I happened to catch Burton's opening remarks on CSPAN yesterday, (CSPAN is like a box of chocolates). He gets badmouthed as someone who "can't walk and chew gum," but he was articulate and angry. From NRO
December 5, 2002, 1:00 p.m.
Hiding Out
Saudi spin doctors dodge U.S. Marshals.
In a congressional-committee hearing yesterday, three witness seats were conspicuously empty. The three men in question, Jack Deschauer (partner at Patton Boggs), Michael Petruzzello (managing partner of Qorvis Communications), and Jamie Gallagher (president of the Gallagher Group), are the Saudi spin doctors charged with convincing the American public that Saudi Arabia respects United States law and does everything it can to return kidnapped American children.
It's not that the men weren't invited. Despite repeated invitations to appear voluntarily, the Saudi mouthpieces told Congress that they would have to be subpoenaed before they'd testify. But when the U.S. Marshals came knocking, the men were nowhere to be found.
That it even came to U.S. Marshals having to serve papers is a surprise. Most witnesses face congressional subpoenas with dignity, accepting them by fax, even the likes of reputed L.A. mafia under boss Tommaso Gambino and convicted cocaine dealer Carlos Vignali have accepted congressional subpoenas by fax. But not the Saudi spin doctors. Deschauer, Petruzzello, and Gallagher gave congressional staff the stiff arm, and they went into hiding.
When the U.S. Marshals went to Deschauer's office, he was not there. When they went to his house, no one answered the door. Same for Petruzello. U.S. Marshals would have tried Gallagher, but his lawyer stalled congressional staff until too late in the day for agents to serve a subpoena. But when staff from the House Government Reform Committee went to Gallagher's office, no one was there. When they went to his house, it was deserted.
What made these men so scared that they would disappear? They obviously have something to hide. With distraught American parents and their kidnapped children as the true victims in this story, what the PR flacks are hiding could be very damaging, to them, the Saudi royal family, and the U.S. State Department, in the new, anti-Saudi climate.
For the past six months or so, Chairman Dan Burton (R., Ind.) has doggedly pursued the Saudi royal family and its closest ally, the State Department, to help ensure the safe return of kidnapped American children to their left-behind American parents. Both the Saudi government and State have repeatedly lied to Burton and his staff, and now that his term as chairman is almost over, they are trying to run out the clock. But it might not be so easy.
Burton is demanding answers for a number of shenanigans and obfuscations, particularly the incident in London over Labor Day weekend involving Patricia Roush's two daughters, who were kidnapped from their suburban Chicago home by their Saudi national father in 1986. For an interview with a producer from Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show, the Saudi government shuttled Roush's daughters, Alia and Aisha, to a London hotel-conveniently during the same weekend Burton was leading a congressional delegation to Saudi Arabia to negotiate their release. And State gave the seal of approval to the House of Saud's deception. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Dianne Andruch ordered a consular officer to take the girls' canned statement ? with an open microphone in the room and Saudi officials just outside the door. Because State has so far refused to answer the question, though, it is unknown who exactly made the decision: an Undersecretary of State, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, or Secretary of State Colin Powell himself.
The Saudi PR flacks have offered a number of legal theories about why they should not have to turn over their files, but the main one amounts to lobbyist privilege. Deschauer, Petruzzello, and Gallagher are arguing that their files are protected by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which protects archives and documents of embassies. Even though they are lobbyists and PR representatives ? not embassies ? they claim that since they work for the Saudi embassy, their documents are the embassy's documents. But the world's leading scholar on the Vienna Convention, Eileen Denza (who actually attended the Vienna Convention and wrote the only book on the subject), disagrees: "It is my opinion that the records which are the subject of the subpoenas are not archives or documents of the Saudi mission and so not protected on the basis of inviolability from disclosure."
With the law against them, the only way the Saudi spin doctors can keep a lock on their files is to remain in hiding. Burton has scheduled another hearing for next Wednesday, and the U.S. Marshals will be tracking down Deschauer, Petruzzello, and Gallagher for the entire week. If they somehow manage to elude agents for the next seven days, however, they still might not be home-free. When Burton's term as committee chairman expires early next month, there's a strong likelihood that either he or Rep. Chris Shays (who is also passionate on the issue) will be the chairman of the subcommittee with jurisdiction ? meaning the three men could be ducking the feds for a long time to come. That is unless, of course, they are willing to accept subpoenas as graciously as reputed mob bosses. |
