Bill Dyer at Beldar is pissed. A Texas lawyer on the
rampage! (Hat tip to LindyBill)
<font size=4>Dan Rather was complicit in defrauding the American public in an attempt to defeat a sitting President. Rather must be fired now. Congress should subpoena CBS News' lawyers and all documentation of their advice.
I try to be fair-minded. I try not to reach snap judgments. I try to "see the other side." I try not to overstate. But in this post, I will express opinions that are as blunt and as strongly felt as any I've ever stated in my life. Nothing in this post is sarcasm or snark. This is as serious as a heart attack — and it's no longer funny to me, but a national disgrace and a national tragedy.
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On Thursday, September 9th, I wrote a post entitled, "Burden now on CBS to authenticate its documents lest it become a co-conspirator in fraud."
In hindsight, I was clearly wrong.
I gave CBS News and Dan Rather the benefit of the doubt — the presumption that they did not know the Killian memos were forgeries when they ran their hit piece on "60 Minutes II" on the previous evening. I argued that because of the doubts immediately raised about the authenticity of the memos, CBS ran the risk of becoming a co-conspirator in the fraud perpetrated by whoever forged them.
But Dan Rather and CBS News were co-conspirators from the start. ABC News has revealed that two of the experts whom CBS News consulted before running the broadcast — Emily Will from North Carolina and Linda James of Plano, Texas — could not and would not authenticate the fraudulent Killian memos, and expressly told CBS that.
From Ms. Will:
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Emily Will, a veteran document examiner from North Carolina, told ABC News she saw problems right away with the one document CBS hired her to check the weekend before the broadcast.
"I found five significant differences in the questioned handwriting, and I found problems with the printing itself as to whether it could have been produced by a typewriter," she said.
Will says she sent the CBS producer an e-mail message about her concerns and strongly urged the network the night before the broadcast not to use the documents.
"I told them that all the questions I was asking them on Tuesday night, they were going to be asked by hundreds of other document examiners on Thursday if they ran that story," Will said.
But the documents became a key part of the 60 Minutes II broadcast questioning President Bush's National Guard service in 1972. CBS made no mention that any expert disputed the authenticity.
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From Ms. James:
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A second document examiner hired by CBS News, Linda James of Plano, Texas, also told ABC News she had concerns about the documents and could not authenticate them. She said she expressed her concerns to CBS before the 60 Minutes II broadcast.
"I did not authenticate anything and I don't want it to be misunderstood that I did," James said. "And that's why I have come forth to talk about it because I don't want anybody to think I did authenticate these documents."
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He who knowingly enables and facilitates the fraud is as guilty as he who originated it.
It doesn't matter whether CBS News had other experts who supported the documents' authenticity. If there were such experts, they were wrong. CBS News and Dan Rather proceeded deliberately in the face of explicit warnings from Ms. James and Ms. Will. They had either actual knowledge of the forgeries, or they proceeded with such reckless disregard that constructive knowledge must be imputed to them.
The only thing that could cause me to reconsider these opinions would be a revelation that tonight's ABC News article was as totally fraudulent as the original "60 Minutes II" broadcast. I defy anyone to make that suggestion with a straight face.
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Dan Rather and everyone else at CBS News who had direct managerial authority over, and supervisory involvement in, the production of last Wednesday night's "60 Minutes II" broadcast about the Killian memos must be fired. Not retired. Not pensioned off. Not allowed to resign. Not given 30 days' or even three days' notice.
They must be fired — instantly, effective immediately, "for cause" and "with prejudice," forfeiting all unvested future benefits from their employment. They should be escorted by security personnel from the building, with their belongings sent to them in due course after they've been screened for relevant evidence. All of their computers, files, and other items of potential evidentiary value must be segregated immediately and secured under lock and key with a tight and explicit chain of custody. There must be no spoliation of evidence permitted.
This must be done publicly — before the close of business on Wednesday, September 15, 2004, and preferably before noon.
If it's not, then the executives who failed to do the firings should be fired before the close of business on Thursday, September 16, 2004.
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CBS, through its affiliates' licenses to use broadcast frequencies that belong to the public, is a repository of the public trust. Its employees, acting within the course and scope of their actual and apparent authority, have deliberately and knowingly abused that trust for the most venal of motives — motives that are antithetical to the function of the press in a free and democratic society.
If Dan Rather is still an employee of CBS News by next Monday, then the appropriate committees of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate should convene public joint investigative hearings immediately, with Dan Rather as their second subpoenaed witness.
The first witness must be an appropriate custodian of records from CBS News, who must be directed to bring every shred of paper, every email, every piece of videotape, every computer file, every outtake, every script, every memorandum of staff meetings — and every bit of advice rendered by inside or outside legal counsel to CBS News prior to the broadcast. There is no attorney-client privilege to shield advice rendered to assist a client in the perpetration of a crime or a fraud. See, e.g., Swindler & Berlin v. United States, 524 U.S. 399 (1998); United States v. Zolin, 491 U.S. 554 (1989).
If CBS News fires everyone involved, then in my opinion, by bipartisan agreement of responsible Congressional leaders, the Congressional investigation should be postponed until after the November 2nd election, but concluded before the presidential inaugeration in January.
In either event, Mr. Rather should immediately consult competent counsel to consider whether to assert his privilege under the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution to refuse to give testimony that might incriminate him in the commission of a crime.<font size=3>
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