Treasury to Probe O'Neill Documents (CNBC)

CNBC | 1/12/2004 | CNBC

[cyncooper]

It's so nice to have FUN with a made up "scandal" for a change. With Couric and Press, and who knows how many other 'rats, gnashing their teeth having just smelled something they could sink their teeth in only to have the cheese pulled away at the last minute.

LOL

[YaYa123]

Oh drats!!! I would loved to have seen Bill Press analyzing O'Neill's overnight transformation.

[Howlin]

Well, it is MSNBC; I'm sure it will be rerun 24/7.....

[Mo1]

Can't remember the stock, was it World Com??

No, it was Enron

[Mo1]

** And if Toon did such a big favor for O'Neill, O'Neill would certainly be in a position to owe Bubba big time, wouldn't he?,**


Very possible

Check out this post from OldFriend about Rubin's call .. It wasn't Worldcom but Enron

Makes a person go hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1056452/posts?page=437#437

[YaYa123]

Double drats! MSNBC announced they will replay longer excepts from the interview, and gave the time, but I forgot what it was.

In the meantime, the word has gone round the world, O'Neill peters out as ammo for the democrat attack machine. This is fun stuff....from Australia no less!! LMAO

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,8387489%5E1702,00.html

"Bush Iraq policy 'followed Clinton'
From correspondents in Washington
January 14, 2004
FORMER US treasury secretary Paul O'Neill today sought to calm the storm over his comments about President George W Bush's early policy on Iraq.

O'Neill had said that Bush had planned a war against Iraq in the early days of his administration, but he today added that the comments were mischaracterised and that Bush's stance was merely a continuation of President Bill Clinton's policy.

"People are trying to make a case that I said the president was planning war in Iraq early in the administration," O'Neill said on the Today show.

"Actually, there was a continuation of work that had been going on in the Clinton administration with the notion that there needed to be regime change in Iraq."

O'Neill expressed hope that today's release of the book, The Price of Loyalty, for which he served as the main source, would stem the "red meat frenzy that's occurred when people didn't have anything except snippets".

"I'm amazed that anyone would think that our government, on a continuing basis across political administrations, doesn't do contingency planning and look at circumstances," he said.

O'Neill said he was surprised Iraq "was given such a high priority, but I was not surprised that we were doing a continuation of planning that had been going on and looking at contingency options during the Clinton administration".

"I think one has to look very hard at the apparatus we have with the national intelligence assessments," O'Neill said. "And it's why we have presidents. "At the end of the day, there's one person who gets to decide is what he considers to be convincing proof of basis for going to war, and we elected George Bush, and he decided it was good enough," he said.

On Sunday, O'Neill had said: "From the very beginning, there was a conviction that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go.

"For me, the notion of pre-emption, that the US has the unilateral right to do whatever we decide to do, is a really huge leap," he added.

Bush fired O'Neill - a former chief executive of aluminum giant Alcoa known for his blunt talk - in December 2002 for publicly doubting the need for the president's sweeping tax cut plans."

[OldFriend]

It wasn't blunt talk, it was idiotic talk.

[YaYa123]

Just got in from shopping and got to see Bill Press. (He must live in the green room, waiting to get on the air.) As per usual, Press had to out and out lie to make his point. He was asked if he thinks the O'Neill accusations will hurt Bush, and he said, oh yes, especially coming after the critical War College paper.

What a crock! There is no critical War College paper! I groan aloud when Press slips in one of his lies, and at the end of an interview, so that it never gets corrected. GRRRRRRRR

[My Dog Likes Me]

Yes, turning over the CDs to some writer without reviewing them is willfully irresponsible. O'Neill is either incredibly stupid or lying. The only other option is that he intentionally forwarded them to the author without review so that he could deny prior knowledge if the book resulted in negative fallout.

This makes me miss Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.

[cyncooper]

Yes, turning over the CDs to some writer without reviewing them is willfully irresponsible. O'Neill is either incredibly stupid or lying.

I agree. My eyebrows went way UP when I heard this. I never did get to re-hear snippets of the interview during the day, as other matters took my attention, but maybe as the evening wears on.

The only other option is that he intentionally forwarded them to the author without review so that he could deny prior knowledge if the book resulted in negative fallout.

It struck me, and I admit I'm ticked with him so am biased, that he was laying a framework of denial with his elaboration of just meeting this reporter and instantly investing this trust in him so he didn't feel the need to review what Treasury had sent to him. And for good measure adding his thought that if any documents were in there he shouldn't have had, it will be their fault. Could be, we'll see if they confirm sending the info. I can't imagine he'd outright lie about that, but did he have anything else in addition to it? And then we go back to what kind of decision was it to turn whatever it was over without reviewing it!

This makes me miss Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.

Well, O'Neill is gone. I kind of defended him when he was there, but he certainly shocked me this week and his CYA today may or may not have done the trick.

[kristinn]

That was indeed a braying lynch mob on the first several dozen comments on that thread. Justice? No, revenge for being disloyal to President Bush. The rumors of O'Neill purloining the documents provided all the justification needed to give full vent to their bloodlust to have him ruined, jailed, destitute, drawn and quartered, ad nauseum.

[Howlin]

I think you're overreacting. I just read the first 20 posts and most of it is alerting other people to the thread; yes, there were a couple of jokes, i.e., remarks about jail, but for goodness sakes, "bloodlust?"

And in case you haven't noticed, O'Neill has a brand new outlook today. It's kind of insulting to see a grown man crawling along the floor in front of Katie Couric, trying to save his own reputation.

He didn't think this would be such a big book, such a big deal? He proofread every single word of it and he didn't think the press was going to go wild when he called Bush a "blind man?"

"Braying lynch mob" is a little much, even with your well known dislike for Bush and BushBots.

[kristinn]

The crowd was just getting warmed up in the first 20 comments. Read on further.

[Howlin]

I read the whole thread, kristinn, and I just don't see it. It looks like every other discussion thread of breaking news on FR to me.

I guess that's the problem you're having, huh?

Whatever. I'd hardly characterize it as a LYNCH MOB.

[kristinn]

Well, one man's lynch mob is another woman's tea party, I suppose.

BTW, thanks for the warning about LP in your tagline. It brings back fond memories of junior high school.

[gov_bean_ counter]

Start with #253 and move forward...

[My Dog Likes Me]

You're right!
When I heard him on the news softly "blame" the general counsel at Treasury for the contents of the CDs that were sent to him, I just cringed.

O'Neill made the request, and three weeks later 19,000 documents on three CDs arrive and are forwarded to the author. I think Treasury sent the material (with minimal or no review) to Paul as a professional courtesy. This courtesy will not be extended to any cabinet secretary ever again.

I guess I'm so worked up about this issue is because if a sergeant in the military did something even remotely similar, he would be in the brig now, and his house would be turned upside-down.

[TruthNtegrity]

They were on CD. Easy to carry out that many pages if they are on CD. Also possible that he didn't check the security classification on them. If those secret documents came from Cabinet meetings where National Security Advisor Rice was present, or Sec. Ridge, SecDef Rumsfeld, this is going to get even more interesting.

For now, it is the Inspector general of Treasury that is doing the investigation but more departments could get involved, depending on who classified those docs.

Stay tuned. This could get even more interesting.

I'm rooting for fine and possible prison time for O'Neill.

[sawyer]

I read that he asked and they were giving to him. Is the govt. unsure what it is doing? That is a joke as we know the govt. in unsure what it is doing.