The new Gonzalez/Card '12-Hour Gap' and the Rove Lie that Bush May Be Covering Up.
[UPDATED] Even David Gergen Wants an Answer to 'The Question'!
By Brad Friedman on 7/24/2005, 3:40pm PT  

As predicted on these pages one week ago today, the question in the TreasonGate affair has quickly become "What did the President know? And when did he know it?"

The net is abuzz this morning since the confluence of several different reports today. One by Frank Rich in NY Times concerns the 12 hour gap between the time that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was told to notify the White House about the Plame Leak Investigation at 8:30pm on Sep 12, 2003 --- he was to instruct the White House not to destroy anything in regard to the matter --- and the time he actually officially informed the White House at 8:00am the next day.

The follow-up to that came this morning from Bob Shieffer on Face the Nation when he asked Gonzales about that matter, and Gonzales admitted that he waited to give "official" notice to the White House the next morning, but...(get ready)...notified Chief of Staff Andrew Card on the night of Sep 12!

In other words, the White House had a full 12 Hours to shred anything they may have felt needed shredding!

Think Progress has an excellent description of the sitch, including transcript from today's Shieffer grilling and admission by Gonzales. Crooks and Liars has the video natch.

Steven G. Brant covers this as well and notes, to CNN and Wolf Blitzer's continuing shame, Gonzales appeared on CNN with Blitzer after the FtN appearance but he didn't bother to follow up on the Andrew Card issue at all.

Editor & Publisher also covers Gonzales, Schieffer and the "12 Hour Gap".

I would, however, like to point out another issue which I mentioned aloud for the first time on Thom Hartmann's national radio program on Friday and which seems to now be getting some attention elsewhere. (Hartmann himself posted an article titled "What Did Bush Know, And When Did He Know It?" yesterday which points to yet another damning indication of Dubya's own personal fingerprints on the Plame leak.)

NY Times' Richard W. Stevenson nips around the issue I alluded to a bit with Hartmann in an article today headlined --- yes --- "Who told Bush what in leak case, and when was he told?".

So, what I've been wondering about... If Bush spoke to Rove early on, as it was claimed, to find out if he was the leaker, then Rove either lied --- or not --- to Bush. Since we now know that Rove was one of the leakers, he needs to be fired immediately if only for lying to Bush about it. If he didn't lie to Bush --- and chose to share the truth with his good friend by letting him know in some way that he leaked --- then it means that Bush has been involved in a cover-up of that fact this entire time.

Either way, Rove needs to be dismissed immediately, of course, but more to the point: Watch for George W. Bush to be in deep deep doo doo on this matter in the near future. Unless someone comes up with a clever alibi. And quick!

John Aravosis at AMERICAblog has some supporting evidence via transcripts and questions around this same issue today as well...

Bush either relied on McClellan's public statements that Rove had told McClellan he wasn't involved, and Rove lied, or that Bush talked to Rove and Rove lied to the president as well, or that Bush knew the truth and permitted his staff to lie. In the best case scenario for Bush, Rove lied to White House staff about the scandal and let them go public with that lie.

There is now much buzz about all of the above all over the net. I'll leave it to the excellent eagle-eyed BRAD BLOG commenters to include links to additional coverage.

UPDATE: Wow...Even David Gergen asked the question...in precisely those words...during the Stephanopoulos round table this morning on ABC's This Week! He said he felt this is all going to "come back to the President." Video clip and transcript now here...

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