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Should Dan Rather Go to Jail. If you did what Dan Rather did they would put you in jail.

Posted by: JG on Thursday, September 23, 2004 - 04:32 PM

Should Can Rather go to jail. It is against the law to broadcast fake documents on tv.
Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2004 10:10 p.m. EDT
Safire: It Was a Crime

Quoting U.S. Criminal Code, Chapter 63, Section 1343, New York Times columnist William Safire went straight to the heart of the CBS Rathergate scandal, writing, "At the root of what is today treated as an embarrassing blunder by duped CBS journalists may turn out to be a felony by its faithless sources."

Writing in Wednesday's New York Times, Safire noted that the statute holds that "Whoever, having devised any scheme or artifice to defraud transmits or causes to be transmitted by means of wire, radio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce, any writings for the purpose of executing such scheme or artifice, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both."

Safire contends that law applies to those who "conceived a scheme to create a series of false Texas Air National Guard documents and append a photocopied signature to one of them."

Says Safire, that the person (Dan Rather) "that helped cause the fraudulent file to be transmitted by means of television communication to millions of voters for the purpose of influencing a federal election" – which he adds is "no mere 'dirty trick' but a potential violation of federal law."

Safire writes that it must be revealed:

Who was the forger?

Did others conspire with him or her to present an apparent government document - with knowledge of its falsity and with intent to defraud, which is a felony in Texas?

Who was meant to to benefit from the forgery and how?
While admitting that the feds and the courts "have no business forcing journalists to reveal sources," Safire argued that there is no ethic that requires a journalist to protect a source who lied.

Accordingly, he wrote, Dan Rather went to the Texas ranch of his source and telecast Bill Burkett's admission to having falsely "thrown out the name" of someone who gave him the false evidence, adding that his real source was some hard-to-find mystery woman named Lucy Ramirez.

Safire speculates that in return for his fake documents the Bush-hating Burkett got "coveted access to someone high up in the Kerry campaign."

Burkett was able to reach Kerry's ally former Sen. Max Cleland, to "plead for access to higher-ups so as to launch a 'counterattack' on Bush, who was benefitting from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attacks on Kerry's war record. Cleland, he says, confirmed getting the call and said he told Burkett to try the Democratic National Committee. ..."

When Burkett's call to DNC headquarters was not returned, he then asked CBS producer Mary Mapes to help him get the top-level Kerry access he craved.

Prior to the "60 Minutes" telecast, Mapes or some other "60 Minutes" staff member got Burkett what he wanted - a call from Joe Lockhart, the newly hired former Clinton press aide.
With the number generously supplied by CBS, Safire recalls that Lockhart called Burkett. "We don't know what was said," Safire wrote, adding that "the call from on high was payoff in itself."

Safire wonders what CBS should do now. He suggests that:

The network should release Rather's interview with Burkett in its entirety, including the outtakes.

Mary Mapes, at the center of all this, should be allowed to speak to reporters.

Viacom should use its vast resources to track down the possible original sources, who likely have engaged in criminal conduct.
Appointing independent reviewers should not be a device to duck all others' questions, Safire argues, saying that this is U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's trick to stonewall his Oil-for-Food scandal.

"Conservatives," he adds, "should stop slavering over Dan Rather's scalp, and liberals should stop pretending that noble ends justify fake-evidence means. Both should focus on the lesson of the early '70s: From third-rate burglaries to fourth-rate forgeries, nobody gets away with trying to corrupt American elections."