Trial Exposes White House Crisis Machine
WASHINGTON (AP) - David Addington, chief legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, says he was taken aback when the White House started making public pronouncements about the CIA leak investigation.
WASHINGTON (AP) - David Addington, chief legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, says he was taken aback when the White House started making public pronouncements about the CIA leak investigation.
In the fall of 2003, President Bush's press secretary was categorically denying that either Karl Rove or I. Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby was involved in exposing the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA employee married to a critic of the war in Iraq.
``Why are you making these statements?'' Addington asked White House communications director Dan Bartlett.
``Your boss is the one who wanted'' them, Bartlett replied, referring to Cheney.
With that, ``I shut up,'' Addington recalled recently for jurors in Libby's CIA leak trial, which begins its fourth week on Monday with Libby's lawyers calling their first witnesses.
So far, the testimony of Addington and other administration aides, along with documents and Libby's audiotaped grand jury testimony, have provided a rare glimpse of how the Bush White House scrambled to respond to a political crisis as it intersected a criminal investigation.
With that, ``I shut up,'' Addington recalled recently for jurors in Libby's CIA leak trial, which begins its fourth week on Monday with Libby's lawyers calling their first witnesses.
So far, the testimony of Addington and other administration aides, along with documents and Libby's audiotaped grand jury testimony, have provided a rare glimpse of how the Bush White House scrambled to respond to a political crisis as it intersected a criminal investigation.
No comments:
Post a Comment