Posted on 09/18/2004 2:18:51 PM PDT by quantim
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A retired Texas National Guard official mentioned as a possible source for disputed documents about President Bush's service in the Guard said he passed along information to a former senator working with John Kerry's campaign.
In an Aug. 21 e-mail to a list of Texas Democrats, Bill Burkett said after getting through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids" in the Democrat's campaign, he talked with former Georgia senator Max Cleland about information that would counter criticism of Kerry's Vietnam War service. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail Saturday.
"I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. (Cleland) said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with," Burkett wrote.
Burkett, who lives just outside of Abilene, wrote that no one at the Kerry campaign called him back.
The e-mail was distributed to a Yahoo list of Texas Democrats. The site, which had about 570 members Saturday, is not affiliated with the state party.
Kerry campaign officials did not immediately comment to The Associated Press on Saturday about whether Cleland or the campaign received any communications from Burkett.
Republican National Committee spokesman Jim Dyke suggested collaboration between Burkett and the Kerry campaign. "The trail of connections is becoming increasingly clear," he said.
Burkett, who identifies himself as a Democrat, did not return several phone messages left by The Associated Press over the past week. There was no answer at his telephone number Saturday.
Burkett's lawyer, David Van Os, a Democratic candidate for the Texas Supreme Court, issued a statement this week saying Burkett "no longer trusts any possible outcome of speaking to the press on any issue regarding George W. Bush."
Burkett, who retired from the National Guard in 1999, has been cited in media reports as a source for a CBS News "60 Minutes" story about documents allegedly written by one of Bush's former commanders that indicated the future president ignored an order to take a physical.
The authenticity of the documents has been called into question by some experts and relatives of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who supposedly wrote them when he supervised Bush in 1972 and 1973. One of the memos indicated that Killian had been pressured to sugarcoat Bush's performance.
CBS has stood by its reporting, but said the network would redouble its efforts to determine the authenticity of the documents.
Leading operatives for the Texas Democratic Party did not receive Burkett's August e-mail, said Kelly Fero, one of the state party's strategists.
"The Democrats who run the party and are sort of the main strategists in Texas never saw it," Fero said. "We have lots of groups of Democrats who communicate among themselves constantly by e-mail."
Burkett, 55, told the AP in a lengthy telephone interview in February that he now is a supporter of Democrats, although at the time he said he didn't necessarily back Kerry.
He said he overheard a conversation in 1997 between then-Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, and then-Adjutant Gen. Daniel James of the Texas Air National Guard in which the two men spoke of getting rid of any military records that would "embarrass the governor."
Burkett said he saw documents from Bush's file discarded in a trash can a few days later at Camp Mabry in Austin. Burkett described them as performance and pay documents. Allbaugh and James denied the allegations.
Burkett retired from the National Guard after more than 28 years of service because of medical reasons. He was involved in a lawsuit against the Guard over his medical benefits, which he lost on appeal.
BTTT
Guess where the Texas local DEemocrats meet? Follow this link and see . hint "Kinko's"
http://www.1tex.net/demo/bcdw.htm
Note to Dan-
Hey Dan,
The story is beyond "broke". So is the news division of your network.
It is not the same article. Same author, but a different version.
BTTT
Same old formula. Democratic operatives produce fraudulent documents, forward them to media wing of democratic party (CBS,ABC, NBC) Candidate pontificates on them but denies their source. Didn't some guy in an attic in Maine expose Bush's DUI record from 40 years ago on the eve of the last election? The present-day democratic party is bereft of any morals. It must be destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up. Other than Zell and perhaps Evan Bayh, this party is a bunch of moral flotsam and jetsam!
It came from Kerry campaign ! MSM won't report that though..just watch
"The dems are going down. DU must be going nuts."
Well, there's no way to sugar coat the whole mess now! (Also, it's time to find ALL the links to the words "sugar coat" and "fortunate son" and let that be part of the conspiracy linkage.) Throw their words back in their faces.
Notice to those pathetic bloggers who were trying to say the 3 year old girl was staged- Post number 4 is how you do the photographic evidence thing. Enjoy.
I love this line. It's about as good a OJ vowing to hunt down the "killers".
Bayh isn't much better, believe me. He's one of my two senators. (The other is Richard Lugar, who gets an ACU rating in the upper 80s or 90s, but nonetheless opposes the 2nd Amendment.)
So they still aren't going to spent even 5 minutes examining the documents.
Terry M used the word Sugar Coat just yesterday.
They are idiots.
BURKETT is just the fall guy- they can claim he is crazy then the whole thing will be dropped or he'll be the one sent to federal prison and everyone else will go free!
LOL, good point! Twice nothing is still nothing.
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