Bush's Lawyer Contacted 9/11 Panel Before Clarke's Testimony

[KittyWampus]

Second Paragraph says "according to one observer" so it seems there was an "informant".

Couple this with the Rumsfeld briefing material left at Starbucks... I think insiders may be moving and shaking... loyalty to Bush be damned.


Bush Counsel Called 9/11 Panelist Before Clarke Testified



By Dana Milbank and Dan Eggen
Thursday, April 1, 2004; Page A13

President Bush's top lawyer placed a telephone call to at least one of the Republican members of the Sept.
11 commission when the panel was gathered in Washington on March 24 to hear the testimony of former
White House counterterrorism chief Richard A. Clarke, according to people with direct knowledge of the call.

White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales called commissioner Fred F. Fielding, one of five GOP members of
the body, and, according to one observer, also called Republican commission member James R. Thompson.
Rep. Henry A. Waxman, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, wrote to
Gonzales yesterday asking him to confirm and describe the conversations.

Waxman said "it would be unusual if such ex parte contacts occurred" during the hearing. Waxman did not
allege that there would be anything illegal in such phone calls. But he suggested that such contacts would
be improper because "the conduct of the White House is one of the key issues being investigated by the
commission."

White House spokesmen were unable to get a response from Gonzales.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40578-2004Mar31.html

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. Lawyers make great conduits.

They're the unseen hand, the shadow. The wart on the tip of your nose that becomes invisible.