White House 'declassified' dates don't match

[kpete]

White House 'declassified' argument at odds with event timeline

RAW STORY
Published: Friday April 7, 2006

White House spokesman Scott McClellan today attempted to justify, rather than deny, allegations that President Bush authorized a leak of classified information to reporters in summer 2003.

"There is a difference between providing declassified information to the public when it's in the public interest and leaking classified information that involved sensitive national intelligence regarding our security," McClellan told reporters at a White House press briefing.

The White House, it seems, is attempting to argue that if Libby's allegations are true, the information was not leaked by definition. Rather, it was declassified by the President because it was in the public's interest.

On July 18, 2003, McClellan told the White House Press Corps that the "information was just, as of today, officially declassified." However, Libby spoke to reporters ten days earlier, according to the indictment, on July 8 of that year.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/White_House_declassified_argument_at_odds_0407.html

[fooj]

Hmmmmmmmmmmm...

Leaking a 13 year program and outing a covert CIA agent is "in the public's interest"?????? How so? What bullshit.

Peace.

[KittyWampus]

2. AND leaking false info about Iraq while NOT leaking true info about Iraq

[KittyWampus]

1. Holy Shit! They can't keep this together. They are trying but it isn't

working!

IMO, there's a good chance things will start to move a bit more rapidly.

[BOSSHOG]

3. If mclellan has a conscience and a heart and any dignity

he will immediately resign or commit himself to eternal hell. He is the face of the most corrupt administration this country has ever had and he must know it. Support from the religiously insane and the criminals who call themselves "conservatives" should not be enough to continue the job of lying for a criminal.

[bush_is_wacko]

6. I think it is clear that Snotty Scotty is a member of the UN-conscience...

Along with the rest of the administration.

[atreides1]

10. He doesn't have either one

Minions of evil don't have souls, besides this man has lied so much that I don't think he'll be alive long enough for redemption!!!!!

[ksokol]

4. Is it possible the dates don't match because

the info was leaked and THEN declassified? This raises yet another question about the whole thing.

Kerri

[MsUSA]

5. I was listening to that crap on C-SPAN radio, and thought

what the h*ll is he talking about....."There is a difference between providing declassified information to the public when it's in the public interest and leaking classified information that involved sensitive national intelligence regarding our security," This is the stupidest statement he could have come out with. D*mn. Do they really think we're THAT STUPID?!!!!

[bush_is_wacko]

9. Yes, they do. n/t

[Mabus]

7. On my "what are they going to do" list yesterday

Like I said in my post yesterday this is their usual forumula. No real surprises here.

They will claim that everything changed after 9/11 and they acted in the best interest of the US. They will claim that there were some indications that Iraq had WMDs and they thought it was better to be safe than sorry. That's why we are fighting them over there and not here. Freedom comes at a price. History will be the judge. Can't comment on this during an on-going investigation. Because we are "at war" the president has expanded powers.

I think this pretty much runs the gamut of their usual excuses. They will try to invoke fear and not mention bin Laden. You know, like they've been doing all along.

on edit: changed "or" to "than" in first paragraph, second sentence. Oh yeah, and I forgot to ask you "Why do you hate America?" ;)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=867331&mesg_id=867390

[lldu]

8. Then, Why the heck didn't they just have a bloody

news gathering and announce this crap instead of leaking, uh, declassifying info for the good of the public?

[flyarm]

11. because they are filthy f'ing murderers and liars!! n/t

[sandnsea]

13. Exactly, and say so when caught

Why put the country through a two year sharade if it was all just an innocent declassification to begin with.

[spanone]

12. Of Course Not...it's bullshit. Scotty Mc was lying his ass off today.

[malaise]

14. Scotty knows that too

That is the real problem for Bush.

[aden_nak]

15. I backwards agree with Scotty here:

"There is a difference between providing declassified information to the public when it's in the public interest and leaking classified information that involved sensitive national intelligence regarding our security."

It IS in the public interest to know that the government is illegally spying on citizens.

It IS NOT in the public interest to know the identity of an undercover CIA agent and, by association, the status of other undercover agents affiliated with her and the nature of the brass plate company they worked for.

[stevietheman]

16. So, it was in the American public's interest for the President to disrupt

an ongoing intelligence operation and put CIA employees' lives at risk? It was in the public's interest to release information that put our nation at risk? Is was in the public's interest to release information so that a whistleblower's true words about Iraq's nuclear capabilities would be muddied and the "justification" for the elective war would remain largely unquestioned for a long time to come?

As far as I'm concerned, even if it is the President's prerogative to declassify any information he chooses, he still committed treason.

Bush committed treason against the republic no matter how one might slice up this episode.

[Pacifist Patriot]

17. Okay then. How was it in the public's interest?

What purpose was the "declassifying" of this information supposed to serve? What were the ramifications of the declassification.

Utter tripe and bullshit of course, but I'm curious what the answer to the "why" question would be. So you declassified it Mr. President....WHY?

[gordianot]

18. Did Bush tell Scottie to swallow the hook?

My suspicion by providing the Bush link to this chain of events maybe Libby's defense team or other interested parties want to see how they (Bush, Cheney, or other liars) respond.

I would not want to be press secretary for this gang of criminals.

[EVDebs]

19. The entire Brewster Jennings operation was trashed by Chimpy...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Jennings_%26_Associates

Who knows if any lives were lost, in addition to the CIA's Plame/Wilson being outted ? Does President Bush have a Bond-like "license to kill" ? Inquiring minds want to know.

[gordianot]

23. More than 2000 American lives lost in a war based on false Intelligence.

see link: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1011-01.htm


Larry Johnson - a former CIA and State Department official who was a 1985 classmate of Plame's in the CIA's case officer-training program at Camp Peary, Va., known as "the Farm" - predicted that when the CIA's internal damage assessment is finished, "at the end of the day, (the harm) will be huge and some people potentially may have lost their lives."

"This is not just another leak. This is an unprecedented exposing of an agent's identity," said former CIA officer Jim Marcinkowski, who's now a prosecutor in Royal Oak, Mich., and who also did CIA training with Plame.



Of course this was wrtten before Porter Goss.

[Debi]

20. Can the President retroactively declassify? Seems then that he

could do whatever he wanted and make up for it later...Oh, wait, that's the wiretapping scandal...:eyes:

[baldguy]

21. Scotty sez: "Here, eat this shit. It's GOOD for you!"

[Jersey Devil]

22. Now they are going to parse the word "officially"

Tomorrow Scotty will say, "Well, yes it was officially declassified on July 18 but it was unofficially and de facto declassified by President Bush before July 8 and the only reason it was not made "official" before July 8 is that President Bush was alone working on a Sunday and didn't know where the "Declassified" stamp was."