March 27, 2004
Democrats Seek to Show Rice's Lips Moving In Effort To Show That She Lied
Seek to Declassify Her Private 9/11 Testimony, Too
Republican Congressional leaders said Friday that they would seek to declassify past Congressional testimony from Richard A. Clarke, President Bush's former counterterrorism chief, in an effort to demonstrate that the former aide had lied this week about Mr. Bush's record.
Democrats furious at the move of Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist to declassify Richard Clarke's testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee are fighting back, demanding that Rice's testimony before the 9/11 commission be similarly declassified.
Rice recently asked the Commission for the opportunity to testify privately before them a second time, but not under oath, and only while speaking through a large hand puppet.
"It is our view that use of the hand puppet would give Ms. Rice plausible deniability, should anyone challenge her statements," said Michael Musto, a new spokesman for the White House. "If that happens, we will just blame it on the hand puppet."
For her part, Rice categorically denied lying to the Comission in her previous testimony. Rice said that it would be "revisionist history" to say that she was lying when she said that she wasn't lying when she lied before.
"We just want the American people to have the truth," she said of the most famously secretive government in America's history.
"Cross Dick 's heart," she added.
Posted by Tom Burka at
10:25 AM in
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