Posted on 10/06/2006 10:50:21 AM PDT by inpajamas
A liberal government watchdog group has asked the Secret Service to release its records of prominent conservative Christian leaders' visits to the White House, but one of those leaders called the request "an act of Christianophobia."
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request on Wednesday. The group said in the request that the records are "likely to contribute to the public's understanding of the influence that conservative Christian leaders have, or attempt to have, on the president in the exercise of his authority."
The Secret Service has 20 business days to respond to the request for records pertaining to James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values, Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America, Louis Sheldon and Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition, Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Don Wildmon of American Family Association, and Jerry Falwell of Liberty University.
"These are people that are publicly identifiable as leaders of what I would call the Christian right, and we are interested to know the extent of influence that they may have had on the president and his policies," Anne Weismann, chief counsel for CREW, told Cybercast News Service.
"It's one thing to know that people have influence and have support of the president, but I don't know that that answers the question about the degree to which they have access and influence to the president and his staff on a day-to-day basis," Weismann added.
But Wright, president of Concerned Women for America, told Cybercast News Service that she questioned CREW's motives in not seeking information about other religious groups who visit the White House, calling it "an act of Christianophobia."
Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said CREW is "targeting people who represent millions and millions of Christians, and this is clearly an attempt to harass and to intimidate."
"They don't want Christians to turn out and vote," she said. "What they really want us to do is turn in our voter ID cards and just say, 'Hey, we're not going to show up at the polls.'
"I think this will only anger the millions of people these people represent," said Lafferty.
She noted that it is not unusual for the nine people listed in the FOIA request to visit the White House.
"Clearly, the White House communicates with a number of us on a weekly basis on a variety of issues," Lafferty told Cybercast News Service.
Lafferty said she and other conservative Christian leaders represent "a constituency that put the president in the White House. The president has a lot of people that he listens to - he cares about every citizen - but our folks are the heart and soul of the Republican Party right now."
Lafferty added that CREW is a "front group" funded in part by billionaire liberal philanthropist George Soros.
"Obviously, everyone on the list is considered a threat," she said. "Anyone who is a threat, Soros and his people go after.
"Soros is a very wealthy, manipulative, evil person who is trying to direct the outcome of this election, and he is going after Christians," Lafferty said.
Keep me on your list please. I'm interested in anything
SCREW has their dirty fingers in.
Nope and I'm suprised the Dems are letting her do this
I don't think we have to worry about that - there are no real Christians in that party.
How old is Soros by the way?
Here's something singularly interesting. CREW's Business Manager is listed as Mayanna Prak, and the CREW website says she "assisted an ambassador in the operation of a foreign embassy", but they don't ID the embassy. Google turns it up - Cambodia.
Can't find much else on her.
It seems Soros hates George Bush more than he loves money at the moment. He's really working in overdrive for 06 and 08 for that free society! Bas@*#d!
Not sure what year it was, but he was 14 when apparently, his job was to help clear out the dwelling places of fellow Jews sent to death camps. (And do people wonder how he got his initial fortune?)
A rat on the floor of Hades.
Thanks for the ping.
The heat is on. This is just another in what has been and will continue to be a series of October Surprises. I think the Foley hatchet job was calculated to shore up the Dhimmicrats in the black community. The proper counterattack is to re-emphasize the hetero marriage amendments and proposals, and point to who supports and who opposes them.
So...I am guessing CREW is just doing the jobs that MOVEON.ORG won't do????
If you saw Soros on Cavuto's show yesterday....you would have no doubt that he is behind ALL of this stuff...and this Foley thing probably fell into CREW's lap...by groups that WANT to be on the Soros side.
Actually, I am not worried about this...Bush has never done anything that could be misconstrued as forcing religious anything down American's throats....(they will say gay marriage, stem cells, and abortion....but that isn't enough to warrant this kind of crapola)
I want to be on your ping list..please.
BUT, there needs to be some kind of order out of these threads...there are so many.
Ewww, I didn't know that about him either. Guess I just have this tendency to want to calculate how much longer we have to put up with certain people.
Interesting. I have never heard of CREW until yesterday, but they are now in the middle of two big and unrelated stories, both breaking in the same couple of days.
Looks like they are the "October surprise" machine this time around.
CREW is the new Moveon.org .. because nobody really knew who they were
OK,....I have no idea how to impose order in this place....lots of folks just working away....it's all good stuff.
The following individuals are from organizations that have the terms "Christian, Christ, Jesus" in their names.
CREW and similar groups have similarities with Islamic terrorists. Here they aim at conservative Christians.
It would be salutary if CREW would kindly provide a record of all ITS contacts. Remember, this is supposed to be a non-partisan organization for tax purposes.
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