Last month, testimony in the Scooter Libby trial revealed that former White House spokesman Scott McClellan knowingly lied when he told reporters that neither Libby and Karl Rove had anything to do with leaking of the name of a covert C.I.A. agent. This week, testimony in another court case, this one in Denver, has exposed another deliberate on-the-record lie by McClellan, as well as the legally questionable practice of White House operatives allegedly impersonating Secret Service agents at public events.
Results of a separate investigation into whether White House staffers impersonated Secret Service agents were swept under the rug by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver.
The case concerns the expulsion by White House operatives of three non-Republicans, Leslie Weise, Karen Bauer and Alex Young, from a January 2005 appearance by Pres. George Bush in Denver. The event was taxpayer-funded, and the three taxpayers had tickets. Nonetheless the “Denver Three” were escorted out of the area by volunteer Republican Party operatives. Later, men dressed like Secret Service agents told them that they were tossed out because they had arrived in a car with a bumper sticker that read, “No More Blood for Oil.”
On March 30, 2005, McClellan blamed the expulsion of the three suspected liberals on the Republican volunteers:
… I did look into that a little bit more yesterday … My understanding is that it was a volunteer involved in that matter. My sense is that the volunteer thought that these individuals, these three individuals were coming to the event to disrupt it. And those individuals — I think if you look at some of the early news reports even said something to that effect.
Questioned under oath last week, the volunteers said their orders came from the White House staff members. Reporters contacted the staffers who both said they were following White House policy:
A former White House official who ordered three activists expelled from a 2005 Denver public forum with President Bush says it was White House policy to exclude potentially-disruptive guests from Bush’s appearances nationwide.
The former official, Steve Atkiss, revealed the policy today in an interview after two volunteer bouncers identified him and a current White House staffer, Jamie O’Keefe, as the officials who ordered the so-called “Denver Three” activists sent away.
Atkiss is now a U.S. Department of Homeland Security chief of staff.
McClellan cast blame on the volunteers knowing that they were just following orders — knowing all along that it that suspected dissenters were always barred from Dear Leader’s presence.
An earlier investigation in the matter revealed that the Secret Service agents were actually White House staffers:
The Secret Service later investigated whether a Republican volunteer committed a crime of impersonating a federal agent. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Denver declined to press charges, giving no explanation.
Swept under the rug.
