http://oversight.house.gov/Documents/20070316154127-11403.pdfvia
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March 16,2007
The Honorable Joshua Bolten
Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. Bolten:
Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing to
examine the disclosure by senior White House officials of the identity of covert CIA agent
Valerie Plame Wilson. The hearing raised many new questions about the how the White House
responded to an extraordinarily serious breach ofnational security. It also raised new concerns
about whether the security practices being followed by the White House are sufficient to protect
our nation's most sensitive secrets.
James Knodell, Director of the Office of Security at the White House, testified at the
hearing about White House procedures for safeguarding classified information. During his
testimony, Mr. Knodell made some remarkable statements about how his office handled the
disclosure of Ms.'Wilson's covert status. Specifically, Mr. Knodell testified:
The Office of Security for the White House never conducted any investigation of the
disclosure of Ms. W'ilson's identity;
Under the applicable executive order and regulations, your senior political advisor, Karl
Rove, and other senior White House officials were required to report what they knew
about the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity, but they did not make any such report to
the \Vhite House Office of Security; and
There has been no suspension of security clearances or any other administrative sanction
for Mr. Rove and other White House officials involved in the disclosure.
According to Mr. Knodell, the explanation for the lack of action by the White House
Security Office was a White House decision not to conduct a security investigation while a
criminal investigation was pending. Mr. Knodell could not explain, however, why the White
House did not initiate an investigation after the security breach. It took months before a criminal
investigation was initiated, yet according to Mr. Knodell, there was no White House
investigation initiated during this period.
Mr. Knodell also testified that it would be inappropriate to allow an individual who was a
security risk to retain his or her security clearance while a criminal investigation is pending. As
members of the Committee pointed out, a criminal investigation can last years, and it would
jeopardize national security not to investigate the officials implicated in the leak and suspend
their security clearances if there were reason to suspect their involvement. Mr. Knodell did not
dispute this point.
The testimony of Mr. Knodell appears to describe White House decisions that were
inconsistent with the directives of Executive Order 12958, which you signed in March 2003.
Under this executive order, the White House is required to "take appropriate and prompt
corrective action" whenever there is a release of classified information. Yet Mr. Knodell could
describe no such actions after the disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity.
Taken as a whole, the testimony at today's hearing described breach after breach of
national security requirements at the White House. The first breach was the disclosure of Ms.
'Wilson's identity. Other breaches included the failure of Mr. Rove and other offrcials to report
their disclosures as required by law, the failure of the White House to initiate the prompt
investigation required by the executive order, and the failure of the White House to suspend the
security clearances of the implicated officials.
To assist the Committee in its investigation into these issues, I request that you provide
the Committee with a complete account of the steps that the White House took following the
disclosure of Ms. Wilson's identity (1) to investigate how the leak occurred; (2) to review the
security clearances of the lVhite House officials implicated in the leak; (3) to impose
administrative or disciplinary sanctions on the officials involved in the leak; and (4) to review
and revise existing White House security procedures to prevent future breaches of national
security.
I look forward to your response and hope you will cooperate with the Committee's
inquiry.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
Chairman
cc: Tom Davis
Ranking Minority Member
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