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Posted on 03/13/2010 9:21:51 AM PST by Bean Counter
(Vancouver, WA) Seven months after Rep. Brian Baird reported a telephoned death threat to the U.S. Capitol Police in Washington, D.C., more details have trickled out.
It turns out it was an unidentified man in Kansas who left a message on Baird’s Washington, D.C., office phone last August advising him to “keep a close eye out for those Ryder rental trucks” after Baird made an ill-advised televised comment during the summer’s heated debate about health care reform.
The Capitol Police turned the matter over to the FBI, which classified it as a “terrorist threat.” The FBI tracked down the caller in Kansas, determined he did not pose a threat, and closed the books on the case with a mild admonishment.
This all transpired on Aug. 14, 2009, three days after the call was reported.
**SCHNIPP**
What were the “ill-advised comments?”
Here’s what we know now:
On Aug. 11, 2009, at 9:24 p.m., a male caller left this message on Baird’s office voice mail: “Brian … You think we’re all Timothy McVeigh types, huh? I’d keep a close eye out for those Ryder rental trucks if I were you. You never know when one might show up. Bye.”
The call was a response to Baird’s remark that the political climate surrounding health care reform in August of 2009 reminded him of the climate in the spring of 1995, when Timothy McVeigh was plotting the Oklahoma City bombing.
Baird got a lot of grief over the McVeigh comment at home, too, especially from Republicans, who also took him to task for mentioning the death threat in a public appearance. Some opponents flatly accused him of fabricating the story.
He was simply telling the Congressman, that because of his voting record, and support for the Health Care bill, moving vans will be showing up. In other words, you will be voted out of office.
He called people racist if they didn’t agree with obama.
Washinton State *ping*
What this means is that Congressman Baird had an un-redacted, original FBI report in his hands, three days after this “telephone death threat” was made. He knew the FBI had already looked into this but he never let anyone else know that, it was apparently too good of a crisis to let go by.
Instead, Baird and his Staff used the lie of these supposed “death threats” as an excuse to cancel live townhall meetings in the 3rd CD, and substitute “telephone townhalls” instead. The hue and cry was immediate and loud, and they backed down, but the rumors persisted, and the local media printed inflammatory stories about these death threats on the morning of the very first live townhall. He also used these supposed “death threats” to repeatedly categorize anyone in the District who disagreed with him as “Brwonshirts” and using “Tim McVeigh tactics”, when in fact nothing even remotely close to that was being done anywhere here in the 3rd CD. Like everywhere, Lyndon LaRouch fanatics abounded here at that time, and they were the ones portraying Obama as Hitler, and nobody else. Most of them had out of State license plates as was well documented on the internet at the time, but local media ignored that too.
Nobody on Baird’s Staff nor Baird himself ever came clean about this and still haven’t. What took the columbian seven months to get a redacted copy of, Congressman Baird could have given them an original of three days after the first telephone call if only someone at the columbian were competent enough to ask that deep of an investigative question.
Sure gives new meaning to “never waste a good crisis”, huh??
!!
Does that mean that Clinton's behavior was Terroristic?
Old news. This was reported February 27 by a blogger here.
http://clarkcountypolitics.blogspot.com/2010/02/report-on-my-brian-bairdfbi-foia.html
Of course, if you read the Columbian, bloggers have little credibility.
Left unanswered by the Columbian, why did it take until November to disclose a case that was closed in August?
Say WA? Evergreen State ping
Quick link: WA State Board
FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this ping list.
Ping sionnsar if you see a Washington state related thread.
Who, other than idiots and liberals (but I repeat myself), reads snoozepapers anymore? There's no truth in them anymore, and the concept of "journalistic ethics" is so far below oxymoronic it's not funny. Every subscriber is an enabler.
I dropped my subscription over a decade ago and will not resubscribe. But, I will peek into the free online site to keep up on their doings.
In this particular ongoing story, it is very sloppy journalism to have just let it drop as they did back in August.
More than once I contacted Lou Brancaccio about it as “assured” they were following up on it and presing for details.
And now, we learn that it was closed before the first town hall was ever held and that Baird had to have known it when he made his off color remark at the August 19 Rotary Club luncheon.
Kathie Durbin wrote in defense of Baird August 21 and againt Clark County GOP Chair, Ryan Hart, for taking offense to the “botched joke” she wrote off as revealing a death threat.
Through round about sources, I heard of her admitting she never even heard the comment herself.
If only Richard Nixon had been subjected to such sloppy journalism he might have finished his term and retired an honored president.
Hm...could also be taken as a totally satirical comment.
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