Robert Wexler: Thank you Mister Chairman, thank you Mr. McClellan, for appearing before this committee today. Your book raises many questions about the administration that is incapable of telling the truth and, in your words, avoids accountability. I want to focus on how and why Scooter Libby came to reveal the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson.
* * *
Wexler: So this suspicion leads you to believe that Vice President Cheney could have authorized Mr. Libby’s leak?

McClellan: I can’t rule it out, and I think that Scooter Libby in his, some testimony that he’s talked about, it’s possible that he could have first learned about her from, or that the Vice President could have even asked him to get that information out.

Wexler: Well, thank you for your candor, Mr. McClellan. Your suspicion or the doubts that you raise fit in very nicely to what it is we do know. We do know Mr. Cheney has been deeply involved in the efforts to cover up the leak and exonerate Mr. Libby. We know Mr. Cheney called you to have you unknowingly lie to the American people about Libby’s involvement. We know that the Vice President wrote a note where he starts to write and then crosses out the fact that the president himself asked Libby to stick his neck into a meat grinder to protect the administration. It is clear to me that Mr. Cheney is the only one left; the only likely suspect to have ordered the leak. If Mr. Cheney really thought Libby was innocent, then his note would have likely said something like “We need to protect this man who has done nothing wrong.” But that’s not what Mr. Cheney’s note said. The Vice President’s own hand betrays him and Libby, and implicates the President of the United States.

These facts and your testimony, Mr. McClellan, are more than enough in my view to open up impeachment hearings. Furthermore, the President’s use of the pardon power to deflect an investigation into his own wrongdoing by granting a commutation to the man who may have lied for him, would constitute an abuse and crime of the highest order. And we must determine on this committee conclusively whether or not this happened. Thank you, Mr. McClellan, for exposing some of the lies that were propagated by this White House. But unfortunately, as you have said, I believe as well, others in this White House have been blocking access to the truth. It’s time we sweep away the bogus claims of executive privilege and get Karl Rove, Andy Card, and others before this judiciary committee. We have the power of inhering contempt, and if need be, we should use it. Mr. McClellan, what you have provided today for the American people is enormously important. You are the first high official in this administration to come before this Congress and offer us a glimpse into the truth. I commend you for being here today.

McClellan: Thank you Congressman. I do believe it’s important for the American people to have the truth.

From a "Wexler for Congress" e-mail
"Update on McClellan, FISA, and Impeachment"
Fri, Jun 20, 2008 at 5:43 PM

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Orlando, FL