The Form 180s
By Captain Ed on Presidential Election
Power Line has the SF-180s signed by John Kerry releasing his military records posted at their site. Each one authorizes the release of Kerry's complete military record to only one entity each -- the AP (Glen Johnson), the LA Times (Steve Braun), and the Boston Globe (Michael Kranish). A Power Line reader got copies of the 180s through a Freedom of Information Act request, which got him the signed forms but not the records themselves.
It would appear from these forms that the three news outlets have access to the complete records, if they got them straight from the Navy, as the release form authorizes them to do, one time only. Interestingly, none of the three has released Kerry's records in PDF or any other format -- only written articles reviewing the data that they have found. It would appear that the Globe, Times, and AP have access to the answers for questions that have been left unanswered from Kerry's own dossier of published material, such as his original discharge and the circumstances, the exact dates of his command assignments (re the January 29th action for PCF-94 and whether Tedd Peck commanded the boat or Kerry), and other data related to various questions raised by the Swift Vets.
Their reluctance to supply those records in their unexpurgated form suggests that Kerry reached an agreement with the three organizations regarding how much information could be released and in what form. If so, the three should disclose this agreement, or if not, they should have scanned the material and made it available to the public. Playing cat and mouse with the material, especially more than a year after George Bush released his to all media sources requesting the data, indicates that Kerry still cannot risk total exposure. |
