Posted on 04/10/2002 11:02:31 AM PDT by Tumbleweed_Connection
Clinton administration Immigration and Naturalization Service chief Doris Meissner gave an order to destroy evidence related to the Elian Gonzalez case, a former INS attorney is now alleging.
In documents obtained by the public interest lawfirm Judicial Watch, INS attorney Rebecca Sanchez-Roig contends that the former top Clinton official directed her and other INS attorneys to delete an e-mail summarizing a December 1999 conference call where concerns were discussed about whether Elian's father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, was being coerced by Fidel Castro's government in his efforts to return the boy to Cuban soil.
The e-mail Meissner allegedly ordered destroyed noted that she and other participants in the conference call discussed "whether it's wise to establish whether the father was speaking freely when interviewed as opposed to being 'a mouthpiece of government authority.'"
The message also noted that Cuban government operatives had set up a speaker phone in Mr. Gonzalez's home in order to monitor and coach him during important telephone conversations.
The e-mail also suggests that INS officials wanted to "re-script" questions for a follow-up interview with Mr. Gonzalez so as to avoid pressing him on whether he was speaking freely or not.
"Furthermore, it was stated (during the Meissner conference call) that the Cuban government would be advised that the U.S. government would not diclose to anyone that an additional interview would take place," the e-mail said.
In a handwritten note she made on her printed copy of the e-mail, INS lawyer Sanchez-Roig says Meissner was very upset that the e-mail summary of the conference call had been copied and disseminated to participants - and that she wanted all electronic copies destroyed.
The full text of Sanchez-Roig's signed note reads as follows:
"On 30 Dec. 1999, I was ordered by Doris Meissner, Commissioner through COC: David Diken - Rachel McCarthy to destroy this cc-mail message and all copies. The Commissioner was very upset about having this information disseminated.
"I indicated to R. McCarthy, after speaking with Dan, that I had been ordered by my boss to write message and forward to her and Jack. Dan and I discussed (illegible) R. McCarthy voicing concerns about destroying cc mail message - sort of cover-up.
"Notwithstanding, I deleted message from my computer, and also from Dan's and Bill's. My concerns about destroying message were such that I felt it necessary to keep a copy of same.
"I believed I was being asked to do something improper and I voiced those concerns to Dan and Rachel. Dan also questioned why destruction of message, but the orders came from Meissner and we were obligated to delete.
"Dan and Rachel also kept copies of message. Tel. conf. held on 12/20 was not confidential in service. State was present during T.C.
"After this incident, we were ordered not to put anything regarding Elian Gonzalez in writing. Ordered by Meissner through David Dixon."
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton told NewsMax.com Wednesday that the Sanchez-Roig note warranted legal action by the Bush Justice Department.
Drawing a parallel between DOJ's blanket indictment of an accounting firm over a similar allegations of evidence destruction in Enrongate, Fitton said, "Will Doris Meissner now go the way of Arthur Andersen?
The Sanchez-Roig note emerged as part of a lawsuit filed by INS agent Rick Ramirez, who contends that the agency had an anti-Hispanic bias against the Gonzalez family and had obstructed justice.
The INS had turned over to Judicial Watch the Sanchez-Roig teleconference e-mail two years ago - but without her note citing Meissner's order to destroy it.
Time to demand a full Congressional investigation! Time to consider criminal prosecutions!
Meissner and Reno deserve to be behind bars.
What gauls me more than anything is how Willie and his sewer dwellers, past and present, must laugh at Nixon, who was foolish enough to leave a record that the media will pick the worst of whenever possible. That will never happen with Willie because he left no paper trail that has not been fully edited and now contains NOTHING that can ever be construed as negative. Fortunately, we will always have the public record to refute him and his lies.
That is not how I look at it. The evidence is just now coming to light that the "rescue" of Elian was in fact a kidnapping conducted on behalf of Castro.
You are demented...and ignorant.
Impress your communist friends and neighbors by running over protesters! Hey, its not just for the army anymore, every proletariat should join in!!!
Unless it is Castro demanding the return of a defector.
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