Post's Walter Pincus Discusses Wilsongate Live Online at 3:30 p.m ET Today

http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/03/sp_politics_pincus092903.htm


White House Intelligence Leak?
Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 29, 2003; 3:30 p.m ET

President Bush's aides promised Sunday to cooperate with a Justice Department inquiry into an administration leak that exposed the identity of a CIA operative. An administration official told The Washington Post on Saturday that two White House officials leaked the information to selected journalists to discredit former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Washington Post staff writer Walter Pincus will be online Monday, Sept. 29 at 3:30 p.m. ET, to discuss the possible intelligence leak, the role of the press and what comes next in the investigation.

Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.

The CIA talks to in the media........

From the ABCnote:

"Has President Bush made clear to the White House staff that only total cooperation with the investigation will be tolerated? If not, why not?

Has he insisted that every senior staff member sign a statement with legal authority that they are not the leaker and that they will identify to the White House legal counsel who is?

Has Bush required that all sign a letter relinquishing journalists from protecting those two sources? Has Bush said that those involved in this crime will be immediately fired? If not, why not?

Has Albert Gonzalez distributed a letter to White House employees telling them to preserve documents, logs, records? If not, why not?

Has Andy Card named someone on his staff to organize compliance? If not, why not?

White House officials who might have legal or political exposure on this are going to have to decide whether to hire lawyers or not, and the White House counsel's office is going to have to decide what legal help they can and should provide to officials if and when the DOJ wants to talk to them.

That means that the '90s practice of every Washington bureau of calling members of the bar to see who has hired whom is about to heat back up. The first one to report someone hiring a criminal lawyer wins a prize, as does the first person who develops that lawyer as a source on all this.

A reminder that students of recusal politics will have to consider the Rove-Ashcroft history"

Washington, D.C.: Two basic questions:

How big could this get?

To what extent do you think the general public would care about a story like this? It seems some outside the beltway may write this off as a "it's just politicians being politicians" story, but could this have traction with the public?

Walter Pincus: It is too early to say whether this will grow. It is an insde the beltway type thing right now. And it diverts from more serious questions about Iraq and the U.S. future there.

On the other hand,it indicates that within the administration some people appear uneasy about how this type of thing is being handled. And if it is the first of more such leaks, it could be come big.

Almost 40 years ago I ran an investigaiton for Sen. J.W. FUlbright based on a story I had done in a magazine on foreign government lobbyists. he said when I started that I shoullld remember, in Washington "It's not what you did that counts, it's what you do after you are caught." Coverup has alays been the undoing of government officials.