In a June 15 article on the Bush administration's reaction to the news that White House senior adviser Karl Rove would apparently not be charged in the CIA leak case, New York Times reporters Jim Rutenberg and Neil A. Lewis distorted the White House's 2003 denials of Rove's involvement in the disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative. In misrepresenting those denials, Rutenberg and Lewis lent support to Rove's defenders, whom they allowed to anonymously claim that Rove did not mislead his White House colleagues about his role in the leak.

Further, the Times article ignored entirely Rove's own early false claim to reporters that he was not involved in the leak. Rutenberg and Lewis also failed to quote a single critic of Rove's conduct.

Early in the June 15 article, Rutenberg and Lewis reported that “questions remain about how straightforward Mr. Rove, a deputy chief of staff, was about his own role in administration efforts to rebut a war critic -- even with his own White House colleagues.” They later addressed allegations that Rove misled former White House press secretary Scott McClellan about his role in the leak:

In 2003 Scott McClellan, who was then White House press secretary, told reporters, based on information from Mr. Rove, that Mr. Rove had played no role in disclosing Ms. Wilson's [Plame's] name.

Mr. Rove later admitted to speaking with two reporters, the columnist Robert Novak and Matt Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, about Ms. Wilson, though associates say he did not know her name.

[...]

An associate of Mr. Rove who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not cleared to speak publicly on the details said Mr. Rove did not intentionally mislead Mr. McClellan.

In fact, McClellan twice denied that Rove had been involved in leaking Plame's identity as a CIA employee and the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV -- not her name, as Rutenberg and Lewis asserted. In a September 16, 2003, press briefing, McClellan described as “totally ridiculous” the suggestion by a reporter that Rove was involved in disclosing to the press that “Wilson's wife was a CIA operative.” During an October 10, 2003, press briefing, McClellan was asked whether Rove “told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.” He answered that Rove had “assured” him that he was not “involved.”

As the Times article indicated, it later came to light that Rove had informed Cooper that Plame worked at the CIA, and, in a separate conversation, confirmed her CIA employment to Novak. It is true that, according to news reports, Rove apparently did not disclose her name in either conversation, but instead called her “Wilson's wife,” referring to her husband, a vocal critic of the White House's decision to go to war with Iraq. But, as Media Matters for America has pointed out repeatedly, whether Rove actually disclosed Wilson's wife's name -- which could have been readily determined by any reporter -- has no bearing on the fact that he disclosed her identity as a CIA officer and then reportedly “assured” McClellan that he had done no such thing.

By describing McClellan's denial as related to whether Rove disclosed Plame's “name” rather than her identity, Rutenberg and Lewis lent support to the unnamed Rove associates who, in the following paragraph, state that Rove “did not know her name,” and therefore could not have leaked it to Cooper. The article therefore leaves the false impression that this fact somehow exonerates Rove from allegations that he discussed Plame with Cooper and that he misled McClellan -- an impression bolstered two paragraphs later, when Rutenberg and Lewis cite another anonymous “associate” asserting that “Rove did not intentionally mislead Mr. McClellan.”

In contrast to Rutenberg and Lewis's article, Washington Post staff writer Jim VandeHei debunked former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie's similarly misleading defense of Rove's apparent actions. From VandeHei's June 15 article:

Republicans close to Rove argued yesterday that, technically speaking, the aide never lied about his role and that, if anything, he is owed an apology by the media and some Democrats. Former Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie, echoing an argument Rove has made privately to others, said Rove only discussed Plame briefly when questioned by reporters, never mentioned her name specifically and never intended to blow her cover.

“It is now clear he did not leak anybody's name and did not lie about any action,” said Gillespie, a close Rove ally.

[...]

Gillespie said that there was nothing misleading about McClellan's comments in 2003, when the spokesman denied any role for Rove, because it was commonly known the issue was whether the aide leaked the name of a covert CIA agent. But a transcript of McClellan's comments suggests differently.

McClellan was asked if Rove “told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?” Rove, he said, “assured me” he was not involved in the leak of such information.

It is true there is no known evidence that Rove leaked Plame's name per se; in one instance, he referred to Plame simply as Wilson's wife. But he confirmed her CIA role to two reporters, according to court filings in the Libby case.

Further, Rutenberg and Lewis focused entirely on the White House's defense of Rove, while omitting any mention of his own statements to the press regarding his role in the leak. Indeed, Rove denied having any involvement in the disclosure of Plame's identity at least twice in public statements, first during a September 29, 2003, ABC News broadcast of him walking to his car, then during an August 31, 2004, interview with CNN national correspondent John King.