Scott McClellan flummoxed a lot of people when he announced that Scooter Libby and Eliot Abrams were not involved in disclosing Valerie Plameâs name. I say flummoxed because there was a lot of chatter, and good bit of circumstantial evidence pointing in Libbyâs direction, and at least some pointing in Abramsâ. But once McClellan issued flat denials on their behalf it really made people wonder.
But, as youâll remember, Iâve been making quite a point of late of the administrationâs extremely disciplined use of the phrase âleaks of classified informationâ when referring to anything about Plame. They never mention Plameâs name — which is perhaps understandable. But they donât even make any mention of exposing a CIA operative. It’s always “leaks of classified information” this and “leaks of classified information” that.
That makes me wonder just how air-tight McClellanâs statement is. What he said was that âThey [i.e., Libby and Abrams] were not involved in leaking classified information, nor did they condone it.â
Now presumably Plameâs identity was classified information. But why frame this denial in such a precise, lawyerly and frankly off-point fashion? Why not just say they told no one about Plameâs identity. Or even just, they did not disclose the identity of any agent from the Directorate of Operations?
Somethingâs up here …