White House to NYT: Take It Back!

It’s not every day you see the White House spokesperson going out of her way to respond to a news piece, but they really didn’t like this morning’s piece in the New York Times on the involvement of administration lawyers in discussions on the CIA tapes. In particular they objected to this line:

The accounts indicate that the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes in November 2005 was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged. (my emphasis)

Dana Perino says administration officials haven’t “publicly commented on facts relating to this issue” — so if they haven’t acknowledged anything, how could the Times account be different?

Of course, given the amount of reporting that’s been done on this story based on anonymous sources, it seems likely that the Times was referring to background discussions with administration officials, not their public comments. And we agree with the White House that the Times‘ story is “pernicious and troubling” — but it seems like that’s better applied to the CIA tapes fiasco overall rather than the Times‘ reporting.

Full statement below.

The New York Times today implies that the White House has been misleading in publicly acknowledging or discussing details related to the CIA’s decision to destroy interrogation tapes.

The sub-headline of the story inaccurately says that the “White House Role Was Wider Than It Said”, and the story states that “…the involvement of White House officials in the discussions before the destruction of the tapes…was more extensive than Bush administration officials have acknowledged.”

Under direction from the White House General Counsel while the Department of Justice and the CIA Inspector General conduct a preliminary inquiry, we have not publicly commented on facts relating to this issue, except to note President Bush’s immediate reaction upon being briefed on the matter. Furthermore, we have not described – neither to highlight, nor to minimize — the role or deliberations of White House officials in this matter.

The New York Times’ inference that there is an effort to mislead in this matter is pernicious and troubling, and we are formally requesting that NYT correct the sub-headline of this story.

It will not be surprising that this matter will be reported with a reliance on un-named sources and individuals lacking a full availability of the facts — and, as the New York Times story itself acknowledges, some of these sources will have wildly conflicting accounts of the facts. We will instead focus our efforts on supporting the preliminary inquiry underway, where facts can be gathered without bias or influence and later disseminated in an appropriate fashion.

We will continue to decline to comment on this issue, and in response to misleading press reports.