BREAKING: BUSH ADMIN PRESSURED HOMELAND SEC PRIOR TO 04 ELECTION

[kpete]

ABC: Homeland Inspector General says he was pressured to 'tone down' criticism of Bush before election

RAW STORY
Published: Monday May 1, 2006

The former inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security says he was pressured to tone down criticism of security failures in the months before the 2004 Presidential election, ABC NEWS is reporting.

The following came as a release. The report is available only as a PDF presently.

FROM ABC NEWS:

Clark Kent Ervin says he was confronted personally by then Secretary Tom Ridge “to intimidate me, to stare me down, to force me to back off, to not look into these areas that would be controversial, not to issue critical reports.”

Ervin will appear this evening on ABC News’ Nightline in advance of the publication of his memoirs, “Open Target: Where America is Vulnerable to Attack.”

Ervin says Ridge and his top aides saw him as “a traitor and a turncoat” because of a series of reports his office delivered to Congress detailing failures by the Department of Homeland Security.

Ervin says he believes another 9/ll hijack attack could be carried out. “I am quite confident that it could be done again,” he tells ABC News.

He says Ridge and others in the Bush Administration urged him to tone down his report. “Rather than acknowledging the vulnerability, efforts were made to deride us and to dismiss our criticism,” Ervin says.

Ervin was not re-appointed as Inspector General in January, 2005 when his initial term expired.

A spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, Russ Knocke, said “the notion that he was stifled is fundamentally flawed.” There was no immediate comment from former Secretary Ridge.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/ABC_Homeland_Inspector_General_says_we_0501.html

[spanone]

1. Kick to the top!

[Sydnie]

2. kick nt

[redacted]

3. Raw Story server seems to be having trouble

Getting hammered by page requests? Only loads page background.

[emulatorloo]

4. Kick n/t

[redacted]

5. VIDEO: Preview of tonight's Nightline interview

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/BrianRoss/

[meisje]

6. Breaking "Politics is Dirty Business"

[redacted]

7. Thank you again Kpete

Maybe when you're not busy you can share a few tips on how you find stories like these as soon as they break?

[annabanana]

8. The Ship of State is rudderless.. . . . . eom

[me b zola]

9. kickin'

:kick:

[ComerPerro]

10. So this is out there now. Will anything ever come of it, though?

[underpants]

11. "We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security"

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=3876

Secretary Ridge: Well, I guess I wish I could give them all Top Secret clearances and let them review the information that some of us have the responsibility to review. We don't do politics in the Department of Homeland Security. Our job is to identify the threat, match that threat information with the, potentially, the targets that have been identified to integrate an entire country, to build partnerships with the state and local government, to invest in technologies so that as we combat international terrorism we can put more people and technology in place to make ourselves safer.

[Wheezy]

12. The former Homeland Insp. Gen. is named Clark Kent...

I'm guessing there was kryptonite involved in the intimidation process.