Rush talking about burglary of Nicosia's FBI files on Kerry now

Rush Limbaugh Show

[doug from upland]

I don't think he was ultimately convicted.

[Happy2BMe]

"Going to break."

Let's hope Rush changes that to

GOING FOR BROKE!

Hope Rush, O'Reilley, Hannity and crew grab this little monster by the horns and kills it in broad daylight.

Kerry = Socialist Champion of the Democratic Party.

[mtbopfuyn]

Thanks for the details. The only one to benefit from any of these files going "missing" is Kerry, not Bush. Surely, Nicosia has a list of what was in the boxes if he needed to go back for a second set of copies. Just because he hadn't examined some boxes doesn't mean no one knows what was in them. He made a request for the papers so he must have a copy of the request and whoever sent the boxes should also have a list of the requested materials. Interesting he made note that Kerry's campaign had access to them as an excuse for fingerprints. I smell a big hairy RAT.

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[Mike Darancette]

I imagine that there will be many FOIA requests for those files. After all only copies were stolen.

[Mo1]

so you are saying that Nicosia is pro-Kerry, so the story he is trying to spin is that the Republicans stole the files from him?

He was on this morning with Fox & Friends and when asked who he thought had most to gain from stealing these files .. Nicosia said the Republicans because he was in the process of handing the files over to the Kerry camp.

Which is a bit odd considering it's reported in the papers that he planned to take them to a secure location

He keeps changing his story and this whole thing smells

[Sabertooth]

So what was the disposition of this case? Did he go to jail? Were charges dismissed? How can we find out?

Some info here:

In the wait-your-turn political culture of Lowell and nearby Lawrence, Kerry was a carpetbagger trying to cherrypick a seat in Congress.

< -snip- >

To win the primary, the newcomer overcame the election eve arrest of his brother, Cameron, and campaign field director Thomas J. Vallely, both then 22, in the basement of a Lowell building that housed the headquarters of Kerry and another Democratic contender, state Representative Anthony R. DiFruscia of Lawrence. It was almost 2 a.m. - 30 hours before the polls opened - when the two were arrested on charges of breaking and entering with intent to commit larceny.

That day's Sun blared a memorable, double-deck headline: "Kerry brother arrested in Lowell `Watergate."' DiFruscia, getting some extra ink in the campaign's waning hours, had drawn the parallel to the break-in at Democratic headquarters in Washington three months earlier.

The Kerry camp declared it a setup, saying that the two responded to an anonymous phone call, minutes earlier, threatening to cut the campaign's 36 phone lines on the day before its get-out-the-vote effort. Lowell Police arrested the pair in an area near the trunk line for all of the building's phones.

To this day Kerry becomes animated talking about the episode, convinced it was part of a conspiracy against his insurgency. He said he does not know who was involved. He dismissed as ridiculous the charge that DiFruscia was a target. "He didn't figure in the race," said Kerry.

But some of Kerry's claims in the Lowell break-in are wildly at odds with the facts.

"That headline was held open. That page was held open, according to [Sun] typesetters, at 1 o'clock in the morning," Kerry said. "That doesn't happen at a newspaper, you know that. And that headline was out there on the streets the next morning, first thing."

The Sun, however, was an afternoon paper, and its first deadline was hours after the arrests, in plenty of time to write the story for that day's editions. The Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence also reported the arrests that day, in a smaller story under the headline "Shades of Watergate?"

Kerry's brother today declines to elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the arrests and the charges, which were dropped a year later.

"It was an impulsive, rash thing that we did and that John Kerry ended up having to deal with," said Cam Kerry, now a partner at the Boston law firm of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo. "That's all we're going to say on that one."

Vallely, a former Marine who served in Vietnam and later became a state representative in Boston, had more to say.

"I kicked in the door," he said, and then, police swarmed the area. Vallely said DiFruscia's office was of no interest; the Kerry phone lines were. In hindsight, he said, "We probably were overreacting to someone who was joking."
First campaign ends in defeat
Brian C. Mooney | Boston Globe | 6/18/2003

DEMOCRATIC presidential front-runner John Kerry and Richard M. Nixon have something in common - Sen. Kerry's political history is scarred by its own version of Watergate.

During Kerry's 1972 bid for Congress, his younger brother, Cameron Kerry, was arrested for "breaking into . . . the headquarters of a Kerry opponent," the New York Times reported on Sept. 19 of that year. Kerry's headquarters were in the same building in Lowell, Mass.

Cameron Kerry and another campaign worker pleaded not guilty to charges of "breaking and entering with the intent to commit grand larceny."

John Kerry characterized the break-in as a preemptive strike and told the Times the two men "entered the building after receiving an anonymous telephone threat . . . that the telephone lines at his [own] headquarters were to be sabotaged."

Cameron, now a partner in a Boston-based law firm, has been a key supporter of all of his brother's campaigns.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, Kerry-the-younger's law firm "has been the biggest financial backer of the Massachusetts Democrat's two decades-long political career in elected office, with its employees contributing nearly $187,000 to various Kerry races, including his current presidential campaign."
KERRY CLAN'S OWN WATERGATE
Richard Johnson | New York Post (FR link) | February 4th, 2004

Heard of Watergate? Get ready for Lowellgate.

On Sept. 18, 1972, the evening before the primary election during his second attempt for Congress, Kerry's brother Cameron and one Thomas Vallely, both part of his current campaign team, were arrested by Lowell police at 1:40 a.m. and charged with breaking and entering with the intent to commit larceny. The two were apprehended in the basement of a building whose door had been forced open, police said. It housed the headquarters of candidate DiFruscia. The Watergate scandal was making headlines at this time, and it was called the Lowell Watergate.

"They wanted to sever my telephone lines," DiFruscia said recently. Had those lines been cut, Kerry's opponent would not have been able to telephone supporters on Election Day to get out the vote and coordinate poll watchers, vital roles in a close election. "I do not know if they wanted to break into my office," says DiFruscia today. At the time he said, "All my IBM cards and the list of my voter identification in the greater Lowell area are in my headquarters."

Cameron and Vallely, along with David Thorne, who was Kerry's campaign manager at the time and has been close to him since they attended Yale together, did not deny the two entered the building in which they were captured. They said at the time they were in the cellar of the building to check their own telephone lines because they had received an anonymous call warning they would be cut.

This reporter heard an allegation that another congressional candidate placed the alleged anonymous call, which was denied. But if the Kerry campaign was concerned about someone breaking and entering to cut off its telephone service, why didn't they just call the police? Why break the law? And what does any of this say about Kerry's mind-set? Kerry campaign officials did not answer important Lowellgate questions.

The case was transferred to superior court and continued without a finding, where it was dismissed about a year later. But since it happened at the last minute, and Kerry won the primary but went on to lose the general election, this ugly business did not receive intense media scrutiny. Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein were busy investigating another break-in.
John Kerry's Watergate
John Pike | Insight on the News (FR link) |September 16th, 2004

[Sabertooth]

If he obtained these through FOIA he should have an itemized listing in addition to the documents, supplied by the FBI (or whichever agency supplied the photocopies). Also, because of the FOIA process through which photocopies are released, the originals (or at least the releasable portions) are now declassified and obtaining new copies should be possible within 6-8 weeks.

Thanks. Are docs only issued as hardcopy, or can they also issued in a computer file?

Are electronic files made as the docs are first copied?

Based on your understanding, would it be possible to coordinate a theft of Nicosia's files with and inside job at the FBI?

[prairiebreeze]

and this whole thing smells

Yup, smell like rat....

Prairie

[Samwise]

Let us not forget that in Kerry's initial Congressional campaign in 1972, Kerry's brother was arrested for breaking and entering at Kerry's opponent's headquarters.

Impossible. I've never heard of this. Surely the media would've make a big deal out of it--ala Watergate.

Seriously now, are you kidding?

[Samwise]

Thanks for the info. One question, though. With all their money, why don't these people hire professionals?

[HenryLeeII]

I believe reproductions are issued only in hardcopy due to integrity issues, although I've been out of the racket for about four years now, so things may have changed.

If the FOIA document originals that are requested are paper, there is no electronic copy made as the review and copy process occurs, mostly because of time and budget issues, but also because of archival issues such as: You would be creating a potentially-different 'original' due to possible data corruption, the need for data migration every decade or so in order to keep up with changing equipment, and, quite frankly from the agency's POV, there is no need for an e-copy.

And, anything is possible, but breaking into FBI records would take a deep contact with specific access to them, who would be willing to put a career and jail time on the line for them. Possible but not probable.

[doug from upland]

Maybe they didn't have time and thought they could just pull it off.

[My2Cents]

From John Fund's article today in the WSJ --

"The story is unlikely to go away completely. Last week Gerald Nicosia, the historian who first uncovered evidence the FBI tailed Mr. Kerry back in 1971, reported to police that three of the 14 boxes of the FBI files he obtained under the Freedom of Information Act were stolen from his California home and that other individual files from the remaining 11 boxes were also swiped, including documents about Mr. Kerry that Mr. Nicosia hadn't yet reviewed. 'Those revelations are lost now, at least to me,' Mr. Nicosia told the Associated Press. Someone, either friend or foe of Mr. Kerry, apparently knew what he was looking for."

[BykrBayb]

Oh you're right. He's definitely not alone. The chorus of voices may bring an investigation. I just don't think Rush's voice carries much weight.

[fatima]

Sabertooth,Thanks for the ping.

[calcowgirl]

Thanks. Are docs only issued as hardcopy, or can they also issued in a computer file?

Are electronic files made as the docs are first copied?

Below is some info from fbi.gov. It is unclear to me whether ALL responses are deposited in the 'Reading Room', or just those they deem to be of possible interest to others.

The task of responding to these Freedom of Information-Privacy Acts (FOIPA) requests became a very large one indeed. Some single requests have resulted in the processing of thousands of pages of records. In very simple terms, when a request is received it is logged into a computer and assigned a number for tracking purposes; it is acknowledged; an indices search is conducted to determine if the FBI has responsive records; and the file(s) is located and reviewed to determine if it is fact "ident" or the correct file.

Once a file has been identified as being responsive to a request, it is photocopied, and the work copy is reviewed by an analyst to determine if any portions should be withheld from the requester under any various exemptions permitted by the FOIPA. The analyst uses a colored marker to delete any exempt material, writes in the margins the particular exemption cited, and has the work copy re-copied using a photocopier with a special filter. The portions that appeared in translucent color on the work copy are black on the release copy. The release copy is mailed to the requester upon receipt of payment of fees, if applicable.

This labor intensive process has been repeated thousands of times since 1975. In the past twenty plus years, the FBI has handled over 300,000 requests and over six million pages of FBI documents have been released to the public in paper format. Currently, an automated document processing system is under development that will replace the "marker pen" method and allow for documents to be released in electronic format.

For the FOIPA Section web page, we have selected several FBI cases which may be of interest to the public. These documents also appear in paper form in our traditional reading room in Washington, D.C. As time and resources permit, additional cases will be created in electronic format and placed on the web site for public viewing.

http://foia.fbi.gov/index.html

They have converted many files to PDF format and they are available on the FBI site for viewing. I've gone through some of these. A single subject may have many PDF files (usually about 100-150 pages max), and they may or may not be in any logical or chronological order. It is time consuming, for sure. Here are links to the digitally available docs and the Reading room docs:

Electronic Reading Room (by Category)

Reading Room Index Compiled as of 01/23/2004

While they had nothing on VVAW, they did have PDF files for some other anti-war and communist organizations, e.g. American Friends Services Commitee (AFSC), Clergy & Layman Concerned (CALC), etc. I looked through some of them (I probably scanned a few thousand pages). AFSC had some info on the Paris meetings (no sign of VVAW or Kerry). Based on reading CALC files, I would put Melvin Laird on the list of possible VVAW "Hit target" candidates. (Nothing specific, but he was mentioned often).

[dalebert]

Of course Kerry will gain from this. He wants everyone to think the pubbies did it. Now just why would any Republican want Kerry's file. I am sure the files did not include his Military records.