<font color=blue>"Tick, tick, tick."
<font color=black><font size=4>PIERCE TELLS REPORTER CBS GAVE HIM 'LOTS MORE DOCUMENTS'
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KERRYSPOT
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Just exchanged emails with Garry Moon, columnist for the Athens, Ga. Banner-Herald. He shared a stunning bit of news with me, and said he wanted Kerry Spot readers to know, since he doesn’t know when his column is going to run in the Banner-Herald. <font color=red>Moon managed to contact James J. Pierce, the fourth expert that CBS has cited as one of its experts verifying its documents.<font color=black>
(I asked <font color=green>“who is James Pierce?”<font color=black> yesterday. In light of Moon’s news, maybe I was a little harsh on the guy.)
Moon writes:
I called Pierce at about 7:30 p.m. Thursday night. I told him I was with the Athens Banner-Herald newspaper, doing a piece about the Killian memos. He asked me how I got his home phone number, and I told him. I thought he might hang up, but he stayed on the line... maybe because I was upfront with him and not aggressive in asking him questions. He said he couldn't give me many details about his analysis of the documents that CBS gave him because he was still <font color=green>“in the middle of studying them“<font color=black>. More on that to come...
- The key point: Pierce seemed upset that CBS is using his ‘Professional Opinion’ memo of 9/14 to prop up their defense about the Killian memos being authentic. Pierce said <font color=green>“CBS is wrong, CBS is wrong”<font color=black> to portray it that way, saying it twice for emphasis. He said that his PO memo was only a preliminary judgment, <font color=green>“not a final conclusion”<font color=black> on all the documents.
- The (for me) stunner: Pierce said that the reason he hadn't rendered a final conclusion yet was that he was only <font color=green>“midway through his analysis”<font color=red> of all the documents - speaking as though there were many docs. CBS gave you other documents besides the four that 60 Minutes used in the story? <font color=green>“Lots more documents”<font color=red> were his exact words. <font color=black>
- Pierce is not happy that CBS plastered his home address all over the Internet (it's on the ’professional opinion’ memo in the letterhead). A CNN crew was <font color=green>“banging on his door at 5:00am”<font color=black> on Thursday morning trying to get a statement, and camped there until he called the local police to have them removed from his property. His phone’s been ringing off the hook, and he said a reporter [with a major publication] has been <font color=green>“hounding” <font color=black>him the last couple of days, with veiled threats of some kind of legal action against Pierce unless he gave an interview to the reporter. He said the last few days have been <font color=green>“hellish”<font color=black> for him.
- Pierce came off to me as a very nice fellow, but he sounded tired and even a little bewildered... he's in a bit over his head, I think. I think I could have coaxed more out of him but I overheard someone calling him to the front door, saying <font color=purple>“the sergeant”<font color=black> was at the door, so he had to get off the phone - perhaps he had summoned the police again to hold the CNN hounds at bay (I caught Aaron Brown's show on CNN last night and they ran a clip of Pierce leaving his house and getting into his car...looked like they were set up across the street from his house).
So it seems like CBS News is - again - misrepresenting what their own experts have told them about the Killian documents. Indeed, given that <font color=green>“lots of documents”<font color=black> are involved, who knows whether the documents that he referred to in his PO actually concerned the four that 60 Minutes used in the story
First thought: Good job, Garry.
Second thought: Just what the heck are these other documents that CBS gave him? Was CBS planning a second follow-up story, using more documents from their source?
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What else is CBS not telling us? |
