KINKO's is evidentally in the chain of custody of evidence of where the phony memos came from and who sent them to CBS and who created them. They sure are. The question for Freepers and The Blog is:
Can any civil action be taken to get at Kinko's records?
The Bush Administration is not going to touch this hot potato before the election and so I do not expect to see the FBI wandering around Kinko's looking at fax records and such. We are goint to have to out this thing ourselves.
Where are the lawyers now that we need them?
> Can any civil action be taken to get at Kinko's records?
No. No one has any "standing." Possible exceptions might be Bush, Killian family and CBS.
However, Bush is a public person. Very tough to libel.
Killian family might have case, but any document discovery would be months if not years away.
CBS sue? No way.
Finally, the issue of forging of gmvt documents being a fed felony. Not going to fly either. Sorry, but no chain of custody, no CRIMINAL INTENT, etc.
There is another avenue however. A promise to a source to keep document source secret is a contract between news media and source. Implied contract is; if you give me true and valid information, I will not reveal from where I obtained information. However, if information is false, and source knew or should have known information was false, or in this case, forged, there is no enforceable contract to protect source.
It's an extension of Black Letter Law. You cannot make a contract to do an illegal act. (You cannot make a contract to rob a bank, for example. That's why many "palimony" suits fail. The supposed underlying agreement would amount to a contract for prostitution.)
As an extension, you cannot make a contract to promote a forgery. There was a benefit to the source (they wanted Bush attacked) and they issued a forgery to do that. CBS has no responsibility to protect that source of the forgeries, In fact, as a news organization, it has a duty to tell the whole story and reveal the source, and their apparent motives.
Of course, good effing luck with that.....