As noted earlier, a “senior administration official” briefed members of the White House press corps this afternoon about the latest developments in the WMD story. The real substantive news here, as near as I can tell, is that the White House is saying it didn’t make any changes in the uranium portions of the State of the Union speech because of resistance or doubts from the CIA — specifically in the conversation between NSC staffer Bob Joseph and Alan Foley of the CIA. That directly contradicts what Alan Foley is reported to have said in Wednesday’s closed-door hearing in the Senate. The “senior administration official” also seemed to say (you read the transcript and be the judge) that the White House would not allow White House staff — most likely Joseph — to be questioned about any of this before committees on Capitol Hill. Several papers reported yesterday that the White House had signaled willingness to do so. The entire question and answer portion of the briefing has just been posted in the TPM Documents Collection.
