By E&P Staff - Published: October 25, 2005 4:45 PM ET
NEW YORK At Tuesday afternoon's White House briefing, Press Secretary Scott McClellan repeatedly faced questions about the Plame/CIA leak case, especially in regard to new revelations about Vice President Cheney's possible role.
Basically, he responded with 19 variations on "we don't comment on ongoing investigations." But he did offer a testimonial to the Vice President as a "straightforward, plainspoken person."
Here are the relevant excerpts:
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Q Scott, a couple of years ago, you told us that Scooter Libby and Karl Rove had nothing to do with the CIA leak. It appears that you may have gotten bad information before you made that statement. Now, today, we learn through extrapolation that when the Vice President said in September of 2003 that he didn't know who sent Joe Wilson to Niger to investigate the claims that Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake, that he was not speaking the truth. My question is: Can we be confident that when we hear statements from the White House in public that they are truthful?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think you can because you know that our relationship is built on trust, and I have earned that trust with you all. As you pointed out, you pointed back to some past comments that I gave and I've talked to you about the assurances that I received on that.
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