Questions mount on Guard memos' authenticity (Killian Signature Forgery?)

Washington Times ^ | 9/11/04 | Rowen Scarborough

[kattracks]

A handwriting expert says the two signatures on purported Texas National Guard memos aired by CBS News this week are not those of President Bush's squadron commander, as asserted by "60 Minutes."
    Until now, press scrutiny of the memos supposedly written by the late Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian focused on the finding that the documents were, in the opinion of experts, produced by computers not yet in use in the early 1970s.
    Eugene P. Hussey, a certified forensic document examiner in Washington state, said yesterday there is another flaw in the CBS memos. Mr. Hussey studied the known signatures of Col. Killian on Air Force documents, and two signatures on documents dated 1972 and 1973 that aired on "60 Minutes" Wednesday night.

"It is my limited opinion that Killian did not sign those documents," Mr. Hussey told The Washington Times. He said he uses the phrase "limited opinion" because he does not have the original documents. He, like other experts interviewed by the press, relied on copies of originals first obtained by CBS. The White House then distributed copies of the memos in what is said was the interest of full disclosure.

[snip]

The Times provided Mr. Hussey with copies of the CBS documents, which he dubbed Q-1-3, and records known to have been signed by Col. Killian, (K-1-3).
    "It is my opinion based on the examination of the Q-1 through Q-3 and K-1 through K-3, that Jerry B. Killian probably did not sign his name to Q-1 and his initial to Q-3," Mr. Hussey said in a signed letter to The Times. "As to the authenticity of the CBS documents, that is Q-1 through Q-3, [they] appear to be product of a computer, rather than a typewriter."

[JustAnotherSavage]

"Does this mean Kerry is gonna have ANOTHER long telephone conversation with Clinton??"

I heard about that and wondered who let it out about that call. Was it the Kerry camp or Clinton's bunch? And the no more Vietnam advice...Kerry didn't listen did he? We would all just go crazy if we knew half of what goes on. What little I know is sometimes more than I wish I knew.

[woofie]

I asked a friend what he thought and he asked what does Rather have to loose now? ...he is going down kicking and screaming (and lying)

[grey_whiskers]

You wrote:

"Madeline Albright was correct when she wondered out loud if President Bush would drag Osama bin Laden out of the White House basement 3 weeks before election day "

It'd look even better if they let Laura do it...or the daughters.

Best of all, Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter together,
each holding one dog leash ;-)

[Texasforever]

LOL. His flight status physical was an annual date, on his birthday. There was no need to be ordered to do it. He left Texas BEFORE his birthday to Alabama.

[scoastie]

supposedly, the contact from whence the originals came, is the same person who supplied the Abu Ghuraib pics..hmmm...do we see a connection here????

[radicalamericannationalist]

Yes, but the same principle that a dead man can;t defend reputation also mean he has no reputation to besmirch. Think of all the past political figures who have been "outed" by the gays. That's safe to do because the "historians" can't be sued.

I'm not saying that I agree that CBS should be able to get off scot free. I'm just saying I think it would be hard to make out a case.

But, the person who might be able to do it is the officer referenced as applying pressure. If he's still around, that might be a strong suit. And he could have so much fun with discovery...

[AMDG&BVMH]

"CBS never had the originals; only photocopies."

because there are no "originals", only photocopies of fakes

[radicalamericannationalist]

I'd pay for those pics.

[Kryptonite]

Problem with that is that they probably won't be considered military documents, or at least not documents where the forger pretends to be a military officer "acting under the authority" of the US of A. They've been purported to be from Killian's personal files, as if they were from his diary.

But I do think the Federal Election Commission has got to take a long look if either the DNC or CBS admits that the DNC provided the forgeries to CBS - or they can go on the Prowler report from today to find out which DNC staffer originally received the documents, when, where, how, why etc...

[woofie]

Fox tonight said you would not order someone to get a physical that way (by letter) ...they have a 6 month window ...also date of physical is based on Birthday of personel and does not match date on doc...(no drug testing during physicals back then)(which is the Dems inuendo) the point was to check for health while flying.

[Mo1]

It's an attempt to paint Bush as not trust worthy .. they are trying to attack his creditably

Remember the polls .. Majority of Americans Trust the President and they don't trust Kerry

Plus, I think it was addressed on Special Report tonight

[spokeshave]

"These DU'ers just pee on the couch."

I think the term is Sofa King Rather (no pun intended) than couch

[shield]

bmp

[over3Owithabrain]

Is there ANYTHING correct at all in and about these memos?

They're on paper. Wait - has anyone checked to see if the paper was standard at the time? Oh, that would require an actual original memo...

[TheCrusader]

"Rather can't back down because it is not crime to type a false document"

Then maybe it's a crime to disseminate a fraudulent document to the public by broadcasting it through an FCC licensed tv station. (I hope)

[MJY1288]

I doubt CBS had any photocopied original documents, I believe the ones they posted the other night were made up out of whole cloth. I have hundreds of Military documents belonging to my father who passed away in March of 2002.

The documents that I have that were photocopied are marked "Exact Copy of Original" I have most of the originals that date back to 1941, including a promotion certificate signed by none other than George W. Marshall on January 5th 1943.

[radicalamericannationalist]

Check this out, via Volokh Conspiracy. And please forgive me if this is not the proper way to link and cite to another blog.

[Eugene Volokh, September 10, 2004 at 4:28pm] Possible Trackbacks
Forgery of documents intended to be used in an election:If the Killian letters (the ones that purport to relate to aspects of President Bush's National Guard service) are indeed forged, the forger might be criminally prosecuted.

My sense is that most forgery statutes don't apply to frauds aimed at influencing votes, rather than to getting money or property or the like. I might be mistaken, but that's what my tentative looking around suggests. Nonetheless, I've found at least two statutes (one with the help of reader William Modahl, who also raised the broader question for me) that specifically do prohibit election-related frauds:

NH Rev Stat 666:6: "Any person who shall, without authority, sign the name of any other person to any letter or other document, or falsely represent that any other has written such letter or document, knowing such representation to be false, for the purpose of influencing votes, . . . shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

Ohio Rev. Code § 3517.21: "No person, during the course of any campaign for nomination or election to public office or office of a political party, shall knowingly and with intent to affect the outcome of such campaign . . . [f]alsely identify the source of a statement, [or] issue statements under the name of another person without authorization." [R.C. § 3517.992 makes this a misdemeanor.]

Of course, the forgery likely wasn't done in New Hampshire or Ohio. But my sense — again, tentative — is that because the forgery was likely an attempt to influence (among other things) elections conducted by New Hampshire and Ohio of Hampshire and Ohio presidential electors, those states would indeed have jurisdiction to try the forgers. If any jurisdiction experts can tell me I'm wrong, please do.

But what about the First Amendment? The Court has generally suggested that knowing falsehoods lack constitutional value, and thus can be punished. Knowing falsehoods about the government, however, seem to be categorically protected even though they're deliberate lies (see New York Times v. Sullivan); and at least one state court has struck down a general ban on knowingly false statements in election campaigns, theorizing that the First Amendment exception isn't for lies generally, but only for specific kinds of lies, such as libel, fraud, perjury, and the like. See State ex rel. Public Disclosure Comm'n v. 119 Vote No! Committee, 135 Wash. 2d 618 (1998).

On the other hand, courts have upheld the Ohio bans on knowingly false statements in election campaigns, see, e.g., State v. Davis, 27 Ohio App.3d 65 (1985); Briggs v. Ohio Elections Com'n, 61 F.3d 487, 494 (6th Cir. 1995). And this false statement seems to be a false statement about a particular person (whether or not it's actually libelous), which would make it pretty clearly unprotected both under the libel cases (e.g., New York Times v. Sullivan) and the false light cases (e.g., Time v. Hill). Under normal tort law rules, the statement might or might not be actionable; but I think that the First Amendment doesn't impose any constitutional barrier to punishing it.

Note that the knowledge requirement means (quite rightly) that if CBS was the unknowing victim of the fraud (if, of course, there was a fraud), it and its reporters wouldn't be criminally liable.

Volokh Conspiracy. http://volokh.com/

[Steel and Fire and Stone]

These are DEMOCRAT perps.. there will never be prosecution of a "political crime" if the perps are Democrats. Such legal standards only apply to GOP pols.

I don't see anything that will move CBS from it's current "Rather-biased" position. They went with the docs when they suspected they were fraudulent, considering, probably correctly, that most American's would see or hear reference to the original "60 minutes" story, and relegate all the commotion about authenticity to "mere politics". The Dems would score points with little down side, maybe shutdown the Swiftees (in their own twisted understanding of all things political), and that there was little down side. So, Rather never considered backtracking.

What can anyone do? Rather and CBS stand on their "credibility as impartial journalists" (i.e. if they say it over and over again, enough people will believe it to keep them in the journalism business, regardless of sloppy journalism).

• The "mainstream" media won't press it; it would invite the kind of scrutiny from CBS and others in the left-wing journalist fraternity that could only come back to bite them in the butt down the road.

• Bush won't sue; it distracts from his message, looks petty, and brings him down to the Kerry-Moore-Edwards level, rather than projecting a "Presidential" image. People who are already persuaded to vote for Bush won't change their minds over rehashed charges anyway. Attacking CBS or the story will only further circulate the story.

• No Federal DA will investigate or prosecute (much less the military's JAG); the down side (i.e. 100 media sources assailing the criminalization of the media for exercising their 1st Ammendment rights..etc.) is not worth any up side.

• CBS and Rather have no "conscience", as defined in the Western (Judeo-Christian) tradition. They feel they are doing "the right thing" by getting the story they "know must be true" out to the public, evidence and witnesses be damned. The end-justifies-their-means...

Sorry folks, this story is dead in a couple of days. The Demos have gotten their sound-bite mileage out of the charges, which can be repeated over and over again as "red meat" to get out the left-wing vote, CBS feels innoculated to criticism, i.e. they've "responded to and justified" their story (all truth aside, of course), and again, it's in the GOP's interest to just ignore the story.

The only surprise to me is that this story was released in early September, rather than late October. In my mind, this can only mean that the Democrat-owned-Media have something even better, something that will really "penetrate the teflon" due out in late October. They won't kill Bush's integrity with one story. But they'll have something new every week to reinforce the Kerry-Moore Democrat's claim that "Bush lied.. no integrity..etc.".

Really, the most devastating part of the Bush Administration to the Democrat's political future has been one thing, and one thing only:

I N T E G R I T Y

It was the fatal flaw in the Clinton Adminstration. Bush was SO much of a "Boy Scout", it made Clinton thrice-slimy by comparison. That's why they've assaulted Bush on his character since day one. That's why they hate him so. His character was demonstrable, and of course, he is effective.

If the Democrats can't tear down Bush's image for being a man of integrity, they have no chance against him, or the GOP as led by him, when their candidates face GOP candidated. Bush must be made out as "evil", or their candidates own character flaws will sink their party.

SFS

[Kryptonite]

Yep. The FCC and the FEC are the two agencies who have jurisdiction to act here.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

See my tag line.