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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (1591)	5/22/2003 7:50:45 AM
From: Poet	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 20773

May 22, 2003 Texas Deleted Documents About Search for Democrats By KATE ZERNIKE HOUSTON, May 21 — The fight over the flight of Democratic legislators intensified yesterday as the Texas Department of Public Safety admitted it had destroyed documents that were collected last week as state troopers searched for the missing lawmakers. What started out as a local partisan dispute about redistricting escalated into accusations of a cover-up and abuse of federal power. Indeed, federal authorities are investigating how the Department of Homeland Security became involved in the search for the lawmakers. Today's uproar began after The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that a commander at the Department of Public Safety issued an e-mail notice instructing that all "notes, correspondence, photos, etc." concerning the search "be destroyed immediately." "It just doesn't smell right," said State Representative Garnet F. Coleman of Houston, a leader of the move by 51 Democrats to go to Oklahoma to deny House Republicans a quorum for a vote on redistricting. "Clearly, there's some people trying to remove information, or delete information, that is damaging to their reputation," Mr. Coleman said. "We question the motive on the destruction. And what we really want to know is, who told the Department of Public Safety to do it?" Democrats in Texas and in the state's delegation in Washington have asked for an investigation into why the federal Department of Homeland Security was called in on the case. The security department has begun its own inquiry and said it got involved only because it had been told that a plane carrying the lawmakers was missing or had crashed. The Democrats in Washington demanded their investigation on May 14. That was the same morning a commander at the Department of Public Safety sent the e-mail notice. A copy of the notice shows that it was forwarded to the lieutenant identified by the office of the Texas House speaker as the public safety officer who had called the Homeland Security Department about the plane. The aircraft belonged to Representative James E. Laney, a Democrat who had been the House speaker until Republicans gained control after last year's elections. Democrats today seized on that addressing, saying it suggested that the police lieutenant, Will Crais, was being instructed to erase his communications because they were the subject of an investigation. The Department of Public Safety said in a statement today that it was under a federal obligation to erase the documents. "We can maintain intelligence information only if there is a reasonable suspicion that the individual is involved in criminal activity and the information is relevant to that criminal activity," it said. "This was not a criminal matter, so we could not legally maintain that information." The Department of Homeland Security did not order its investigation until Friday, two days after the e-mail directive was sent. The Texas redistricting plan could have shifted several Democratic Congressional seats to Republican control. Republicans in Washington were eager for its passage, so much so that Democrats in Texas said the plan had been drawn up by Representative Tom DeLay, who is the majority leader of the House and a former Texas legislator. Only 4 of the Texas House's 62 Democrats showed up on May 12 for the redistricting vote. Representative Tom Craddick, the Republican who is speaker, asked the Department of Public Safety to search for the missing legislators and set up a command center in a conference room near his Capitol office. Fifty-one of the Democrats were at the motel in Ardmore, Okla. They blocked the vote with puckish delight, watching "The Fugitive" and "Catch Me If You Can" on the bus trip to Ardmore. They stayed away until Thursday, when the redistricting bill died on procedural grounds. Upon their return, the lawmakers accused Texas state troopers of harassing their spouses, even of tracking one down at a neonatal clinic where her twins were born prematurely. They insisted that Mr. Craddick had directed the search efforts from his command center. Mr. Craddick denied putting inappropriate pressure on public safety officials. He may have passed along tips, he said, and walked through the command center, but only because it was between his office and an apartment he keeps in the Capitol. Late today, he issued a statement that ended by saying, "I'm afraid that those who are pursuing a conspiracy are drilling a dry well."