Wednesday, January 30, 2002

Hastert's lies and A Blue Burka for Justice

This is my letter to the New York Times regarding Maureen Dowd's article today, A Blue Burka for Justice
I can attest to the fact that there were no Calico cats or nude statues anywhere near me while I researched this.

Yesterday, the speaker of the house remarked, when asked how the Cheney Task Force records differed from Hillary's, that they didn't get Hillary's documents. This is a lie. According to the NATIONAL LEGAL AND POLICY CENTER's (NLPC) web site, they did get Hillary's Task Force documents.

http://www.nlpc.org/media/2001/051701.htm

They claim that "U.S. District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that Hillary's task force violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) because it included private citizens in its closed door sessions."

OK. There's some precedent for Comptroller Walker and the GAO's office.

The NLPC's site goes on to say "Additionally, the Clinton effort had close to 1,000 participants while the Bush effort has merely twelve officials and twelve staff, all of whom are government employees. If no 'outsiders' take part in a government task force, FACA does not require open meetings. NLPC's litigation against Hillary's task force revealed that many of the participants were lobbyists and representatives of special interests which stood to gain financially from inside information..."

Well, we now know that the Bush effort was no all government employees. The NLPC did not answer my inquiries into this matter, nor has the Bush administration. Maybe you'll have better luck.

Scott Supak
http://supak.com

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