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February 23, 2005

Investigating Guckert/Gannon

Congressional Democrats are asking for Justice Department and GAO investigations of former White House press pool plant Jeff Gannon(aka James Guckert).

In a letter (PDF) to US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, Representative Louise Slaughter (D-New York) and Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan) have asked for an investigation into the possible connection between Jeff Gannon and the Valerie Plame leak investigation.

Slaughter and Conyers are asking the GAO (PDF) to investigate whether or not the White House violated the ban on prepacked news stories:

As you stated in your February 17, 2005 letter to agency and department heads, it is illegal for the Administration to use appropriated money to broadcast or publish propaganda without taking credit for it. According to recent press, the White House itself directly violated this ban when it gave prepacked print stories to Mr. Guckert, which he reprinted wholesale without disclosing that the Administration authored it, As mentioned in your letter, you have already ruled that agencies authoring newspaper articles and op-ed pieces to be published as a reporter's original work clearly violates this ban. This is precisely what transpired between the White House and Mr. Guckert.

I've neglected to blog on Gannon/Guckert up until now because it's been beaten to death in the blogosphere. But these requests for investigations put an uptick into the importance of this story.

The White House is apparently engaged in a pattern of paying columnists to shill for them. This practice is not only unethical, it's also illegal to use taxpayer dollars in this manner.

Imagine if the Clinton Administration had handpicked an individual who was trained by James Carville to sit in the White House Press Briefing room and lob softball questions at Dee Dee Myers or Mike McCurry. Rush, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, Savage, Scarborough and the rest of the rightwing hackosphere would be in a full fledged onslaught. There would be 24/7 cable news reporting Gannon's every move and Clinton's every excuse. Now imagine if he were a gay prostitute soliciting US Marines....holy crap.

Instead...the echo chamber is rife with Social Security privatization schemes and Bush's trip to Europe.

There's your restoration of honor and dignity to the White House.

Posted by Carla at February 23, 2005 12:35 PM