Did he write it and was his opinion of Bush expressed in it one that he truly had?

His secretary backed up the content of the memos and recalled typing them but she couldn't verify whether the specific copy that Rather had was genuine. Unfortunately, Killian was the only person who could have verified the letter and the accuracy of the content and he was dead. The implication was that Killian never wrote it. In the case of the tax returns we're not dealing with a dead witness and the issue wouldn't be that the tax return never existed. The only rebuttal to the allegation of a fake return is the real one. In the case of Killian's letter, the right alleged it never existed and there was no need to show a real letter by Killian. In the case of a fake Romney return, the best evidence to prove it is a real return.