Memo to Scotty: Time to lawyer up.

Introducing GX420T:Transcript segments of White House press briefing October 7, 2003.


CNN) — The revelation by a former White House spokesman that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were "involved" in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson's identity shows how the White House "closed ranks" to protect themselves, her husband, Joe Wilson, said Wednesday.

The information — from an upcoming book by Scott McClellan — also shows how important it was to the administration to commute the sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Wilson said on CNN's "American Morning."

"I think it now makes it very clear the extent to which the vice president was involved, which, of course, then makes it very clear how important to the vice president the commutation of Mr. Libby's sentence was," the former U.S. ambassador said.

"They basically closed ranks, guaranteed that the cloud (special prosecutor Patrick) Fitzgerald said was over the vice president's head would not be lifted. And now because of McClellan's statement, that cloud is over the president himself.

"He is either completely out of touch or he's an accessory to an obstruction of justice both before the fact and after the fact," he said.

"At a bare minimum, for openers, think it's incumbent upon the president and vice president now to release the transcripts of their statements to the special prosecutor, so we now have a fuller understanding of what they knew, when they knew it, and what they said to Justice."

In addition, the public deserves to know "whether or not they continue to frustrate the efforts of the Justice Department and the efforts of the government to get to the bottom of what is essentially the betrayal of national security of our country," said Wilson.More from CNN.

And this piece from Raw Story:

"I just got off the phone with the publisher of McClellan's new book, and he tells me that McClellan does not charge in the book that the president himself was involved in any kind of conspiracy to mislead the public," reported CNN correspondent Jessica Yellin. "But of course, in the publisher's words, 'Scott did go out to take bullets without the proper flak jacket on.'"

Regardless whether the President was directly or indirectly involved in leaking Plame's name, fact remains, the President is involved. And he did say that anyone who leaked classified information in the Plame case would be fired.

Just reminder of Scotty's press gaggle in 2003:

Q Scott, you have said that you, personally, went to Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Elliot Abrams to ask them if they were the leakers. Is that what happened? Why did you do that, and can you describe the conversations you
had with them? What was the question you asked?

MR. McCLELIAN: Unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., at a time like this, there are a lot of rumors and innuendo.
There are unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what happened in the case of these
three individuals. They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt of that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.

Q So you're saying - you're saying categorically those three individuals were not the leakers or did not authorize
the leaks; is that what you're saying?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's correct. I've spoken with them.

Hmmm.. This all depends what Scotty said to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's questioning. If Scotty lied to Fitzgerald in his questioning, based on Scotty's answers in the press gaggle in 2003, Scotty may be charged with:

1. Lying to a federal prosecutor.
2. Making false statements.
3. Covering up
4. Obstruction of justice.

And so on..

Good luck, Scotty, and get a good lawyer...