Scott McClellan:George W. Bush Outed CIA Agent Valerie Plame

[Jamnt]

OMG!!!!!
When does the trial start???



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3kSMvVRnk0

[tkmorris]

1. What??

What is Scott doing here? I heard several interviews he gave after his book came out, he never said anything like this. There is NO WAY he doesn't realize what a revelation this is, so why did he not say so before? Something is very much not right here. Why is it not in the book?

[Jamnt]

2. Maybe he was waiting till after the election? nt

[tavalon]

7. I think it parsed a bit

He said that * authorized leaking of parts of the NIE, but is that the same as leaking Valerie Plame's status? That wasn't clear to me from this.

[City Lights]

9. He said the same thing during his Today Show appearance last May:

George Bush Authorized the Leak of Valerie Wilson’s Identity
By: emptywheel Thursday May 29, 2008 7:08 am

Scottie McC doesn't know it yet. But that's basically what he revealed this morning on the Today Show (h/t Rayne).

During the interview, Scottie revealed the two things that really pissed him off with the Bush Administration. First, being set up to lie by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. And second, learning that Bush had--himself--authorized the selective leaking of the NIE.

Scottie McC: But the other defining moment was in early April 2006, when I learned that the President had secretly declassified the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq for the Vice President and Scooter Libby to anonymously disclose to reporters. And we had been out there talking about how seriously the President took the selective leaking of classified information. And here we were, learning that the President had authorized the very same thing we had criticized.

Viera: Did you talk to the President and say why are you doing this?

Scottie McC: Actually, I did. I talked about the conversation we had. I walked onto Air Force One, it was right after an event we had, it was down in the south, I believe it was North Carolina. And I walk onto Air Force One and a reporter had yelled a question to the President trying to ask him a question about this revelation that had come out during the legal proceedings. The revelation was that it was the President who had authorized, or, enable Scooter Libby to go out there and talk about this information. And I told the President that that's what the reporter was asking. He was saying that you, yourself, was the one that authorized the leaking of this information. And he said "yeah, I did." And I was kinda taken aback.

Now, for the most part, this is not new. We have known (since I first reported it here) that Scooter Libby testified that, after Libby told Dick Cheney he couldn't leak the information Cheney had ordered him to leak to Judy Miller because it was classified, Cheney told Libby he had gotten the President to authorize the declassification of that information.

Thus far, though, we only had Dick Cheney's word that he had actually asked Bush to declassify this information. We didn't have Bush's confirmation that he had actually declassified the information. In fact, we've had Dick Cheney's claims that he--Dick--had insta-declassified via his super secret pixie dust declassification powers.

But now we've got George Bush, confirming that he, the President of the United States, authorized the leaks of "this information."

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/05/29/george-bush-authorized-the-leak-of-valerie-wilsons-identity/

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Bookmarked.

[Virginian]

22. Yes, this is old news.

"...Leak portions of the NIE."
No one has stated which portions and if those portions included the identity of Valerie Plame.

[leveymg]

37. Val is named in a related document, the "NIE memo", that was circulated just before the leak

Recall, this was the document that Colin Powell took with him aboard AF-1, and it got passed around by White House aides (including Ari and Condi) during the trip to Africa. That document was produced at Scooter's order and delivered just before he met with Judy Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. "Valerie Wilson" is named and identified right at the bottom of the first page, reproduced at an April 2006 DU thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x948537

They're talking as if they're two different documents, but they're really the same thing.

Cheney and Scooter outed Plame. Ari and Condi had a supporting role. Bush okayed it. The crime was disclosing a CIA NOC's identity, and then lying to cover that up. Period.

Scotty's merely confirming what we already know, but adding that Bush admitted it to him.

[Dystopian]

36. KandR n/t

peace~

[Best_man23]

49. Guess that's what led him to leave the Bush WH

He should have resigned on the spot and immediately went to Congress with what he knew.

[blm]

17. He probably promised Bush he'd wait till end of term to thwart impeachment hearings.

Bush being part of this from the beginning is what I've always said - Rove acts WITH Bush's views known on EVERYTHING political.

Media won't discuss it, but the biggest part of Bush's resume was always that he was a POLITICAL STRATEGIST and DIRTY TRICKSTER who worked WITH Atwater and Rove for years.

[YvonneCa]

19. It is in the book. Have you...

...read it? If not, you should. :)

[jhrobbins]

53. I like Scott-he is from Austin, so am I; and I really appreciate his book

and his new position on that terrible, horrible, foul, criminal administration. It does bug me just a tiny bit that he knew what Bush had revealed when he was scolding all the WH press about Iraq, the Plame affair, Scooter Libby and CHeney. I guess he has found a way to reconcile this in his own mind. At any rate, I'm glad he has finally come over from the 'dark side'.

[sellitman]

3. Retirement at the Hague should be in Georgies future.

[SusanaMontana41]

34. Nice pic!

I hope GW, Rummy, Cheney, and the other lawless architects of this criminal administration live long lives and die in jail.

Poppy Bush cannot be pleased about this, no matter what he says publicly.

[deminks]

4. Thank you, Congress, for taking impeachment off the table. /sarcasm off

Is the Wilson's suit still intact?

[indepat]

24. If taking impeachment off the table was not a crime against this Republic, then what was it?

:shrug: :P

[pnwmom]

45. If Bush had been impeached, would he have been convicted by the Republicans

in the Senate?

In the extremely unlikely event that he had been threatened with conviction, he would have resigned and appointed his replacement (as Nixon did). This replacement would have enjoyed a honeymoon with the press, as he prepared to run for election in 2008.

Would Obama be President now? Or the Republican honeymooner? (Who no doubt would not have been John McCain.)

[KnaveRupe]

46. Huh?

Nixon didn't appoint his replacement when he resigned - his VP, Ford, assumed the presidency.

If Bush had resigned, Cheney would have become president, and would have had no effect on the election.

Perhaps you are confused in that Nixon appointed Ford as VP when Agnew went buh-bye. That, however was well prior to Nixon's resignation.

History iz hard! ;-)

[pnwmom]

50. You're right, he appointed Ford when Agnew resigned. But the net effect

was that he had appointed his replacement -- Ford never stood for election as V.P.

A lot of people here have had the idea that Nancy Pelosi would have become President, assuming that Bush AND Cheney would have been impeached together. But I'm sure that never would have happened. If we were impeaching Bush, we would have been impeaching them both. And Cheney would have gone first. But Cheney would have resigned , Bush would have replaced him, and then -- if he felt conviction was probable -- Bush would have resigned.

But that's all water under the bridge.

[madokie]

5. I would say sometime in March or April '09

[crispini]

6. Wow. Watched the video. It's pretty clear.

Color me surprised.

[PRETZEL]

8. Can't get youtube at work but

remember last week Sy Hersh was saying that there are alot of people waiting for 1/21/09.

Scott seems to have his calender on fast forward.

[mmonk]

10. Trials or hearings are for those of us who believe in the rule of law

and the concept that the rulers are bound by it. The new American politics is more concerned with less important things than freedom because people have lost their understanding of it and its significance.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

11. Fitz must have interviewed Scottie. Did Scottie tell him this?

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. When a president does it, it isn't breaking the law.

That worked so well for Nixon, didn't it?

[immoderate]

18. You make a point here.

Doesn't the president ultimately decide what is classified, and what is not?

I'm not defending Bush here, because what he did was ethically wrong, and endangered people's lives, and diminished our national security. But is he legally liable? IMO, this is impeachable but not prosecutable. (And I'm sorry to say it.)

--IMM

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. I think there are several breaches.

He declassified the information for political purposes, not to protect the country. In fact, we still don't know the billions of dollars that cost us since everything that she was involved with, imploded. That would be the cost to buoy Brewster Jennings and everyone who was involved with Brewster Jennings. Also, Valerie Plame was actually involved with acquiring information in Iran and that put her in the direct path of the Cheney-Bush manifest destiny plan to cause havoc in the Middle East to give the private oil companies and Israel unfettered control over the area. (Major writer's license there, but you get the point.}

Plus, since this has absolutely nothing to do with National Security, it makes the bigger sin impossible to accept: He lied to the public. He said he would fire the person that did this and if he had been a man of his word, he would have stepped down.

[immoderate]

25. I'm not disagreeing, but what laws did he break?

Sure it was all political, and he is a lying son of a bitch. And he should have been impeached.

As a criminal matter, I don't think you can get around the fact that the president is the ultimate authority on what is classified. Think of all the leaks and lies by presidents. Were any of them prosecuted? There were plenty of high crimes and misdemeanors, but nothing that a court would touch. Yes, it is very sad.

--IMM

[The Backlash Cometh]

27. Wasn't it his father who created the law that would penalize a person

for outing a spy? That's the law he breached.

I'm afraid because Reagan-Bush got away with so much from the Iran Contra thingie, that people assume that presidents can do anything they want to do. So, I'm afraid I have to reject your premise that the president is the ultimate authority on what is classified. Just because we are not tough on crime when it involves presidents, doesn't mean they have omnipotent power. It just means we haven't been kicked in the ass enough to take the streets and demand justice.

[immoderate]

31. So this is above our pay grade...

My thinking is, things are classified because somebody says so. Whoever that is, will be in the executive branch. If the president isn't the authority, who is?

I think other areas like torture, or the justice scandals are more fertile. I think though that it will be hard to nail Bush, but I'm ready to march.

--IMM

[noamnety]

32. There is a specific process for declassifying info

Even the people who are OCA's - Original Classification Authorities - have to document specifically what they are declassifying. The OCAs can't just blurt out classified info at whim and then announce, oh, it's okay, I had the authority to declassify it anyway.

Each bit of info that is classified is classified because there is a written "security classification guide" that lays out a table of what is or isn't classified and at what level. If he didn't go back and write and distribute a modification to the guide to downgrade it - if he left the document saying that the info WAS still classified, that's a problem.

[The Backlash Cometh]

38. Thanks lwfern.

Having had a dad who had a civil servant job, I know that nothing that reaches that classification does it without following strict procedure, and doesn't get declassified without even more strict procedure.

[immoderate]

39. No argument from me that Bush broke procedure.

And he may have broken the law too. But will he get prosecuted for this? I just think that's a long shot.

--IMM

[The Backlash Cometh]

40. Now we may be on the same page.

If the past is any indication, probably not. That's why Republican administrations are such landmines. They have supporters who want the guy to "get er done," and they don't have enough sophistication about world affairs to understand that they create their own problems by using military force to settled every skirmish.

[noamnety]

48. No problem.

I've written a few of them in my day - though I was never the OCA for them.

Another point that I rarely see raised: It's also a violation to continue to spend resources protecting something that has been declassified.

One of the reasons declassification needs to be documented is so people know what exactly has been declassified and what remains classified. Was Plame's status declassified? What about her activities? What about the businesses she was working with?

Without clear guidance, people working with the information wouldn't be able to protect the right information, while ensuring they weren't wasting money protecting things that were now public domain.

[Ian David]

57. Nope. Even the President has to follow certain laws before he can declassify something.

To cite one example, IIRC, someone asked Bill Clinton if once he was President, he would declassify documents relating to UFOs and Roswell. His response was something along the lines of that if there was anything to it, he WOULD declassify it... if they would let him.

So, even if there were Little Green Men at Roswell, the President might not be allowed to declassify it, even if he wanted to.

[dflprincess]

23. I wonder if he did it just to show Poppy he could

Wasn't it George H.W. who said outing an agent was treason? W's daddy issues just never stop causing problems.

[halobeam]

14. k and r

[nichomachus]

15. Scott should be arrested for obstruction of justice

if he knew a crime was committed and kept quiet about it.

[MrCoffee]

58. Yes he should.

[alfredo]

16. Send that link to all in your address book.

[FLAprogressive]

21. JAIL JAIL JAIL

[MadMaddie]

26. Sounds like some former WH folks see pitchforks in their

future and they are trying to get ahead in the game and get out of the way on the oncoming bus.

*, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others will attempt to throw McClellan and others under the bus and into prison.

It's gonna get more juicy...:popcorn: :rofl:

[pitchforksandtorches]

42. don't forget the torches too

thanks

[AngryAmish]

28. Never

The President decides what is classified and what is not. While it was a turdish thing to do, it is within his power.

[newtothegame]

29. I don't quite understand...

Most of DU thinks Bush is an idiot but we also think he engineered the outing of a CIA agent? Hard to believe folks. Smells more like Rove...

[ColbertWatcher]

30. Bush is a vindictive petulant asshole cowboy.

Outing a covert CIA agent is well within his skill set.

[orleans]

33. no shit when does the trial start! treasonous bastard! n/t

[alphafemale]

35. Wow happy to rec this. Scotty always looked so uncomfortable telling those awful lies at the podium-

during press conferences.

[MrCoffee]

59. And yet he continued to do it, day after day after day after day

McClellan gets no sympathy from me. He's as guilty as anyone else in the Bush cabal.

[H2O Man]

41. Not.

That's not what he says. It is important to be accurate on this issue, rather than make stuff up.

He says that Bush authorized leaking parts of the NIE. The NIE did not have Plame's name in it.

At the same time that Libby shared the parts of the NIE, he exposed Plame. But not with the NIE.

More, Scott clearly says that Libby and Rove misled Bush in regard to their role in exposing Plame.

[The Wizard]

43. Upon being sworn in

the new Congress should immediately impeach. Once the impeachment begins the President cannot issue pardons so as to prevent him from clearing any witnesses who may have damaging information that would lead to conviction in the Senate. The Senate could keep the trial bogged down with procedure to the end of Bush's term, thus handcuffing his ability to give felons a "get out of jail free card."
That won't Stop Cheney unless he's impeached also.
They will take it to the Supreme Court where a 5-4 majority will rule in the Administration's favor. History tells us so.
This will open the door for impeaching any Supreme Court Justice who rules in Bush's favor. It only takes a simple majority in the Senate to convict appointed justices, not the two thirds required for an elected office like President and Vice President.
Scaffolds: If you build them, they will come. Get one of Saddam Hussein's doubles to pull the lever.
Of course this would follow a fair trial.

[liberal N proud]

44. When will there be enough evidence to convince Congress they must

prosecute these bastards for their crimes?

[Swagman]

47. rats leaving a sinking ship...

[onehandle]

51. Blanket Pardon?

Anyone want in on this?

Parking tickets. Jaywalking fines. Treason.

It's all good. You're covered.

[Catherine Vincent]

52. Everyone, please read this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4478222&mesg_id=4484740

[L0oniX]

54. Apparently no one gives a fuck if our president is a criminal!

Kucinich is one of the few who sees it like it is ...mass crimes by the worst criminal presidency in the history of the USA. It's high treason and no one will do jack shit about it cause they are too busy bailing out wall street, lining their pockets and looting what's left of Americas future. I am mad as hell at all these assholes. There is no reason to not be a criminal anymore. There are no morals anymore. All there is is ripping everyone off as much as you can get away with.

[humbled_opinion]

55. Valarie and Joe

need to sue him in civil court on Jan 20th .....Take him for everything he stole..

[goforit]

56. We all knew it, didn't we. And we all know Bush/Cheney committed 911.

And not one trial yet!