Talon News -- RNC Blasts Democrats, CBS On 'Memogate'

By Jeff Gannon
Talon News

September 23, 2004

WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie is raising questions about the relationship between the CBS network and the Democratic Party as well as their conduct. In a press conference Wednesday, Gillespie said that he believes a crime has been committed in the CBS 'Memogate' scandal.

Gillespie pointed out that the Texas Legal Code says it is a third degree felony if one 'makes, presents, or uses any record, document, or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent that it be taken as a genuine governmental record' or 'makes, presents, or uses a governmental record with knowledge of its falsity.'

Gillespie said that a chronology of events indicates that the Kerry campaign knew about the documents CBS used in their September 8 report.

Gillespie said that Bill Burkett claimed that he made multiple contacts with the Kerry campaign in August, sending an e-mail newsletter on August 21 saying he talked to Kerry campaign seniors on Friday, August 20. The Kerry campaign reportedly told him they wanted to 'counterattack,' and he says he 'gave them the information to do it with.'

'Bill Burkett says he contacted the Democratic National Committee and laid out a rationale for using what he termed 'down and dirty tactics against President Bush,'' Gillespie added. 'We know that the Kerry campaign devised a strategy to attack the President's National Guard service that began the same night the Republican National Convention ended, with Senator Kerry attacking the president's guard service on the night of September 2.'

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