Posted on 10/09/2008 8:36:04 AM PDT by razorback-bert
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks Sunday at a rally at Memorial Stadium at Asheville High School in Asheville, N.C. A Lufkin, Texas, woman was recently visited by Secret Service agents following a call from a Texarkana-based Obama volunteer. Associated Press A telephone request from the Obama Volunteers of Texarkana asking a Lufkin, Texas, woman to vote for Sen. Barack Obama has prompted an investigation of a perceived “death threat” against the presidential candidate.
But Jessica Hughes, who was questioned by the Secret Service about her alleged remarks, said the events were “like a high school rumor.” Hughes likened her interview by the Secret Service to being questioned by the “thought police.”
Hughes was interviewed Oct. 2 by two Secret Service agents at her home. The agents asked if she made the statement “I will never support Obama and he will wind up dead on a hospital floor.”
She said the ordeal started when she received a cell phone call from a volunteer with the Obama Volunteers of Texarkana asking her to support Obama for president.
Hughes said the cell phone call was received at 6:38 p.m. Oct. 1.
“She (the caller) didn’t identify herself and said she was an Obama volunteer of Texarkana and asked for my support,” said Hughes. “Honestly, I was very irritated the call was on my cell phone. I’m not an Obama supporter.”
Hughes said she was on her way home from the emergency room “with my son and I was unhappy when the call came in.”
“It was a 903 area code and I thought it might be my sister. I told the caller, ‘I don’t support him,” she said. “‘Your guy is a socialist who voted four times in the state Senate to let little babies die in hospital closets. I think you should find something better to do with your time.’”
She said she then hung up.
Nat Troy, with the Texarkana Obama office, declined comment Tuesday and referred questions to Josh Taylor, who is the Texas director for Obama Campaign Communications.
Taylor also declined comment and referred questions to the U.S. Secret Service. A message was left by the Gazette with the Secret Service in Houston. By late Tuesday no one had returned a phone call to confirm if agents questioned Hughes.
A telephone message was also left with Molly Beth Malcolm, who is a co-chairwoman for East Texas for Obama. By late Tuesday the phone call was not returned.
Hughes said two Secret Service agents arrived at her house asking if she said, “I will never support Obama and he will wind up dead on a hospital floor.”
“I never said anything about him dying. I honestly expected them to leave,” she said. “But I guess they didn’t like what I said about Obama. It was like a high school rumor.
“Then they said I was rude. I didn’t know the Secret Service didn’t allow me to be rude,” she said.
The male agent started using a pad to write notes while asking Hughes about her thoughts on Obama.
“That disturbed me. He asked me what I thought. I told him, ‘I told you what I said. What I think isn’t pertinent. I’m not going to stand on my porch in America with the Secret Service asking me what I think,’” said Hughes.
She asked the agents if they had listened to a tape recording of her conversation with the campaign worker.
“They said there was no tape and I really got upset. There is no tape and some girl got mad at what I said about Obama and then I have on my doorsteps Secret Service wanting me to answer questions about what I thought,” said Hughes. “The male agent said he was trying to do me a favor and that he hadn’t gone to family or neighbors to ask embarrassing questions.”
Hughes wants to file a cross complaint against the volunteer.
“The girl didn’t have the power to send the Secret Service. Someone made a big decision and felt comfortable to call the Secret Service based on a high school rumor,” said Hughes. “I want to go to court and face my accuser. Now it’s a faceless person sending the thought police to my doorsteps,” she said.
Hughes said she doesn’t believe the agents were fake officers.
“I don’t think they were posing. They had government license plates. I asked for badge numbers and finally the man gave me a business card,” Hughes said.
She said she is worried the incident will become part of a permanent file on her and intends to contact her congressmen and senators for help.
“I take pride in this country and what the founding fathers did. It’s a most brilliant plan,” Hughes said. “The government exists to defend and protect people while they pursue freedoms. When the government oversteps those bounds, we’re treading on thin ice.”
Secret Service?
Or ACORN?
HIDEOUS.
and the tip of the thought-police iceberg.
Gotta Love Jessica Hughes!
Palin/Hughes ‘08.
There’s still time.
This is absolutely incredible foreshadowing of what an obama adminstration will look like. You disagree, we call the cops and tell on you. Then the secret police show up at your door with nothing but a “report from a government official” that you said something you shouldn’t. Next thing you know, no one speaks up any more. Shortly after that, we are forced to paint murals on the side of buildings and profess our love for the dear leader.
*A new thread about your SS visit.
Sue the bejeesus out of the volunteer and the organization that reported this woman.
Take them down fiscally.
Sue the living daylights out of them!
No tape and this harassment????
Unbelievable.
But Madonna can incite a riot to kick Sarah Palin’s butt.
Sounds like this person should be awarded a trip to Freeper Island.
Re: “Hughes wants to file a cross complaint against the volunteer. “
There are indeed laws against filing false reports with agencies of public safety. It is almost certainly a Federal crime to file a false report with the U.S. Secret Service. A false accusation of a crime is also automatically libel, and the USSS would probably have to reveal the accuser’s identity (plus the text of the accusation as evidence of the libel) if presented with a subpoena. (Not legal advice, I am not a lawyer). This is something Obama’s people need to remember before they try to use the USSS to intimidate opponents.
Obama welcomed on his own Web site, my.barackobama.com, a wish that the Clintons would be “lynched” and “shot.” The writer admittedly did not say he/she would do either of these things, but merely wished it would happen, so it wasn’t an actual threat, but it came pretty close.
If Obama’s people are filing false accusations with the USSS to intimidate his detractors, though, maybe we should march this Web page from my.barackobama.com around the Internet again, just so voters can see what Obama’s supporters are really like.
If Obama wins (via ACORN's cheating), then Americans will be in some serious sh!t if they state the truth on virtually anything political.
We are dealing with an enemy more dangerous and evil than ever before, and they are here on our soil.
They are Obama's communist, terrorist, fascist, anarchist and criminal hordes, and they want to destroy our Republic.
May God save all Americans from the evil ones.
I don’t think these were real Secret Service; I think it was a voter-intimidation scheme. I can imagine some shady Obama supporters dressing as agents and going out to scare McCain supporters. The whole thing is bizarre and disturbing.
Thanks for the memories.
This country is becoming stupid and scary at the same time.
Do you think the guys who visited Jessica were imposters?
Omen to the future Obama administration? Her experience, apparently, isn’t unique.
INDEED.
And you may be understating it.
EXCELLENT ADVICE, imho.
Not that the GPTB are paying much attention to laws these days.
I have no idea if these people were real or not. They could even be real, but not acting under official orders. We will never know because the lady did not exercise her rights and properly ID them.
Works for me.
Folks just need to increasingly be prepared for . . .
the gestapo . . . in attitudes, methods, . . . .
I think it’s important to exercise our rights as long as we can cling to any semblance of them . . . while we realize that the Bill of Rights and the Constitution have been shredded wholesale and more and more for decades.
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