June 9, 2003: The President Gets Involved
On June 8, 2003, George Stephanopolous and Condi Rice had the following exchange:
S: But let me stop you right there, because many in the United States goverment knew before then that this…
R: George, somebody, somebody down may have known. But I will tell you that when this issue was raised with the intelligence community–because we actually do go through the process of asking the intelligence community, Can you say this? Can you say that? Can you say this? — the intelligence community did not know at that time, or at levels that got to us, that this…
S: But let me show you something here, this is…
R: …serious questions about this report.
S: [Reads from Kristof’s article] That’s hardly low level, the vice president’s office.
R: Well, the vice president’s office may have asked for that report. [snip] … this particular report, it was not known to us that it was a forgery.
The next day, the very first thing Scooter Libby recorded in his notes was that the President was interested in the Kristof report about the SOTU.
In his grand jury testimony, Libby couldn’t provide any details regarding the circumstances of the note, beyond suggesting that he told the Vice President of the President’s interest in the issue.