White House Press Briefing Transcript

Whoa.

Q All right, you say you won't discuss it, but the Republican National Committee and others working, obviously, on behalf of the White House, they put out this Wilson-Rove research and talking points, distributed to Republican surrogates, which include things like, Karl Rove discouraged a reporter from writing a false story. And then other Republican surrogates are getting information such as, Cooper -- the Time reporter -- called Rove on the pretense of discussing welfare reform. Bill Kristol on Fox News, a friendly news channel to you, said that the conversation lasted for two minutes and it was just at the end that Rove discussed this. So someone is providing this information. Are you, behind the scenes, directing a response to this story?

MR. McCLELLAN: You can talk to the RNC about what they put out. I'll let them speak to that. What I know is that the President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And as part of cooperating fully with that investigation, that means supporting the efforts by the investigators to come to a successful conclusion, and that means not commenting on it from this podium.

Q Well, if --

MR. McCLELLAN: No, I understand your question.

Q Well, Fox News and other Republican surrogates are essentially saying that the conversation lasted for two minutes and that the subject was ostensibly welfare reform. They're getting that information from here, from Karl Rove.

MR. McCLELLAN: And again, you're asking questions that are related to news reports about an ongoing, continuing investigation. And you've had my response on that.

Q At the very least, though, Scott, could you say whether or not you stand by your statement --

MR. McCLELLAN: John, I'll come back to you if I can.

And it gets hotter.

UPDATE: I understand that cspan.org has the whole thing, but six minutes of highlights are here.