McClellan to Testify Before House Judiciary Committee

Scott McClellan is making an important stop on Capitol Hill as he continues his book tour to tout that obscure memoir he wrote about being Bush’s press secretary. According to The Huffington Post, McClellan has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about the Valerie Plame identity leak case and possibly other entries in the list of Bush’s Greatest Hits during McClellan’s time as presidential spokesman.

Sam Stein in The Huffington Post:

The date on the invitation, June 20, was set in advance to accommodate McClellan’s schedule, the official said.

McClellan will be the highest-ranking Bush administration official to be pressed by Congress on the Plame affair. Former Bush strategist Karl Rove has refused to testify, citing executive privilege.

And as such, the testimony could be extremely revealing. According to McClellan, the decision to leak Plame’s covert identity emanated from the very top of the Bush White House. The move, he wrote, was politically motivated, as officials were peeved at the critical statements about Iraq coming from Plame’s husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. While McClellan said that the president was ultimately misled by his advisers on the matter, he asserted that the episode itself was a stain on the Oval Office – one that led to his disillusionment.

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