Oct 10 2006
CREW Response To Charges Is Highly Questionable
RAW Story has a report on the CREW response to recent charges from many quarters, but which is highly questionable in a number of areas. And even RawStory admits some claims cannot dismissed. Point-by-point the claims that CREW needs to PROVE (not simply state) because there are indications to the contrary:
LIE:
The email messages between Rep. Foley and a former page have been in CREW’s possession as far back as April.
FACT:
CREW received the emails on July 21, 2006 and promptly sent them to the FBI, and no one else, that same day. CREW did not discuss the email messages or their content with anyone else. The only call CREW’s Executive Director Melanie Sloan made regarding the matter was to the Washington FBI agent to whom she sent the emails to confirm receipt of the messages.
All CREW needs to do is prove the Fax header on their version of the Emails is not from when they received the information. Page 1 of the Fax is missing and would show who sent and who received the fax that was clearly sent the morning of May 29, 2006. In addition, CREW needs to explain John Aravosis’ claims that he discussed the emails with CREW and withheld contacting the FBI because he was told CREW was going to do that. If they can address these inconsistencies in the public record with hard evidence – then great. That might include saying who they got the information from so that person will confirm the timeline of events.
LIE:
CREW provided the FBI with incomplete information and heavily redacted emails. CREW refused to disclose the page’s name and contact information to the FBI.
FACT:
The emails Ms. Sloan sent to the FBI were not edited or redacted in any way. The page’s full name and email address were in the emails, as was the name and email address of the Congressional staffer to whom the page was sending the emails.
If this is true then CREW provided the emails to ABC News, and ABC News will confirm that. Why? As my analysis of the two versions posted at CREW and ABC News noted, many of the redactions of the headers are identical through much of the emails. And I mean identical. So if CREW had unredacted headers, then they had to have done the redactions we see in both their version and the ABC News verions. However, if that is true then we have the conundrum of the printout page numberings in the headers and the fax details in the headers to resolve. As I pointed out in that analsysis, the CREW version on the web, with the May 29th fax date, has all the emails from the two source files in one continuous Fax. And, the CREW versions are secondary printouts of the two source files (likely in a scanned in version) since the have to pages independent page sequences in the headers (Page x of 3 and Page x of 1_). So CREW needs to explain who their redacted headers got to ABC News, but not the fax or printout page numbering headers clearly seen on the CREW versions they posted. Personnally, I get the feeling that is one technology ignorant crew at CREW.
LIE:
Fox News’ Sean Hannity said on October 5, 2006 that CREW had “been bragging about [the emails] on its website as early as July 21st.â€
FACT:
CREW first posted the emails to www.citizensforethics.org on September 29, 2006, one day after ABC News reported them.
How Clintonesque! What does posting the emails in Sept have to do with bragging about evidence they had in July? If CREW is as internet technology clueless as I think they are, this will be disproved before I can post this.
LIE:
The blog Stop Sex Predators is owned and operated by CREW.
FACT:
CREW does not own, operate, or have any connection or involvement with the Stop Sex Predators blog. CREW first heard of the blog in media reports after the Foley scandal broke.
This may be true, which means someone else dictated the email contents to the SSP blog so they could manufacture their fakes. I don’t mind removing suspects from the list who helped SSP manufacture evidence that was used by ABC News to report on evidence they had all the time in their possession.
LIE:
One of CREW’s funders, George Soros, was behind the Foley scandal and has been directing CREW’s involvement in the case.
FACT:
George Soros had no knowledge that CREW had the Foley emails, nor does he have any input over CREW’s day to day activities. CREW has not discussed the emails with any donors or Democratic operatives, strategists or staffers. All CREW did was send the messages to the FBI. After ABC broke the story, CREW posted the messages to its website.
CREW better be careful here. Harpers has already admitted that a DNC operative was the one floating these emails to the media from Nov through May (and probably into July). They better have their stories square with Harpers, because if they had the same source (and apparently they did) then CREW just stated a clear lie.
LIE:
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) called CREW a “partisan 527 organization†on the October 8, 2006 edition of Fox News Sunday.
FACT:
CREW is a nonpartisan and nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.
Yeah! Just like the ACLU is non-partisan. Too funny.
Americablogger John directly contradicts CREW\’s statement of fact, they did NOT dicuss the email messages with ANYONE ELSE, but the FBI
And I keep mentioning, there was no public record for anyone to know CREW was in pocession of a Congressman\’s emails until AFTER the ABC story broke.
I’m just pointing out your already established good point AJ ::grin::
So is Ken Silverstein at Harpers going to get a subpeona? Is ABCNEWS going to interview him for 20/20?
No.
The simple fact that the emails were being shopped around MONTHS before the story broke tells the whole story.
But the public won’t get that in a prime-time 2 minute headline.
Maybe this has already been covered, but here is some info I think may be important.
The date at the bottom of left each page and the 1 of at the top right of each page are internet explorer settings when you print from the internet.
What’s interesting is that whoever printed these pages changed the default setting in their browser. The IE default settings are:
Header: &w&bPage &p of &P
&w – Window Title
&b – Center following text
&p – Current page #
&P – Total # of pages
Footer: &u&b&d
&u – URL
&b – Center following text
&d – Date, short format
So whoever first printed these did not want the URL or the Window Title to show when they were printed and had to change the default setting to change the way they print.
From the CREW fax, we see that the emails were forwarded seperately and printed one by one on 9/13/2005 by whoever received them.
The emails that were printed on 10/17/2005 were grouped together by the subject and were therefore a complete exchange between the 2 parties minus one important message, the original email that was sent from that email account.
Where’s the original email sent to the Page that asked about what had happened?
Questions that we know were asked were if the Page had Foley’s personal email and questions about another Page named Will.
Why have we not seen that original email?
Why was that email exchanged printed a month later and who asked for them?
SBD
AJ:since the have to pages independent page sequences in the headers (Page x of 3 and Page x of 1_)
AJ, I think if you look again at the page x of 1_, you’ll see that each says Page 1 of 1
The format for each of those pages is the standard format for printing out an Outlook Express Message.
It appears that the page forwarded each Foley message seperately to Alexander’s office, and they were subsequently printed out 1 at a time.
The Page x of 3 is from another longer email that contains partial messages (a result of emailing/replying/replying) of several other emails, ending with the confirmation that he is about to forward Foley’s emails.
You document CSIers are amazing.
SBD-
I’m not sure I follow you on where IE and the URL comes into this.
This looks to me like it was printed from Outlook or Outlook Express.
I agree that the date appears at the bottom left while my defaults print the date at the bottom right, but other than that it is identical in format. No URL or window information would exist either on the email or the printout.
Maybee,
Your print out default settings and options are printer specific – so I would not say this is just a Outlook Express feature.
Will check your claims sometime soon though.
AJStrata
AJ-
Thanks.
You are right, not just an Outlook Express feature.
But yeah, take a look and see if that doesn’t appear to say Page 1 of 1. You are doing a great job with this story.
Protecting The Kids?…
So we have Nancy Pelosi sputtering idiotic comments like so:
“We want to know why the Republicans chose to protect Mark Foley’s political career rather than protect the children who were in our charge.”
But no word from her about her…
When has Nancy Pelosi ever said anything sane? The woman is always coming out with idiotic remarks and always has. I wonder about the people of San Francisco. Do they have a habit of electing idiots? Witness spending public money on sex change operations for city employees. I rest my case.
Is that CREW or SCREW? My brain keeps reading it as SCREW.
Hi MayBee,
Just an FYI, Outlook Express is bundled with Internet Explorer so it could be that the print settings are set in the browser and effects both programs.
If open page setup in IE and change the header and fotter settings to the following, you will get the exact print on those emails.
Header
&bPage &p of &P
Footer
&d
With these settings and printing to Adobe PDF, I get the exact printout of the Foley Emails.
SBD