Bush and White House Stay Silent on Aide’s Role in Leak

President George W. Bush was asked Tuesday if he planned to fire Karl Rove, a senior aide at the center of an investigation into the unmasking of an undercover CIA officer, and he offered only a stony silence in reply. But Bush’s spokesman said later that the president has confidence in Rove and everyone else working at the White House. “Are you going to fire him?” the president was asked twice during a brief Oval Office appearance with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore. Both times, the president ignored the questions. Then a White House aide signaled that the session was over. “Out those doors, please,” the aide told journalists. “Thank you very much.”

Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover CIA officer would be fired, and assuring that Rove and other senior presidential aides had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House is refusing to answer any questions about new evidence of Rove’s role in the matter. With the White House silent, Democrats rushed in, demanding that the administration provide a full account of any involvement by Rove, one of the president’s closest advisers, turning up the political heat in the case and leaving some Republicans worried about the possible effects on Bush’s second- term agenda. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic minority leader, cited Bush’s statements about firing anyone involved in the leak and said Monday, “I trust they will follow through on this pledge.” In another contentious news briefing Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, would not directly address any of a barrage of questions about Rove’s involvement amid new evidence suggesting that Rove had discussed the CIA officer with a Time magazine reporter in July 2003, without identifying her by name.

Under often hostile questioning, McClellan declined to comment on Democratic demands that Rove’s security clearance be revoked, or whether Rove might be becoming a political liability for the Bush administration.

“I don’t think it’s helpful for me, from this podium, to get into discussing what is an ongoing investigation,” McClellan said. McClellan did say that “any individual who works here at the White House has the president’s confidence.”

He said, too, that everyone working at the White House was helping to advance the president’s agenda, “and that includes Karl in a very big way.” The tone of the news briefing Tuesday was reminiscent of Monday’s session, when McClellan declined to say whether he stood behind his previous statements that Rove had played no role in the unmasking of the CIA officer, saying he could not comment while a criminal investigation was under way. He brushed aside questions about whether the president would follow through on his pledge, repeated just over a year ago, to fire anyone in his administration found to have played a role in disclosing the officer’s identity.

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Carl Hulse, David Johnston and David Stout contributed reporting from Washington for this article, and Adam Liptak from New York.