What did the president know and when did he know it?

On Monday, Murray Waas wrote:

President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Dick Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president's interview.

Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004, interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.

But Bush told investigators that he was unaware that Cheney had directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, to covertly leak the classified information to the media instead of releasing it to the public after undergoing the formal governmental declassification processes.

Bush also said during his interview with prosecutors that he had never directed anyone to disclose the identity of then-covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. Bush said he had no information that Cheney had disclosed Plame's identity or directed anyone else to do so.

[snip]

One senior government official familiar with the discussions between Bush and Cheney -- but who does not have firsthand knowledge of Bush's interview with prosecutors -- said that Bush told the vice president to "Get it out," or "Let's get this out," regarding information that administration officials believed would rebut Wilson's allegations and would discredit him.

A person with direct knowledge of Bush's interview refused to confirm that Bush used those words, but said that the first official's account was generally consistent with what Bush had told Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

So what, then, did Bush want them to use to discredit Wilson? Dan Froomkin wonders:

Publicly, Bush has consistently portrayed himself as not only uninvolved with the leak of Plame's identity, but utterly in the dark about it -- and determined to punish any wrongdoers.

But Waas's story suggests that Bush was directly responsible for the sequence of events that resulted in that leak.

As it turns out, there were two major byproducts of Bush's charge to Cheney to counter Wilson's ultimately substantiated charge that the White House had misrepresented intelligence in the runup to war in Iraq: Cheney's top aide, Scooter Libby, distributed highly classified but nevertheless disproved and inaccurate information to reporters; and Libby and White House political guru Karl Rove outed Plame in a specious attempt to suggest that Wilson's trip was a junket arranged by his wife.

Fitzgerald's grand jury has charged Libby with perjury and obstruction of justice in the Plame case. Among other things, Libby told investigators he had first heard of Plame's CIA job from reporters when his own notes showed he had learned about it from Cheney.

Waas has previously reported that prosecutors suspect Libby may have lied to cover up for Cheney. This new report raises the possibility that Libby lied to cover up for Bush, too.

But even if that's not the case, it certainly seems clear by now that Bush knows a lot more about this case -- and his White House's enthusiasm for discrediting its opponents -- than he's let on in public.

Isn't it about time Bush stopped pretending ignorance about this story -- and came clean on his own role? Why should that information only be shared with criminal prosecutors?

Is it approved White House procedure to distribute misinformation? Is it okay to out a covert CIA operative? If it's not okay was he disappointed in how top deputies like Cheney and Rove -- both still very much at work at the White House -- carried out his orders?

Especially when you take into account Bush's so-called righteous indignation about the New York Times publishing a story about tracking terrorist financing about which the Wall Street Journal also wrote WITHOUT finger-pointing by the Administration, his use of leaks to discredit political enemies not only makes him a hypocrite (which we already knew) but puts him up there in Nixon territory.

Helen Thomas, call your office. Because God knows no one else in the White House press corps will dare to ask.

(hat tip: Americablog)