BUSH CONSULTS LAWYER RE VALERIE PLAME CASE

Bush Finds Lawyer to Use if Called in Leak Case:

President Bush has met with a private lawyer whom he intends to hire to represent him if he is questioned as part of a grand jury investigation into the public disclosure of a C.I.A. undercover officer's identity, the White House said Wednesday.

Mr. Bush met recently with the Washington lawyer, Jim Sharp, to consult with him about the case, the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, said, confirming a report on "CBS Evening News."

Today Mr. Bush said he wanted to "know the truth" about what had happened, and if he needed the lawyer's advice, "I'll probably hire him." The president was speaking at a White House news briefing with Prime Minister John Howard of Australia.

Mr. McClellan said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that Mr. Bush had had discussions with Mr. Sharp, adding: "The president has stated on numerous occasions that he wants the White House to fully cooperate, and that would include himself. He wants the investigation to come to a successful conclusion."

Federal prosecutors are seeking to determine who disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a C.I.A. officer, to the syndicated columnist Robert Novak for a column he wrote last summer. Disclosure of the identity of an undercover officer for the Central Intelligence Agency can be a federal crime.

It was unclear on Wednesday night why Mr. Bush waited until what appears to be the last stages of the investigation into the leak before he consulted with a lawyer. One administration official speculated that the president must have had some indication that investigators now want to question him.

Plame worked undercover, specializing in weapons of mass destruction, the most important issue of the "War on Terror." Her network is destroyed -- and who knows how many deaths have resulted as a result of the actions of Robert Novak and whoever tipped him off.

You know, I told friends the same day I read Novak's column "outing" former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife Valerie Plame as a CIA agent, that this might be the scandal that would finally expose George W. Bush to the world for what he is -- a political opportunist that cares very much about being re-Selected and doesn't much care how.

Mr. McClellan said in a telephone interview on Wednesday that Mr. Bush had had discussions with Mr. Sharp, adding: "The president has stated on numerous occasions that he wants the White House to fully cooperate, and that would include himself. He wants the investigation to come to a successful conclusion."

The pResident could have solved this mystery any time he wanted to, simply by demanding an answer. We know that the leak came from his own staff or that of Dick Cheney's. That tells me he already KNOWS the answer and needs an attorney to help him figure out how to evade the federal prosecutors' questions.

I'm so cynical about this man and his administration that I wouldn't put it past him to have actually ordered or approved the leak himself.