WASHINGTON, March 26 (UPI) -- Despite the hype surrounding the first public appearance by Valerie Plame Wilson last week, the testimony that was most indicting of the Bush administration's handling of the CIA leak controversy came not from the former CIA agent but from the second witness: a White House official responsible for carrying out internal White House investigations.

James Knodell, director of the Office of Security at the White House, testified that in the weeks following the leak of Plame's identity as a covert officer at the CIA, the White House never undertook an internal investigation to locate the loose cannon in its midst...

If the president claimed to support an investigation, why did the White House not conduct one as it is obligated to do by various executive orders protecting classified information? It's a simple question an even more obvious answer after hearing Knodell's testimony.

"The White House didn't engage in standard operating procedure because internally, everyone basically knew what had happened and knew that the involvement of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby and possibly others made this an insider's game," said Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation.

Clemons said that while the leak of classified information is always a national security concern, this case is particularly insidious because of the way the Bush administration reacted.

"The president's huff and puff at the time of the outing of Valerie Plame was very good theater, but now if we go back and look at it, all of the key players inside who set the president up to make those comments were the ones very involved with making a campaign out of Valerie Plame's identity to get back at Joe Wilson," Clemons said...

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