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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWill a GOP aide be fired over Benghazi email changes?
In 1998, a top aide resigned after a similar flap. And there were even calls for the Congressman to resign
By Alex Seitz-Wald
Now that we know a GOP congressional aide misleadingly edited intentionally or not Obama administration emails on the Benghazi attack, one wonders if he or she will face repercussions. Theres some precedent here. Former GOP Rep. Dan Burton used to hold Darrell Issas job as Chairman of the House Oversight Committee and used it to aggressively go after Bill Clinton on a host of controversies of various degrees of merit, much as Issa is doing now.
In 1998, as Burton was investigating alleged campaign finance violations from Clintons 1996 reelection campaign, his office released a doctored transcript of an audiotape of a former Clinton aide. Burtons top aide took the blame for the deception and resigned, as the New York Times reported on May 7, 1998:
The top investigator for the House inquiry into President Clintons 1996 campaign finance practices resigned under pressure today, amid growing bipartisan criticism of his role in releasing edited tapes of Webster L. Hubbells jailhouse conversations. The aide, David N. Bossie, has been for 18 months the point man and alter ego of the inquirys chairman, Representative Dan Burton, the Indiana Republican who heads the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee. But since Mr. Burton released transcripts of some of Mr. Hubbells prison conversations late last week, the lawmaker has weathered intense attacks by Democrats maintaining that exculpatory information was edited out of the transcripts.
The situation is a good analog for the Benghazi emails in that Republicans made some small alterations to otherwise accurate raw information which fundamentally changed the meaning to advance their political agenda...difference is that other Republicans joined Democrats in expressing outrage at the misleading editing 15 years ago. Burton even had to apologize to fellow Republicans after then-Speaker Newt Gingrich said Burton was running the investigation like a circus.
Today, at least so far, Republicans have been mum on the apparent tampering of White House emails for political gain by one of their own. Of course, its entirely possible that the GOP staffers who leaked the Benghazi emails made an honest mistake when transcribing emails they were shown in a closed-door briefing with intelligence officials, but no one has come forward with an explanation and a mea culpa.
- more -
http://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/will_a_gop_aide_be_fired_over_benghazi_email_changes/singleton/
Here is the NYT report: http://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/07/us/testing-president-congressional-aide-top-investigator-for-house-panel-leaves.html
One point of contention with the Salon article: We don't know if this was the doing of an "aide." Given the deliberate nature and the fact that the tampered e-mail were used in a Congressional hearing, this goes way beyond a aide distributing false information.
This was no "honest mistake."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022857236
And the media have gone virtually silent on this issue.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)Where are CNN, MSNBC, and the rest with BREAKING NEWS FLASHES regarding this GOP scandal?????
And will Meet The Press and Face The Nation address it on Sunday?
Hello, MSM. Why the silence?
malaise
(268,928 posts)He/she will be running for office very soon
ProSense
(116,464 posts)fuckers are still pushing their talking points.
Count Rep. Steve King (R-IA) among those who thinks the purported government "cover-up" of the attack in Benghazi, Libya is worse than the mother of all American political scandals that ultimately derailed the presidency of Richard Nixon.
"The Obama administration's cover-up of the September 11, 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack surpasses Watergate," King wrote in an op-ed published Friday in US News.
- more -
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/steve-king-benghazi-cover-up-surpasses-watergate
malaise
(268,928 posts)be a virgin -imfuggingpossible.
napkinz
(17,199 posts)I want to see some Tweety outrage tonight.
Will he deliver?
Come on Chris. "You can do it!"
Blue Owl
(50,349 posts)n/t
Bake
(21,977 posts)Otherwise you make me laugh.
Bake
Beacool
(30,247 posts)What they are doing is going to be counter productive and detrimental to their goals. For example, I'm not exactly an Obama fan, but the man won two general elections fair and square and I'll be damned if I'm going to just sit and let these bastards try to impeach him. Ditto for them trying to damage Hillary just in case she does run.
A pox on their heads!!!
meow2u3
(24,761 posts)...for tampering with evidence? I smell obstruction of justice charges coming.
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)Atman
(31,464 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)"legislator him-or-her-self?"
ProSense
(116,464 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)water should be concerned about retaining their confidentiality. I mean, if a reporter got pissed at them and yelled at them in a public place, well, who knows what people might think?
spanone
(135,822 posts)why isn't every democrat screaming about this?