AP lawyer was told: Microfilm...does exist

[Rose Siding]

via Atrios

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, June 25, 2004; 11:43 AM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5127-2004Jun25.html

From the argument: "A significant controversy has arisen in the ongoing campaign over the President's military service during the Vietnam War, and specifically whether he performed his required days of service during a period between May 1972 and May 1973. Allegations have been made that the military personnel file for George W. Bush released to the press earlier this year is not complete. The public has an intense and legitimate interest in knowing the validity of these claims, which may well be answered by reviewing the microfilm copy of the personnel file in the Texas archives."

Associated Press Assistant General Counsel Dave Tomlin told me yesterday that AP reporters began trying to get the documents back in February, but hit roadblock after roadblock.

Tomlin said the AP has been informed that the microfilm in question does indeed exist. Tomlin said that because paper records can vanish and be tampered with, the microfilm "would erase any questions."

Be nice to know exactly who told him.

[louis-t]

1. Uh-oh, here it comes..............

TERRA ALERT! TERRA ALERT! HIT THE DECK!

[MadHound]

2. LOL, and would laugh even harder

If it wasn't so true.

[Swede]

13. Hit the deck!!!

We should use that line every time the Bushies trot out phoney terror alerts.

[VolcanoJen]

3. GREAT find, party_line.

So, they likely hit a roadblock and were told the paper records had vanished. When the AP kept pushing, more roadblocks were put up, until this one that emerged today, which essentially ends the issue. Forever.

I wonder who gave the order to destroy the microfiche? I wonder who actually destroyed it?

Creepy, and rather Nixonian, isn't it?

[tridim]

4. So can we now assume that the Microfilm records

were destroyed within the last few weeks?

I must admit, I'm not following this story very closely, but it seems to be rapidly turning into another * scandal.

[Rose Siding]

6. It's also weird that the news was from the WH

Why wouldn't it have gone to the AP? They were the ones who had sued.

[PA Democrat]

5. CNN Article: The paper records were intentionally destroyed

Guardsman says he saw Bush's Guard records in trash
A former officer in the Texas National Guard said Thursday he once overheard a conversation in which there was a request to sanitize President Bush's Guard records during Bush's tenure as Texas governor.

Soon afterward, he said, he saw Bush's Guard performance review in a trash can. Bush served in the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War era.


"I glanced down at the top of those documents. In ink was the word 'Bush, George W., 1 Lt.' This was a performance report. I was right at the trash can. I filtered through the top five or six pages in that, and they were all copies and originals of old performance documents and pay records for 'Bush, George W., 1 Lt."

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/02/12/elec04.prez.bush.texas.records/

[zbdent]

7. Next headline? "Bush Denies Existence of Time Travel DeLorean"

Gotta go Back in Time

back to the past, 1996. Whoops, Did I do that?

[Redleg]

14. LOL! Now that's funny stuff.

Bush doesn't need time travel because he has friends in high places in the TANG to keep him out of trouble.

[librechik]

8. fantastic

This needs to be sent far and wide!

[SpiralHawk]

9. This story should pique the interest of legitimate journalists

I hope it gets debated, by the right and the left. Good to be reminded just how sketchy Bush's military record is, just as F9/11 is showing us how he disgraced himself and failed the USA by sitting befuddled an guilty in an elementary school classroom for more than 7 minutes after being informed that Americas "was under attack."

[kentuck]

10. Sounds like the Bush campaign is trying to head this off at the pass...

If they can persuade people that the microfilm does not exist, then no one will investigate. My hunch is that they have been discovered.

[leesa]

11. OMG! These people are so blatantly evil!

Will the RW worshiping AP pursue this??

[Manix]

12. I hope this can be exposed before Rove's thugs can get their hands on it.

[AgadorSparticus]

15. wouldn't surprise me if the FBI has a copy in their stash.

Nothing like a little damaging information to get what you want.

[omshanti]

16. Link to the original AP request for docs

On the Washington Post (PDF file)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/administration/whbriefing/BushGuardRecordsLawsuit.pdf

Wow!

[PurityOfEssence]

17. Has anyone else requested records of a similar time and place

and gotten them? This would be an interesting thing to know.

[Robeson]

18. Gore Vidal...

...needs to write a new book titled "Perpetual Coup-de-Tat".

[Spazito]

19. Is it a lie that they were destroyed or is it a lie that they weren't....

either way, it just screams LIARS yet again!

[liveoaktx]

20. Looks like 2 different items????-Colorado and Texas

AP looking for the microfilm in Texas as part of Texas State Archives. Microfilm that was destroyed was stored in Colorado and seems like it's pay records.

Personnel file versus payroll files

[Rose Siding]

21. Are you sure?

I'd get the details wrong but wasn't there some sort of reclassification from TANG once he got to a certain point- inactive or something? Is it *just* the payroll records that were in CO?