San Francisco – Congressional investigators told the White House on Tuesday that they intend to question several former Bush administration officials about their knowledge of Pat Tillman’s death, escalating their inquiry into the high-profile friendly-fire case.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the committee’s top-ranking Republican, also pressed for drafts of a speech President Bush made in the weeks before it became publicly known that the former NFL star was killed by his own troops. In the 2004 speech at the White House correspondents’ dinner, Bush didn’t mention how Tillman died.
The congressmen informed White House counsel Fred Fielding of their intentions in a letter Tuesday. The White House was reviewing the letter, spokesman Trey Bohn said.
“As part of our ongoing investigation, the committee plans to interview or depose former White House officials regarding when and how White House and Pentagon officials learned that Cpl. Tillman’s death in Afghanistan in April 2004 was caused by friendly fire,” Waxman and Davis wrote.
The former White House officials would likely be allowed to choose whether to be deposed under oath or interviewed, committee officials said.
The five former White House officials the committee plans to question are Dan Bartlett, the recently resigned White House counselor and communications czar; Scott McClellan, a former White House press secretary; Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter; John Currin, a former fact-checker on the speechwriting team; and Taylor Gross, another former spokesman.
Congress is interested in what White House staff members knew because Tillman’s family and others believe officials at the highest levels of government hid facts to limit public-relations damage.
Tillman, a San Jose, Calif., native, turned down a lucrative contract with the Arizona Cardinals to join the Army following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
