Then and now

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan - October 10, 2003:

Q Scott, earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

MR. McCLELLAN: Those individuals -- I talked -- I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.

Q So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

MR. McCLELLAN: They assured me that they were not involved in this.

The indictments issued against Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby show that he was very involved, and first leaked the information to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

The indictment also cites that "Official A" (now reported by sources involved to be Karl Rove) had a conversation with Robert Novak about the matter. In that conversation, Novak advised him that he would be running the now infamous column outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. The indictment doesn't reveal who told who about Plame in that conversation. Novak has maintained that two senior Bush administration officials came to him with that information.

Additionally, it's now known that Time reporter Matt Cooper's source on Plame was Karl Rove.

What's clear is that McClellan's statements that Libby and Rove weren't involved in this were simply untrue. More than likely, McClellan was lied to and kept out of the loop so that his ignorance would be genuine when standing before the press corps.