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Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people Heinrich Heine |
Lawrence Ari Fleischer (born October 13, 1960) is the former White House Press Secretary for U.S. President George W. Bush from January, 2001 to July, 2003. Fleischer was born in Pound Ridge, New York; his parents were Jewish, his mother a Hungarian immigrant who lost much of her family in the Holocaust. He graduated from Fox Lane High School in Bedford, New York in 1978, and graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1982. Today, he works as a media consultant for the NFL, Bowl Championship Series, and other various sports organizations and players through his company, Ari Fleischer Sports Communications. He is also an international media consultant to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He helped Mark McGwire in his media strategy for his admission of steroid usage. He was also briefly hired by Tiger Woods to help him with a strategy to make his entrance back on the PGA Tour, but was not retained after news stories surfaced promoting his representation of Woods.
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Upon his graduation from Middlebury College, Fleischer worked as press secretary for Jon Fossel, a Republican candidate for a New York congressional seat. Later Fleischer worked as press secretary for Congressmen Norman Lent. From 1985 to 1988 he was the field-director for the National Republican Congressional Committee. He went back to being a press secretary in 1988, working for Congressman Joseph DioGuardi for a short time.
Fleischer served as Senator Pete Domenici's press secretary from 1989 to 1994. He then served as spokesman for the House of Representatives' Ways and Means Committee for five years. He worked as deputy communications director for George H. W. Bush's 1992 reelection campaign.
Although Fleischer served as communications director for Elizabeth Dole during her presidential run in the 2000 election campaign, he joined George W. Bush's presidential campaign after Mrs. Dole dropped out of the race. When Mr. Bush became the President in 2001, he tapped Fleischer to become the first press secretary of his administration.
Fleischer is credited with having been the first to introduce the phrase "homicide bombing" to describe what has also been called suicide bombing, in April 2002, to emphasize the terrorist connotations of the tactic:
On May 19, 2003, he announced that he would resign during the summer, citing a desire to spend more time with his wife and to work in the private sector. He was replaced by deputy press secretary Scott McClellan on July 15, 2003.
Fleischer became an important figure in the CIA leak case; he testified that Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former Chief of Staff, told him that Valerie Plame was a covert agent weeks before Libby had claimed to have been informed of Plame's status by a reporter.
On July 7, 2003, at The James S. Brady Briefing Room, Fleischer was asked about Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador who had recently written a New York Times editorial criticizing the intelligence information the Bush administration had relied upon to make its case for invading the nation of Iraq. Specifically, Fleischer was asked to respond to Mr. Wilson's assertion that he had been sent to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had sought yellowcake uranium and found no evidence that such events had ever occurred.
Fleischer testified in open court on January 29, 2007, that Libby told him on July 7, 2003, at lunch, about Ms. Plame, who is Mr. Wilson's wife. MSNBC correspondent David Shuster summarized Fleisher's testimony on Hardball with Chris Matthews:
Fleischer also testified to the fact that Dan Bartlett, the president's communications adviser, told him the same thing on Air Force One days later on the way to Niger with Pres. Bush. Fleischer had then relayed this information to Time correspondent John Dickerson and NBC's David Gregory in Uganda during the African trip.
Dickerson denied that such a conversation ever took place. Ari Fleischer gave his final 'Press Briefing' on July 14, 2003.
On July 18, 2005, Bloomberg reported that in his sworn testimony before the grand jury investigating the leak, Fleischer denied having seen a memo circulating in Air Force One on July 7, 2003, which named Ms. Plame in connection to Mr. Wilson's mission and which identified her as a 'CIA' covert agent. However, a former Bush Administration official also on the plane testified to having seen Fleischer perusing the document.
Columnist Robert Novak, who published Ms. Plame's name on July 14, 2003, made a call to Fleischer on July 7, 2003, before Fleischer's trip to Africa with Pres. Bush. It is unclear whether Fleischer returned Novak's call. However, Fleischer is mentioned in Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's indictment of Libby. The indictment states that Libby told Fleischer (referred to as the White House press secretary in the indictment) that Ms. Plame worked for the 'CIA' and that this fact was not well known.
After receiving an immunity agreement, Fleischer testified that he had revealed Ms. Plame's identity to reporters after learning it from Libby. However, in the end it was discovered that Richard Armitage first leaked Ms. Plame's identity, not Mr. Libby or Mr. Cheney.
Ari Fleischer
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