Leopold: Bush New Plame's Identity Before He Declassified the NIE

Jason Leopold of t r u t h o u t claims that President Bush was told of covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame's, identity as Joe Wilson's wife in June 2003 - before Bush decided to declassify the NIE which disputed Joe Wilson's findings that the Niger documents about Iraq seeking yellowcake from Niger were, in fact, forgeries. Apparently, Cheney also repeated the lie to Bush that Plame was the one responsible for sending her husband to Niger.

Other White House officials who also attended the meeting with Cheney and President Bush included former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her former deputy Stephen Hadley, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

This information was provided to this reporter by attorneys and US officials who have remained close to the case. Investigators working with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald compiled the information after interviewing 36 Bush administration officials over the past two and a half years.

If true, this ties Bush directly to the Plame leak and disputes that the declassification of the NIE's key findings was only for the political purposes already stated and acknowledged by a "senior administration official" in today's New York Times article that Bush just wanted to counter his critic, Joe Wilson, about the Niger story.

Now that President Bush's knowledge of the Plame Wilson affair has been exposed, there are thorny questions about whether the president has broken the law - specifically, whether he obstructed justice when he was interviewed about his knowledge of the Plame Wilson leak and the campaign to discredit her husband.

Indeed.

Throughout the second half of June, Andrew Card, Karl Rove, and senior officials from Cheney's office kept Bush updated about the progress of the campaign to discredit Wilson via numerous emails and internal White House memos, these sources said, adding that some of these documents were only recently turned over to the special counsel.

This is curious:

According to four attorneys who last week read a transcript of President Bush's interview with investigators, Bush did not disclose to the special counsel that he was aware of any campaign to discredit Wilson. Bush also said he did not know who, if anyone, in the White House had retaliated against the former ambassador by leaking his wife's undercover identity to reporters.

Attorneys close to the case said that Fitzgerald does not appear to be overly concerned or interested in any alleged discrepancy in Bush's statements about the leak case to investigators.

I suspect Fitzgerald realizes that he has no legal recourse against Bush, although that may be debatable. Regardless, this is another nail in Bush's political coffin.