Wexler Looking Forward to Willing Witness in McClellan

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Meg White

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) is hoping for a change of pace when it comes to the testimony of a top Bush Administration official before the House Judiciary Committee Friday morning:

"How about the truth for a change? That would be something different for starters."

This time, he might get it. On May 28, Wexler called for former Bush Administration Press Secretary Scott McClellan to testify before the committee, on which the Congressman serves.

Shortly thereafter, Committee Chair John Conyers (D-MI) extended an invitation to McClellan to testify. McClellan accepted.

Most of the interest in McClellan's testimony surrounds the content of his new tell-all book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. In it, he suggests high-level White House officials orchestrated illegal leaks of confidential government information, and even lied outright in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.

In a phone interview with BuzzFlash Thursday, Wexler cited the book as a compelling reason to call McClellan to testify:

"Scott McClellan made some remarkably significant comments and revelations in his book regarding the truthfulness of the Bush Administration, and under oath, we'll have an opportunity to examine those revelations."

After years of top-level Bush Administration officials ignoring the committee's subpoenas and refusing to testify, McClellan's willingness to talk signals a special occasion to Wexler.

"So far, the administration, by and large, has thumbed its nose at Congress," he said. "This is, I think, the first and best opportunity the public has had to get a glimpse of the degree of the abuse of power that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have foisted on the American people."

Depending upon what McClellan says, tomorrow's hearing may give the committee more ammunition to call other administration officials in to testify.

"The evidence he provides should be expounded upon and I think Mr. Rove should be brought before the committee. And I don‘t think we should simply stop at issuing contempt citations," he said. "I believe we should go further." Wexler also mentioned the previous failure of both former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten to testify before the committee.

Though the White House has consistently used executive privilege to keep its officials off the stand, what McClellan has to say may change that. In any case, Wexler said there isn't much in the way of an argument to keep McClellan off the stand.

"The White House has abused the executive privilege process before on many occasions. It's a very difficult argument to make here. I mean, Mr. McClellan has written a book for the whole world to see," he said. "Any expectation of privilege or privacy with respect to Mr. McClellan seems to have been long waived. I think it would be a farce if that was attempted."

Wexler said he thought each committee member would have his or her own particular area of interest that may guide their questioning of McClellan. On the docket for questioning could be anything from a program to spy on Americans to misappropriation of funds destined for the war in Afghanistan.

Wexler is most interested in the role high-level officials played in the leaking of the identity of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame Wilson and the firing of U.S. attorneys for political reasons, as well as the possibility that the administration authorized the illegal use of torture on detainees.

He also thinks his fellow Congressmen may make for good political theater:

"One of the most interesting parts of what will happen will be not only the questions of the Democrats, but I think it'll be interesting to hear the questions of the Republicans. Some Republicans both on the committee and off the committee may choose to seek to undermine Mr. McClellan's credibility."

Wexler sees the hearing as closely related to the articles of impeachment Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced against the president earlier this month. Wexler was the first co-sponsor of the resolution and was a leader in calling for hearings to begin the impeachment process against Vice President Cheney last year. The Bush impeachment resolution is awaiting a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

"I think there will be some people who will possibly take some of Mr. McClellan's testimony and try to insert (it) in the articles of impeachment," he said. "I think we have an obligation to follow the evidence one way or the other."

"Plamegate" Background
Joseph Wilson, a former American ambassador with diplomatic experience in both Iraq and Africa, was sent by the CIA to Niger in February 2002. His mission was to determine whether Iraq was trying to obtain materials from that country, in the form of yellowcake uranium, to construct nuclear weapons. The CIA's concern was based on documents uncovered in Italy that turned out to be forgeries.

In September of that year, the British government issued a "white paper" asserting Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy the enriched uranium from Niger.

The yellowcake claim in Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address is now infamously known as the "Sixteen Words." They were: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

In July 2003, the Bush Administration admitted the evidence those words were based on was false and that it should not have been included in the president's State of the Union address.

While the White House claimed to never have received Wilson's findings from his 2002 trip, CIA sources said the information was passed on to the Bush Administration with enough time to remove the assertion from the speech and from talking points used by Vice President Dick Cheney and then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice in media contacts.

After The Washington Post published a story in June 2003 about the CIA sending an unnamed, former diplomat to investigate the yellowcake claims, White House notes show Cheney met with his senior advisor I. "Scooter" Lewis Libby about what to do about Wilson. The notes were later seized by the special prosecutor in Libby's case.

In July 2003, Wilson wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times that the Bush Administration manipulated his findings to support going to war with Iraq. Wilson's conclusions were backed up by reviews of the intelligence by other governmental agencies, including the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The international community was on Wilson's side as well. International Atomic Energy Agency Chief Mohammed ElBaradei said the yellowcake claims were based on forgeries.

Nevertheless, the White House continued to deny receiving a report of the Niger findings. Instead, the identity of Wilson's wife was used to discredit him. Valerie Plame Wilson worked in the CIA's non-proliferation office, the same office that tapped Wilson for the fact-finding mission to Niger. In a series of leaks, the Bush Administration hinted that Plame herself sent her husband abroad without the administration's knowledge, an assertion the CIA denied.

Libby was found guilty of lying to a grand jury and the FBI in March 2007.

Readers can view an extensive timeline of the events here.

For more on Plamegate and related news, see BuzzFlash.com's collaboration with Takebackthemedia.com: Libby Defense Fund. There is also a page of aggregated news about the saga on the site.

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT

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