Bush Military Files 'Cleansed" in 1997 by Karen Hughes and another Bush operative:
"Even if Bush had cleared the public viewing of his entire file, he ought not to have shipped it to James for printing and examination. According to Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, who was a strategic planning officer for the Texas National Guard during Bush's gubernatorial administration, James ordered a cleanup of the Bush Guard files in 1997. Burkett said he was waiting outside James' office when he heard a speakerphone conversation between the commander of the Texas Guard and Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff in Texas. Recounting the conversation, Burkett said he heard Allbaugh tell James to "clean up the governor's files and remove any embarrassments in case he wants to run for reelection or something higher."
"Karen [Hughes] and Danny [Bartlett] are going to be coming out to take a look at this file," Allbaugh said. "They're going to write a book."
In a telephone conversation with me late last year, James denied the conversation ever occurred. Burkett, nonetheless, said James repeated the orders the next morning around the coffee machine while Burkett, James and two other officers were having a conversation. I leaked Burkett's story to the national media shortly after filmmaker Michael Moore described the president as a "deserter" and set off a furor. White House reporters suddenly began asking questions and the Bush administration was compelled to respond. Allbaugh went on NBC News with correspondent Norah O'Donnell and called Burkett "some goober from West Texas."
But Burkett's story fits with what we know.
About 10 days after he overheard the conversation, Burkett said he was led to the museum on Camp Mabry by an old friend, Chief Warrant Officer George Conn. According to Burkett, he and Conn came upon Gen. John Scribner, who was standing next to a 10-gallon gun-metal-gray wastebasket. Scribner had the military personnel records jacket of George W. Bush open in front of him and was sorting through papers it contained.
"What are you doing?" Conn is said to have asked.
"Just going through this," Burkett recalled Scribner answering. "It looks like they are going to have to reconstruct this out of Denver."
In Burkett's recollection of this meeting, Conn took Scribner aside to talk and Burkett went through papers that had been placed in the trash. He said he saw critical documents, such as retirement and cumulative-points records, being discarded. He was unable to determine if the report on Bush's grounding was in the trash.
Scribner, who is now retired, refused to take questions from me. However, when the story broke nationally, he denied the incident.
"I have no memory of anything like that taking place," he said.
Burkett, though, had already taken up his claims about the Bush file cleansing in official channels, and there was earlier evidence to corroborate his claims. He had written a letter to Texas State Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos, and, in testimony before legislators, spoke of numerous irregularities in the Texas National Guard. But no one wanted to hear it. The hometown boy, George W. Bush, was running for president, and everyone was getting on the bus. |
