McClellan Prepared to Give full Testimony Next Week

(Release date: June 13)

WASHINGTON — It's a rare book that sparks congressional inquiry.

But when former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan suggested in his new memoir that President Bush shaded the truth to lead the country to war, the House Judiciary Committee pounced.

On Friday, McClellan goes before the committee to face questions about the handling of pre-war intelligence, the use of harsh interrogation tactics on terrorist suspects, the White House outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame and perhaps even the firing of Justice Department officials.

"These are issues that go to the very heart of executive action," said Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., the committee member who first called for McClellan to testify after his memoir - "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception" - came out last month.

"These go to the very heart of questions of life or death," said Wexler, "and they're not to be taken lightly."

That goes double in an election year, when Bush backers have come out with rabid criticism of McClellan and his book, which debuted in late May in first place on the New York Times bestseller list.

"I don't know really what he has to contribute," said the committee's ranking Republican, Lamar Smith of Texas.

"He's written a book of opinions, for which he's presumably getting well paid," Smith said, referring to the $75,000 advance - by no means a huge sum for a Washington memoir - that McClellan said that he received for writing the book.

Smith has yet to read McClellan's book. Like other House members quoted in this article, Smith has so far relied on excerpts and staff briefings. That hasn't stopped him from assailing the book.

"It sounds to me like it's just a long, somewhat disjointed editorial," said Smith, who joined other Republicans in seeking to discourage committee chairman John Conyers, D-Mich., from inviting McClellan to testify.

"This is crazy," said committee member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

"We had plenty of time to listen to Roger Clemens come in front of the committee and talk about steroids in baseball and now we're bringing in Scott McClellan because he wrote a book and he said some things that might be embarrassing to the Bush administration," said Jordan. "This is not the thing Congress should be focusing on, when we've got real challenges that impact every single American, real challenges that impact our country that we need to be focused on, like the $10 trillion national debt, like the fact terrorists want to do us harm, like the fact we got $4 gasoline."

Democrats on the committee, however, are savoring the opportunity to question the former spokesman for a White House they believe has concealed too much of its workings from public view.

"This administration has shrouded its activities in secrecy," said Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga. "The public now understands, despite that secrecy, that the American people were misled in the run-up to the war in Iraq, that they were misled into war, and Scott McClellan's book does shed some light on the Bush administration's activities ././. He's the highest insider who is talking."

Indeed, McClellan has done little but talk since his book hit the stands. He's been interviewed on more than 50 radio and television programs and quoted in every major newspaper in the country.

For that reason, if no other, it's unlikely the White House would try to invoke executive privilege - as the administration has done repeatedly in the face of congressional review - to try to prevent McClellan from appearing before the committee.

"It would be implausible to claim executive privilege over any and all testimony he might give," said constitutional law scholar Jonathan Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University in Washington.

"To bar his testimony completely would be absurd," said Turley. "We're not talking about the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. We're talking about someone who's job was to be the public face and communicator of the administration."

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McClellan spent three years, from 2003 to 2006, as press secretary and chief spokesman for Bush, a role he appeared to savor as a true believer.

"My job, when I was at the White House, was to speak on behalf of the president for his decisions and his policies," McClellan said in an interview.

"The last ten months of my time as press secretary was a period of increasing disillusionment, and I think that some of those disillusioned moments helped open my eyes as I went back and wrote this book," he said.

"As I went through this book process, it gave me time to reflect and really come to grips with some unpleasant truths and some hard realities," said McClellan. "I think it's important to share those experiences so we can learn from them - and that's the purpose of the book."

Perhaps the most unpleasant assertion McClellan makes has to do with the way Bush sold the country on the war with Iraq.

Now in its sixth year, the war has left 4,097 U.S. troops dead and 30,209 wounded. Bush led the country to war on his claim - widely embraced at the time - that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction. No stockpiles of such weapons have been found.

"War should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary," McClellan wrote. "Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake. But ././. an even more fundamental mistake was made - a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed."

Candor and honesty were in equally short supply, McClellan charges, when administration officials - including former to White House political adviser Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney - leaked to selected reporters the fact that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA officer.

They did so in 2003, after Plame's husband, former U.S. diplomat Joe Wilson, went public with criticism of Bush administration claims about Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons ambitions.

The identity of CIA covert agents - Plame claims she was one before she was outed - is protected under national security law. As classified information, it is unlawful to reveal it.

An FBI inquiry into the matter resulted in a 2.5-year sentence for Libby, who was convicted of perjury, obstructing justice and lying to FBI investigators. Bush commuted the sentence last summer. No one in the administration has served prison time for the leak.

McClellan writes that he was duped into telling reporters from the presidential podium that Libby and Rove had nothing to do with the leaks.

"But the top White House officials who knew the truth - including Rove, Libby and possibly Vice President Cheney - allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie," McClellan wrote.

With charges like that under McClellan's name, his testimony Friday is already being weighed as among the most politically charged events of the year.

"Where we stand today, this administration has obviated the checks and balances that have governed the relationship between Congress and the president for over two centuries," said Wexler. "I believe Scott McClellan's testimony may be the most significant attempt at beginning to recover Congress's constitutional authority to provide oversight over the administration."

McClellan himself makes clear he's playing for history.

"I was brought up on the importance of speaking up and doing what you can to make a positive difference and this book is a continuation of how I was raised and a continuation of my career in public service, but now it's an opportunity for me to finally speak for myself," said McClellan.

"We'll have to see what the questions are," he said. "But I'm glad to share what I know."