Horowitz, FrontPageMag misrepresented CREW statement on Foley emails to suggest "obstruction of justice"
SUMMARY: In a press release alleging possible "criminal obstruction of justice" in the Mark Foley scandal, David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com claimed that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said it has held "incriminating e-mails revealing Foley's sexual misconduct since at least July 2006." In fact, CREW has explicitly stated that it both received the emails and sent them to the FBI on the same day in July.
In an October 9 press release, right-wing activist David Horowitz's FrontPageMag.com alleged that the non-profit organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) "may have engaged in criminal obstruction of justice" in the scandal surrounding former Rep. Mark Foley. The release specifically claimed that CREW announced at an October 2 press conference "that it had been holding incriminating e-mails revealing Foley's sexual misconduct since at least July 2006" [emphasis added]. FrontPageMag further asserted that "FBI investigators have accused" CREW of holding the emails "since at least April 2006 -- months before CREW alerted the FBI of their existence." But the FrontPageMag release misrepresented CREW's announcement. CREW did not say that it has had the emails since "at least" July 2006: it has said consistently that it received the emails on July 21, 2006, and sent the evidence to the FBI that same day.
Moreover, while the release noted that "CREW has accused the FBI of lying" and described the group as pitted against "America's top federal law enforcement agency," it failed to make clear that the dispute concerns allegations made by unnamed officials -- not the agency itself.
Published on Horowitz's FrontPageMag weblog, the press release suggested that CREW may have received the Foley emails in April 2006, an allegation first reported in an October 6 Washington Post article. From the release:
A leftist group with strong ties to the Democratic Party and to radical billionaire George Soros may have engaged in criminal obstruction of justice in the Foley case. FBI investigators have accused the group CREW of concealing evidence of Rep. Mark Foley's sexual misconduct over a period of several months.
[...]
At a press conference on Monday, October 2, CREW announced that it had been holding incriminating e-mails revealing Foley's sexual misconduct since at least July 2006. CREW said it turned these e-mails over to the FBI in July, but the FBI failed to act.
The FBI counters that CREW provided only edited versions of the e-mails, and refused to surrender the unedited originals. Investigators say that CREW refuses to divulge where it got the e-mails, and may have been holding them since at least April 2006 -- months before CREW alerted the FBI of their existence.
In response, CREW has accused the FBI of lying, thus pitting George Soros' Shadow Party against America's top federal law enforcement agency, in a head-on confrontation.
FrontPageMag's principal allegation -- that CREW might have sat on the emails for as long as three months -- is buttressed by its own misrepresentation of CREW's statement, suggesting that CREW has been vague about when it received the emails. Contrary to FrontPageMag's assertion, CREW did not say it has had the emails since "at least" July -- it has made clear that it received the emails on exactly July 21 and passed them on to the FBI immediately, as it explained in an October 2 press release:
On July 21, 2006 CREW received a set of emails, allegedly from Rep. Foley to a former House page, which it sent to the FBI later that day. The emails, posted at www.citizensforethics.org, asked the page, who had recently left the Hill, his age, how school was going and what he wanted for his birthday. Rep. Foley also requested the boy's photograph.
Moreover, the FBI itself did not put forward the allegation that CREW has held the emails "since at least April 2006," as the release asserted, but rather a single unnamed "law enforcement official." From the October 6 Post article:
One law enforcement official -- speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation -- also told The Washington Post the FBI believed that CREW may have received the e-mails as early as April and that the group refused to tell the FBI how they were obtained.
The Post further noted that the allegations that CREW -- in FrontPageMag's words -- "provided only edited versions of the email" also came from "unidentified Justice and FBI officials" and that a Department of Justice spokesman "declined to comment on that issue." As Media Matters for America has noted, FBI officials have made contradictory assertions about what they did when they received the emails from CREW, undermining the credibility of their accusations against CREW.
Horowitz and his ilk lie for, support and defend the elite (and not so elite) Republicans in the House, the Senate and the White House who make up the biggest group of ass-covering, The Dog Ate My (insert name of incriminating documents here), finger-pointers ever!
EVER!
Eating two pounds of shreddings a day, it'd take all the dogs in D.C., Maryland and Virginia to keep up with this bunch.
It seems he was able to pull himself away from writing his weeks-in-the-making (and counting) Uber-bitch, point-by-point, factual smackdown of Media Matters long enough to be wrong on yet another story of interest. Good work, Dave.
We're anxiously waiting for that rebuttal. Any day now. Seriously, any day!
Horowitz and his goons at FrontPageMag whined about me calling him a "former communist."
Horowitz still *IS* a communist, of the Stalinist type.
Lies, "guilt by accusation," fascistic calls for silencing critics, the works. If Horowitz had his way, he'd make sure a NKVD and gulags were set up here in the US, for critics of his boy, Bush, and Bush's cronies in the House and Senate.
Bush and Cheney have their terror straw men that are out to get us. David Horowitz has his Shadow Party. I guess if you don't want to be called a paranoid, you have to make up enemies.
But its pretty cheeky to throw out an obstruction of justice charge against an organization headed by a former federal prosecutor. You get points for nerve, but then you lose points for being an irrelevant has been.
Irrelevant never was?
this was the original e-mail that came to light before any of the others. and though a lot of people felt this message was totally inappropriate, there was nothing proving "foley's sexual misconduct", as frontpage is trying to portray it. and in yet another of the endless contradictions in the right wing talking points, why would crew only offer "edited versions" of the message? if their goal was to make trouble for the republicans, why would they edit out the worst parts. one's head starts to spin with this logic. the people who really need to be answering for their actions are the fbi and those republicans on the page committee. if the fbi was on top of this case, why did it come down to a reporter to reveal this information three months after the fbi had it? and was the fbi aware of the sexually explicit messages, and if they weren't then what were they doing? and if they were aware, who was it reported to, and why was nothing done? there are a lot of questions to be answered here, but it's not crew and the democrats who should be the ones being asked.
The "Ministry of Propoganda" is coodinatedly pushing the story that somehow CREW is responsible for the Foley scandal. The "Ministry of Propoganda" includes: Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Horowitz, the Spectator, FOX News (among others)...
Even if C.R.E.W. held the emails for months before handing them over to the FBI, isn’t that infinitely better than holding emails for months, possibly years while dismissing them as “overly-friendly” as the republican leadership in the House did. If C.R.E.W. is charged with obstruction of justice then the republican leadership should be right there with them.