Posted on 04/09/2006 10:52:02 AM PDT by GeneD
WASHINGTON - President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should speak publicly about their involvement in the CIA leak case so people can understand what happened, a leading Republican senator said Sunday.
"We ought to get to the bottom of it so it can be evaluated, again, by the American people," said Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In a federal court filing last week, the prosecutor in the case said Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, testified before a grand jury that he was authorized by Bush, through Cheney, to leak information from a classified document that detailed intelligence agencies' conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
A lawyer knowledgeable about the case said Saturday that Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Libby be the one to disseminate the information.
"I think that it is necessary for the president and vice president to tell the American people exactly what happened," Specter told "Fox News Sunday."
"I do say that there's been enough of a showing here with what's been filed of record in court that the president of the United States owes a specific explanation to the American people ... about exactly what he did," Specter said.
Libby faces trial, likely in January, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to the grand jury and investigators about what he told reporters about CIA officer Valerie Plame.
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald did not say in the filing that Cheney authorized Libby to leak Plame's identity, and Bush is not accused of doing anything illegal.
"The president may be entirely in the clear, and it may turn out that he had the authority to make the disclosures which were made," Specter said. But, he added, "it was not the right way to go about it because we ought not to have leaks in government."
The investigation is looking into whether Plame's identify was disclosed to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, an Iraq war critic. Wilson had accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Sen. John Kerry, the Massachusetts Democrat who ran against Bush for president in 2004, said it was wrong for Bush to declassify information selectively "in order to buttress phony arguments to go to war "and to attack people politically.
"This was not a declassification in order to really educate America. This was a declassification in order to mislead America," Kerry said on "Meet the Press" on NBC. "I think it's a disgrace."
Wilson said Sunday that Bush and Cheney should release transcripts of their interviews with Fitzgerald.
"It seems to me that first and foremost, the White House needs to come clean on this matter," Wilson said on ABC's "This Week." "My own view of this is that the White House owes the American people and particularly our service people who have been sent into war, an apology for having misrepresented the facts."
The lawyer knowledgeable about the case said Bush instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details about disseminating the intelligence to him. The lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House, said Cheney chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide.
It is not known when the conversation between Bush and Cheney took place. The White House has declined to provide the date when the president used his authority to declassify the portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate.
"There has to be a detailed explanation as to precisely what Vice President Cheney did, what the president said to him and an explanation by the president as to what he said," Specter said.
"dummy" = Specter, by the way. =)
He is too busy doing his job to respond to FAKE NEWS and FAKE POLLS to justify the FAKE NEWS.
"President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should speak publicly about their involvement in the CIA leak case so people can understand what happened, a leading Republican senator said Sunday."
Except that Specter's not - party labels notwithstanding - a Republican; and certainly not, in any sense, "leading."
What information are you talking about? The information allegedly declassified said nothing about Valarie Plame. The Crap you are hearing now is based on double hearsay statements by Libby in front of a grand jury leaked by Fitzgerald.
That is what you get when your RINO's. Bush wanted him...he got him!
He isn't responding to all these accusations. You and I may not fall for the MSM trap but the same can't be said for the rest of the country. This is more than responding to false accusations. The president can easily make the dems and the media look foolish by simply telling the public what you, me and the rest of the blogosphere already know. I think in the end it would help him tremendously.
Specter should explain why he keeps registering and running as a Republican.
I think a man who was elected Governor twice, President twice and someone who helped gain seats for his party in the first two election cycles of his Presidency for the first time in years knows how to react to a press that is more confident than their record warrants.
Specter is an SOB. I saw the smirk on his face when he was saying that. He knows very well that classified information belongs to the Executive Branch and as head of the Executive Branch the President has the authority to declassify anything. Since he fancies himself as such a hot shot constitutional lawyer, the 1992 Executive Order is what he should have explained to Brit Hume, instead of giving Bush the shaft.
The President doesn't owe anyone an explanation, period! Everything could be called "political" even if all the intent was to inform Americans and defend a decision. Specter is an idiot RINO!
Hitting back means setting the agenda and flicking away the MSM fakery.
Responding to the morons only fuels their hatred.
Ignoring their news agenda and changing the subject makes them go nuts.
So many Freepers think Pres. Bush should stoop to the MSM agenda and answer every "scandal" they dream up.
Nonsense. George Bush knows that dignity demands he remain above the fray of the kindergartners.
Freepers have it wrong.
Nothing like being guilty before being proven innocent. Get with it Arlen, nothing untoward happened, quit buying the liberal lie.
Specter really is getting senile. So far, no one, to my knowledge, has been charged with leaking anything. It sounds suspiciously to me as though there wasn't any leak, hence no one had a part in any leak. You can't have a part in something that doesn't exist.
Agree! Pres. should explain why he backed Specter instead of Toomey...
Bush should not say squat about this. He should fire his wimp spokesman and get a real spokesman. All the spokesman has to say is that "if the President authorizes release of material then BY DEFINITION it is not a leak, period. Next question?"
That is absurd. The documents were declassified in 2002 and then released to the media and the media chose to bury them.
Are you suggesting that the President should take control of the media??
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