US President George W. Bush questioned whether investigators would be able to determine who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA officer but said his staff was cooperating. "I want to know the truth," he said.
Bush's chief of staff, Andrew Card, urged some 2,000 White House employees to turn over any relevant documents by Tuesday night. White House lawyers will screen the materials and decide which ones to send to the Justice Department as part of a criminal inquiry into the leak, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
McClellan said it could take as long as two weeks to check those submissions for relevance.
The spokesman would not rule out the possibility that the White House would invoke executive privilege to shield sensitive documents from the Justice Department's inquiry. He said it was premature to talk about such a step.
Bush renewed his pledge to cooperate with the investigation to "come to the bottom of this." But he said success was not guaranteed.
"This is a large administration and there's a lot of senior officials," Bush told journalists. "I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is, partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers."
Investigators are trying to determine who leaked to columnist Robert Novak and two Newsday journalists the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operations officer who has served overseas.
She is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who publicly accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq.
The White House will not send investigators material deemed irrelevant, McClellan said.
"You don't want to overburden the Department of Justice with documents that have no relevance or are not responsive to their request," he said. "They're welcome to look at the other documents -- that's not an issue -- that are not responsive to their request."
But a Democratic lawmaker questioned White House intentions.
"I am very troubled by the fact that the White House counsel seems to be a gatekeeper, and I want to know what precautions Justice is taking to ensure that it gets all relevant information from the administration," said Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat.
The Justice Department wants the White House to turn over all materials by mid-October, and the more relevant ones sooner.
McClellan has firmly ruled out any role by three administration officials in the leak: political adviser Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and National Security Council official Elliott Abrams.
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