WASHINGTON (AP) - The White House is suddenly facing damaging evidence that it misled the public by insisting for two years that presidential adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in leaking the identity of a female CIA officer.
Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper that the woman "apparently works" for the CIA and that she had authorized her husband's trip to Africa to assess allegations that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons, according to a July 11, 2003, e-mail by Cooper obtained by Newsweek magazine.
It was McClellan who provided the previous assurances about no role for Rove, but he refused to repeat those assurances Monday.
"Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" a reporter asked McClellan.
"This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation," McClellan replied.
McClellan gave the same answer when asked whether President Bush has confidence in Rove, the architect of the president's successful political campaigns.
The investigation was ongoing in 2003 when McClellan assured the public Rove wasn't involved, a reporter pointed out, but the spokesman refused to elaborate.
"The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."
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