Again, anything not in brackets is a direct quote:
>>>>>>>
Terence Hunt, Associated Press: The President seemed to raise the bar and add a qualifier today when discussing whether or not anybody would be dismissed for the leak of a CIA officer’s name, in which he said if someone was found to have committed a crime, they would be no longer working in this Administration. That’s never been part of the standard before. Why is that added now?
Scott McClellan: I disagree, Terry. I think the President was stating what is obvious when it comes to people who work in the Administration. When someone commits a crime, they’re not gonna be working any longer in this Administration. Now the President talked about how it’s important for us to learn all the facts. We don’t know all the facts. It’s important that we not pre-judge the outcome of the investigation. We need to let the investigation continue, and the investigators are the ones in the position to gather all the facts and draw the conclusions, and at that point we’ll be more than happy to talk about it as I indicated last week. The President directed the WH to cooperate fully, and that’s what we’ve been doing.
[got tired of typing bullshit here. Sorry.]
TH: You had said that anyone involved in this would no longer be in this Administration. You didn’t say, ‘anybody who had committed a crime.’ You had said Sept 2003 that anyone involved in this would no longer be in this Administration.
SM: [I know what I said. Don’t read into anything more than what the President said.] And I think that’s something you might be trying to do here.
[Ed. Note: OOOOOOH! Scotty, you butch, you!]
NBC (but not David Gregory): Does the President equate the word ‘leaking’ to a crime, as best you know, in his mind? Just the use of the word ‘leaking,’ does he see that as a criminal standard, and is the only threshold for firing someone involved being charged with a crime?
SM: We all serve at the pleasure of the President at this WH. You heard what the President had to say on the matter.
NBC: Is leaking, in your judgment of his interpretation, a crime?
SM: I’ll leave it at what the President said.
Helen Thomas: Two years and he can’t call Rove in and find out what the hell’s going on?
SM: Helen—
HT: Why is it so difficult to find out the facts? It cost thousands, maybe millions of dollars, two years, tied up how many lawyers. All he’s gotta do is call him in.
SM: You just heard the President. He doesn’t know all the facts. I don’t know all the facts.
HT: Why? Why doesn’t he just ask him--
SM: All right, I’ll tell you why. Because there’s an investigation that is continuing at this point, and there are appropriate people to handle these issues are the ones who are overseeing that investigation [blah blah].
HT: You talked about it with reporters.
ABC (but not Terry Moran): We don’t know all the facts, but we know some of the facts. That is, we know that Matthew Cooper did speak to Karl Rove and Lewis Libby about these issues. So given the fact that you had previously stood at that podium and said these men did not discuss Valerie Plame or a CIA agent’s identity in any way. Does the WH have a credibility problem?
SM: No. You just answered your own question when you said we don’t know all the facts. [don’t pre-judge the outcome]
ABC: On the specifics, you made statements that have proven to be untrue.
SM: [same bullshit, but said more forcefully, plus saying that the President has faith in the American people. Gee, thanks.]
Bob Franken, CNN: Given the new formulation that if somebody committed a crime, now would that be a crime as determined by an indictment or a crime as determined by a conviction?
SM: [gets testy, has nothing to add]
BF: The importance is, if it is the latter, the strategy would be to run out the clock.
SM: [we all serve at the pleasure of the President, we’re cooperating with investigators]
April Ryan, American Urban Radio: Going back to the President’s statements from earlier, ‘if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my Administration,’ it makes me go back to my question last Wednesday: is there regret from this Administration as to what has this done to the Wilson family with the CIA leak? I talked to Mr. Wilson prior to going into the East Room, and he basically said, ‘The American people deserve an apology,’ and that his family is basically collateral damage in a bigger picture.
SM: All these questions are getting into pre-judging the outcome of the investigation, and we’re not gonna do that.
AR: The President acknowledged that there was a problem, and it could be a criminal problem. If he acknowledged that, isn’t there some sort of regret?
SM: It’s a criminal investigation.
AR: Is there regret from this White House that it has caused an American family who works for this government to have—
SM: I’ve heard what you have to say, and I’ve already answered.
Ed Chen, LA Times: The President talked about if a crime were committed, but a year ago and beyond, he denounced leaks out of this executive branch and other parts of Washington, he said, ‘this is wrong.’ If it’s only a leak, will he take some appropriate action?
SM: Look back at what the President said. [etc.]
[Goyal from Asia Times—always good for a change in subject–asks about the Indian PM’s visit]
Carl Cameron, Fox News: You’re telling us that we shouldn’t read anything new into the President’s comments today. Should we then take that to mean that if there was criminal activity that person would be fired, but this does not render inoperative those things that the President has said yes or responded affirmative to in the past when asked for instance if he would fire someone involved in a leak?
SM: I wouldn’t read anything into it beyond what he said.
CC: Do the previous statements remain operative?
SM: [We’ll talk about it after the investigation is over]
Lester Kinsolving, WCBM Baltimore: Jack Kelley in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes that the Intelligence Identities Protection Act defines a covert agent as someone working undercover overseas. He notes Valerie Plame has manned a desk at the CIA HQ since 1997. Mark Stein of the Chicago Sun-Times notes that Valerie’s husband conceded on CNN that she is not a clandestine officer and hasn’t been one for six years, so leaking her CIA connection did not endanger her life or comprise her mission. Would you or the President or Karl Rove disagree with these two nationally syndicated columnists?
SM: [I’ve said all there is to say]
LK: 19 members of Congress from seven states have written a letter to the President saying that they are still waiting for an answer to a May 26 question: is the President opposed to contraception? Could they now have an answer to my question, do you regard them, too, not to be dignified with a response?
SM: [We’ve talked about federally funded programs that promote abstinence and how those ought to be funded on at least equal footing with other programs]
David?, from?: Scott, with apologies for coming back to this definitional issue that we seem to be dancing around, what I’m having a hard time with is, you’re telling us that there was nothing new in what the President said today, yet you have said before that the President would fire someone if they were involved in the leak. The President seemed to set a higher bar today, if they were convicted of a criminal act. Those are not the same thing on their face.
SM: [don’t read anything more than what he said]
D: Is the WH standard the one the President enunciated, then?
SM: I think I’ve addressed that question.
Victoria Jones, Talk Radio News Service: Backing up to October 2003, you did assure us that you had talked with Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Elliot Abrams, and they all assured you they weren’t involved in any of this. So with regard to Libby and Abrams, do you still stand by that?
SM: [ongoing investigation, can’t comment]
VJ: With regard to that, how concerned is the President and you, notwithstanding that you don’t want to talk about it, that Ken Mehlman and other senior Republicans are all over the airwaves doing just that?
SM: You can direct those questions to the RNC.
----
At this point, my hands started to cramp up, and I have to get my cat to the vet, so I had to stop, but it was basically more of the same after this. I would say at least 75% of the questions asked today had to do with Rove. Whenever Scotty was asked a question on another topic, he rambled on and on to kill time. The entire briefing was only 23 minutes, shorter than the usual half-hour.
UPDATE: The cat is fine.
