novak declined to comment on the report, citing a lawyer's advice.
Rove, the architect of Bush's campaigns for governor of Texas and president, now serves as deputy White House chief of staff. Leading Democrats are calling for him to be fired, or at least have his security clearance yanked for the duration of the investigation.
In October 2003, after CIA officials requested a criminal investigation of the leak, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said neither Rove nor Libby played any role in the leak. McClellan said anyone found to have leaked classified information would be fired -- a pledge Bush himself reaffirmed in June 2004.
Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman told CNN's "Late Edition" that Rove -- long considered one of the most aggressive strategists in American politics -- is the victim of an "unprecedented" partisan smear campaign by Democrats.
"They're trying to have short-term political gain and smear a good man," Mehlman said. "And it's wrong, and they should apologize for it."
But Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, said the issue was "so much bigger than Karl Rove."
"The underlying issue here is, whether or not Joe Wilson said things rightly or wrongly, he was right -- flat right -- that Niger was not selling yellowcake to Iraq, which was a justification for going to war," Biden said. "This was all about whether or not those who had access to intelligence information in this administration used it appropriately, not just whether or not the agency was right."
He added, "Anybody who's ever made a mistake in this administration has never paid at all. Everyone who has been right in this administration has been fired."
Republican spokesmen have accused Wilson of lying about the origins of his mission and say his report actually bolstered the report -- which later turned out to have been bogus -- that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.
Wilson called his wife's exposure an act of political retaliation that ended her career. But some observers have questioned whether Plame, then assigned to Washington, met the definition of an undercover agent in the 1982 law that makes revealing the identity of an American spy a felony.
Wilson has said that the CIA considered her exposure to be a crime when it sought a Justice Department investigation of the matter.
"The CIA would not have frivolously referred this to the Justice Department if they did not believe a possible crime had been committed," he told CBS' "Face the Nation."
Bush vows to fire anyone who committed crime in CIA leak
Monday, July 18, 2005; Posted: 1:37 p.m. EDT (17:37 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush told reporters Monday that if anyone committed a crime in connection with the leak of a CIA agent's identity, "they will no longer work in my administration."
He would not, however, discuss the possible role Karl Rove or other administration officials may have played in the exposure of CIA officer Valerie Plame after her husband questioned a key piece of the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq.
At a brief news conference following a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Bush said, "We have a serious ongoing investigation here, and it's being played out in the press. I think it's best if people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. I don't know all the facts. ... I would like this to end as quickly as possible. And if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."
On Sunday, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper told CNN's "Late Edition" that Rove told him Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent involved with weapons of mass destruction in a July 2003 conversation after Wilson had raised questions about one of the arguments underpinning the invasion of Iraq.
"After that conversation, I knew that she worked at the CIA, and worked on WMD issues," said Cooper, who appeared last week before a grand jury investigating the leak. "But as I made clear to the grand jury, I'm certain Rove never used her exact name and certainly never indicated she had a covert status."
Cooper said Rove ended the conversation by telling him, "I've already said too much."
He also said that Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, confirmed the information.
The reporter recounted his 2 1/2 hours before the grand jury in a Time magazine article this week and on Sunday talk shows. In the Time article, he said he asked Libby "if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that, too' or words to that effect."
Cooper told NBC's "Meet the Press" that he regarded that as confirmation of what Rove had told him.
The controversy dates back to the furious debate over the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the claims that Baghdad was harboring a nuclear weapons program in violation of U.N. sanctions. In his 2003 State of the Union address, with war looming, President Bush told the nation that British intelligence had evidence that Iraq had sought to obtain uranium from Africa.
Nearly three months after Baghdad fell to U.S. troops, Wilson disclosed that the CIA asked him to travel to Niger in 2002 to investigate that allegation, and that he had reported back to the agency that the report was unlikely. The resulting controversy prompted the administration to back off the claim, though CIA Director George Tenet said Wilson's report had been inconclusive.
Eight days after Wilson's account appeared in The New York Times, syndicated columnist and CNN contributor Robert Novak identified Plame as a CIA operative in a column that suggested that Plame was responsible for sending her husband to Niger to investigate the uranium report. Novak cited two senior administration officials in his column.
A lawyer familiar with grand jury testimony in the case said Friday that Novak told Rove that Plame was a CIA agent, not the other way around. The lawyer said Rove responded to Novak, 'I heard that, too.' "
Novak declined to comment on the report, citing a lawyer's advice.
Rove, the architect of Bush's campaigns for governor of Texas and president, now serves as deputy White House chief of staff. Leading Democrats are calling for him to be fired, or at least have his security clearance yanked for the duration of the investigation.
In October 2003, after CIA officials requested a criminal investigation of the leak, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said neither Rove nor Libby played any role in the leak. McClellan said anyone found to have leaked classified information would be fired -- a pledge Bush himself reaffirmed in June 2004.
Republican Party Chairman Ken Mehlman told CNN's "Late Edition" that Rove -- long considered one of the most aggressive strategists in American politics -- is the victim of an "unprecedented" partisan smear campaign by Democrats.
"They're trying to have short-term political gain and smear a good man," Mehlman said. "And it's wrong, and they should apologize for it."
But Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware, said the issue was "so much bigger than Karl Rove."
"The underlying issue here is, whether or not Joe Wilson said things rightly or wrongly, he was right -- flat right -- that Niger was not selling yellowcake to Iraq, which was a justification for going to war," Biden said. "This was all about whether or not those who had access to intelligence information in this administration used it appropriately, not just whether or not the agency was right."
He added, "Anybody who's ever made a mistake in this administration has never paid at all. Everyone who has been right in this administration has been fired."
Republican spokesmen have accused Wilson of lying about the origins of his mission and say his report actually bolstered the report -- which later turned out to have been bogus -- that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.
Wilson called his wife's exposure an act of political retaliation that ended her career. But some observers have questioned whether Plame, then assigned to Washington, met the definition of an undercover agent in the 1982 law that makes revealing the identity of an American spy a felony.
Wilson has said that the CIA considered her exposure to be a crime when it sought a Justice Department investigation of the matter.
"The CIA would not have frivolously referred this to the Justice Department if they did not believe a possible crime had been committed," he told CBS' "Face the Nation."
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