A former spokesman for President George Bush says he does not know if administration officials committed a crime in the coverup and leaking of the identity of a covert CIA agent.
Scott McClellan, who was White House spokesman for three years, made the comment in testimony Friday to the House Judiciary Committee.
He also alleged that the Bush administration carried out a propaganda campaign to take the nation to war over the belief that Iraq was a grave danger to the United States.
A current White House spokesman, Tony Fratto, said officials are not expecting anything new from the testimony, saying McClellan has "probably told everyone everything he does not know."
McClellan said he does not think the president knew about or caused the leak. McClellan said he did not know if Vice President Dick Cheney was involved but said "there was a lot of suspicion there."
McClellan, who left the White House in 2006, claims in a recent book that former top White House officials Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby misled him about their role in leaking classified information about the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose husband, Joseph Wilson, had been critical of the Bush administration and its case for war.
Libby was convicted of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in its investigation of the leak. President Bush last year commuted Libby's two-and-a-half-year prison sentence.
In McClellan's book, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception," the former spokesman says President Bush was not open and forthright on Iraq.
McClellan, who now says the U.S.-led war in Iraq was not necessary and a grave mistake, says he wrote the book to highlight the need for change in the way Washington politics operates.
Some information for this report was provided by AP.
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