Treasury to Probe O'Neill Documents (CNBC)

CNBC | 1/12/2004 | CNBC

[Rutles4Ever]

Re: Documents on 60-minutes piece taken by O'Neill when he left office.

[Dog]

This is the section that will hang O'Neill..

all records created or received by an official or employee of the Department of the Treasury in the course of conducting Government business are the property of the Department of the Treasury. No person attains a proprietary interest in any record that he/she may create, provide input into, or acquire custody or possession of, by virtue of his/her position as an official or employee. The penalties for the willful and unlawful destruction, damage, removal from the files, or alienation of Federal records are contained in 18 U.S.C. 2071;

[Eva]

The documents are what he claimed they were. It would have been illegal to take the documents that he claimed to be in possession of. The Whitehouse will simply force O'Neil to admit that the documents were not a war plan, or a plan to take over Iraq for its oil. O'Neil is going to have to admit that he presented Cheney's oil survey as a war plan.
This is going to be embarassing for O'Neil and Suskind, they are lucky that the Bush administration is not litigious or they'd be facing a law suit.

[Diddle E. Squat]

If O'Neill sold his sole...

Then the administration will fillet him and his carping. His story is already floundering, it really smells fishy.

[gov_bean_ counter]

sorry soul.

[Howlin]

I found this:

http://www.jpef.net/dec03/Terror%20probe.pdf

[gov_bean_ counter]

funny...

[CyberAnt]

This ploy is nothing new. I've seen it in my church. As soon as a group of women would find out another woman was being mistreated by her husband (according to the wife), the ladies would gather and begin to instruct the wounded woman how to proceed with her attack.

There are lots of Clinton leftovers in the admin (which I don't like - and whom I believe are feeting Hillary with info), and these people have a feeding frenzy when they see a wounded repub and they immediately begin to instruct the wounded employee how to proceed with an attack. Unfortunately for the wounded person .. they don't know there's already an agenda in place.

I suspect this is exactly what has happened to O'Neill. Immediately these people started listening to his ideas which caused Paul to believe he was really right. I loved his response on 60 mins that he didn't think GW would be upset with the truth.

I believe this may be one of the more sensational backfires on the democrats. Geeee .. something tells me Hillary had some sort of participation in this ..?? Hmmm? I wonder why I would think that ..??

[mewzilla]

Thanks. Wonder why O'Neill felt the need to meet with these guys?

[CyberAnt]

I don't think so .. they may try to say that .. but I've already seen many, many people bashing O'Neill. He's being called a crybaby, sour grapes, etc., and this by media types. Rich Lowry was especially frank and almost brutal.

[CyberAnt]

He is the Editor of National Review Online. He also wrote a blockbuster book called, "Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years".

I'm currently reading that book .. Rich doesn't play favorites .. such as calling Bob Dole the worst candidate. Rich made his statements on FOX and Friends. Watch for him on Hannity or Greta.

[cyncooper]

I still maintain the Valerie Plame "outing" was not a leak from the administration...even Paul O'Neill. I think her job was common knowledge and when the question "why Joe Wilson sent to Niger?" was asked, the "His wife recommended him" was innocently given.

I DO think something rotten was up in A) his being selected and Tenet being kept in the dark, B) the waiting until a select point in time, after the war, to float the "President lied in his SOTU speech" to coincide with the Kelly "Sexed-up Dossier" story, and C) Wilson's financial interests over in Niger.

Now, I hope that is the tack the investigation into the Plame affair is taking, and I would not be surprised that, if O'Neill had anything to do with the story, it was in tarring the president as a liar regarding uranium and Iraq and maybe helping to push that angle.

[CyberAnt]

Very true. Suskind may be in as much trouble as O'Neill .. IF .. THAT'S IF .. the documents really were "classified or secret" in nature.

[mewzilla]

Can't remember who asked about the aluminum angle, but here's an interesting link. From the link:

In contrast, as a business executive, Paul O'Neill artfully engineered a worldwide rescue for the aluminum industry and persuaded President Clinton to make it happen. Prices were collapsing in 1993 because the former Soviet republics were flooding the world market with cheap aluminum--devastating US producers like Alcoa. The temporary agreement amounted to a government-negotiated cartel--every producing nation reduced its output to prop up world prices--and it worked. Yet the political deal was done so skillfully that few in the media even noticed. And nobody complained about the scheme's contradicting Clinton's free-trade rhetoric. O'Neill knows where the levers are located and how to pull them.

Good grief.

[PhiKapMom]

That part jumped right out at me too! 19,000 Treasury documents -- he is doomed.

[CyberAnt]

Hmmmm? I don't know that info.

[gov_bean_ counter]

I asked the question. Marc Rich was the "Russian" side of this equation.

[mewzilla]

Check out my reply #253 vis-a-vis Alcoa.

[EllaMinnow]

Here's a little tidbit on O'Neill from The Corner at National Review online:

SCROOGE! [Jonah Goldberg]

If O'Neill had been less of a media darling and more of a movement conservative don't you think this interesting factoid from a reader would have gotten a lot more coverage (assuming it's true):

I worked for a division of Alcoa during O’Neill’s run as CEO. It was his policy to charge people to attend the company Christmas party. If memory serves, it was $40 for an individual or $60 per couple.
Keep up the good work.

[name withheld]

[Dog]

Telling the world he has 19,000 documents from his time as Treasure Sec....was not the brightest thing to have done.

[mewzilla]

Well, right now I'm wondering just how tight O'Neill and Bubba are...