The White House is facing damaging evidence that it misled the public by insisting for two years that presidential adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in leaking the identity of a CIA officer.
Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper that the woman "apparently works" for the CIA and that she had authorized her husband's trip to Africa to assess allegations that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons, according to a July 11, 2003, e-mail by Cooper obtained by Newsweek magazine.
The e-mail is now in the hands of federal prosecutors who are hunting down the leakers inside the Bush administration who revealed the name of Valerie Plame to the news media.
The revelation about Rove prompted Democratic calls for President George W. Bush to follow through on his promise to fire those who leaked Plame's identity, and triggered 61 questions during two press briefings for White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
It was McClellan who provided the previous assurances that Rove had no role, but he refused to repeat those assurances Monday.
"Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" a reporter asked McClellan.
"This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation," McClellan replied.
McClellan gave the same answer when asked whether Bush has confidence in Rove, the architect of the president's successful political campaigns.
The investigation was ongoing in 2003 when McClellan assured the public Rove wasn't involved, a reporter pointed out, but the spokesman refused to elaborate.
In September and October 2003, McClellan said he had spoken directly with Rove about the matter and that "he was not involved" in leaking Plame's identity to the news media.
McClellan said at the time: "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved," "It was a ridiculous suggestion" and "It's not true."
Rove's own public denials at the time and since have been more narrowly worded.
"I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name," Rove said last year.
Democrats pressed Bush to act.
"The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. "I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."
New York Times reporter Judith Miller is in jail for refusing to reveal who in the administration talked to her about Plame.
Cooper had also planned to go to jail rather than talk, but at the last minute he agreed to cooperate with investigators when a source, Rove, gave him permission to do so. Cooper's employer, Time Inc, also turned over Cooper's e-mail and notes.
One of the e-mails was a note from Cooper to his boss in which he said he had spoken to Rove, who described the wife of former US ambassador and Bush administration critic Joe Wilson as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA, Newsweek magazine reported.
It said "Wilson's wife" -- not CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney -- authorized a trip by Wilson to Africa. The purpose was to check out reports that Iraq had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium for use in nuclear weapons.
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