With the Washington Post reporting that one of the CBS documents was apparently faxed from a Kinko's in Abilene, TX., or about 21 miles from former TANG Lt. Col. Bill Burkett's residence in Baird, Tx., it is becoming clear that the trail might lead to his door. (
Link to my earlier diary about the WaPo story)
The right has already dismissed Burkett as a disgruntled, loony left crackpot, of course. But Calpundit examined Burkett in a lengthy post on Feb. 15.
Long story short, Calpundit found Burkett fairly believable, with some careful caveats. The Calpundit post contains numerous links to articles that would be very useful to say, a reporter doing a story about the apparent link between Burkett and the CBS documents.
From Calpundit Feb. 15, 2004
Do other people corroborate Burkett's story? Other evidence?
Generally yes:
Harvey Gough told me on Friday that Burkett told him in 1997 "that folks from downtown had been over to Mabry, they came over -- and the word I used is "cleansed" the files, the word he uses is, you know, they cleaned 'em up -- he said they threw some of them in the trash, the ones they didn't like. Says they were trying to cover up something for later...."
Dennis Adams confirmed to both the New York Times and the Houston Chronicle that Burkett told him about the files in 1997. In addition, he told the Chronicle, "I have no doubt he is telling the truth."
George Conn is a more complicated case. He confirms that Burkett expressed general concerns about Bush's files to him, and also confirms that he visited the base museum with Burkett, but told the Boston Globe last week that he doesn't remember ever seeing anyone discard files. I talked to Conn on Friday and he said the same thing: Burkett didn't specifically tell him about overheard phone conversations or the documents in trashcans.
But Conn's story doesn't hold up. In 2002 he told Dave Moniz of USA Today that Burkett had told him about overhearing the conversation in General James' office. Moniz confirmed this to me on Saturday morning.
What's more, Conn has a distinct memory of visiting the base museum with Burkett, but when I asked him the purpose of the visit he said, "it wasn't an anything visit." It's hardly plausible, however, that he would have such a specific memory of a "nothing" meeting seven years later. He'd only remember it if something noteworthy happened there.
So why is Conn declining to back up Burkett even though he thinks Burkett is "honest and forthright"? Harvey Gough told me that he spoke to Conn in Germany last week and that Conn was afraid of causing trouble: "He's running scared, because he doesn't want to lose his job over there."
In other words, despite Scott McClellan's assertion on Friday that the Boston Globe story demolished Burkett's credibility, it didn't. In fact, the evidence very strongly suggests that Burkett did indeed discuss his story with Conn in 1997 but that Conn simply doesn't want to be involved any longer.
Bottom line: all three of Burkett's sources have confirmed his story.
In addition, there's a bit of outside corroboration too: Moniz's story quotes an anonymous source as saying that he "was told by a participant that commanders and Bush advisers were particularly worried about mentions in the records of arrests of Bush before he joined the National Guard in 1968." In other words, Burkett is not the only person who has expressed concern about how Bush's files were handled.