Why DRather is protecting his source....

[fubar]

Forging documents to commit fraud is a felony in Texas. National Guard units fall under the duel command of the Governor AND the US Army. Wonder what the Army has to say about these forged documents ?

If Kerry's campaign is behind this it also violates McCain/Feingold, more federal trouble.

isn't it illegal to protect a criminal forger , particularly when attacking the president ?

Wouldn't knowingly broadcasting the fraud on network television be considered an interstate crime, and thus a federally prosecutable offense ?

But CBS is trying to explain that the ends justify the means, the "heart of the story" is true.

The more I think about this the less amusing it becomes and the angrier I get.

 

[MJDuncan1982]

Not too sure whether or not it is illegal to protect a criminal forger but I would hope that it being against the President made no difference whatsoever...equality under the law, he is not King.

 

[insein]

Not too sure whether or not it is illegal to protect a criminal forger but I would hope that it being against the President made no difference whatsoever...equality under the law, he is not King.

Its slander. The president is a US citizen and has rights too. He's just alittle more of a grown up about these things. Otherwise he could be rich 3000 times over for all the libelous stuff people have said in the public eye to defame his character.

As for this stuff, conspiracy to commit a felony is a felony. Rather is either a willing or un-witting accomplice in a felony. Therefore he can have charges pressed against him. The source though if found is in serious trouble. They need to stop F'in around and find the person that did this.

Imagine the round the clock coverage if a false document were made defaming president Clinton? The media would not let up till the culprit was found. Abu Gharib coverage would seem like one of those scrolling blurbs along the bottom compared to the media field day that would be had.

They need to get to the bottom of this. If people go unpunished for making up federal documents and getting them played on the air, what will be next?

 

[MJDuncan1982]

Conspiracy to commit a felony is not a felony by the way. There must be substantial steps taken to actualize the conspiracy. Not saying those steps havent been taken but conspiracy to commit a felony is not a felony.

 

[insein]

Conspiracy to commit a felony is not a felony by the way. There must be substantial steps taken to actualize the conspiracy. Not saying those steps havent been taken but conspiracy to commit a felony is not a felony.

According to California it is. (First thing on google that came up)

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cacodes/pen/182-185.html

California Codes
California Penal Code
PENAL CODE SECTION 182-185


182. (a) If two or more persons conspire:
(1) To commit any crime.
(2) Falsely and maliciously to indict another for any crime, or to
procure another to be charged or arrested for any crime.
(3) Falsely to move or maintain any suit, action, or proceeding.
(4) To cheat and defraud any person of any property, by any means
which are in themselves criminal, or to obtain money or property by
false pretenses or by false promises with fraudulent intent not to
perform those promises.
(5) To commit any act injurious to the public health, to public
morals, or to pervert or obstruct justice, or the due administration
of the laws.
(6) To commit any crime against the person of the President or
Vice President of the United States, the Governor of any state or
territory, any United States justice or judge, or the secretary of
any of the executive departments of the United States.
They are punishable as follows:
When they conspire to commit any crime against the person of any
official specified in paragraph (6), they are guilty of a felony and
are punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for five, seven,
or nine years.
When they conspire to commit any other felony, they shall be
punishable in the same manner and to the same extent as is provided
for the punishment of that felony. If the felony is one for which
different punishments are prescribed for different degrees, the jury
or court which finds the defendant guilty thereof shall determine the
degree of the felony the defendant conspired to commit. If the
degree is not so determined, the punishment for conspiracy to commit
the felony shall be that prescribed for the lesser degree, except in
the case of conspiracy to commit murder, in which case the punishment
shall be that prescribed for murder in the first degree.
If the felony is conspiracy to commit two or more felonies which
have different punishments and the commission of those felonies
constitute but one offense of conspiracy, the penalty shall be that
prescribed for the felony which has the greater maximum term.
When they conspire to do an act described in paragraph (4), they
shall be punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, or by
imprisonment in the county jail for not more than one year, or by a
fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both that
imprisonment and fine.
When they conspire to do any of the other acts described in this
section, they shall be punishable by imprisonment in the county jail
for not more than one year, or in the state prison, or by a fine not
exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both that
imprisonment and fine. When they receive a felony conviction for
conspiring to commit identity theft, as defined in Section 530.5, the
court may impose a fine of up to twenty-five thousand dollars
($25,000).
All cases of conspiracy may be prosecuted and tried in the
superior court of any county in which any overt act tending to effect
the conspiracy shall be done.
(b) Upon a trial for conspiracy, in a case where an overt act is
necessary to constitute the offense, the defendant cannot be
convicted unless one or more overt acts are expressly alleged in the
indictment or information, nor unless one of the acts alleged is
proved; but other overt acts not alleged may be given in evidence.




182.5. Notwithstanding subdivisions (a) or (b) of Section 182, any
person who actively participates in any criminal street gang, as
defined in subdivision (f) of Section 186.22, with knowledge that its
members engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang
activity, as defined in subdivision (e) of Section 186.22, and who
willfully promotes, furthers, assists, or benefits from any felonious
criminal conduct by members of that gang is guilty of conspiracy to
commit that felony and may be punished as specified in subdivision
(a) of Section 182.


183. No conspiracies, other than those enumerated in the preceding
section, are punishable criminally.



184. No agreement amounts to a conspiracy, unless some act, beside
such agreement, be done within this state to effect the object
thereof, by one or more of the parties to such agreement and the
trial of cases of conspiracy may be had in any county in which any
such act be done.



(185.) Section One Hundred and Eighty-five. It shall be unlawful
for any person to wear any mask, false whiskers, or any personal
disguise (whether complete or partial) for the purpose of:
One--Evading or escaping discovery, recognition, or identification
in the commission of any public offense.
Two--Concealment, flight, or escape, when charged with, arrested
for, or convicted of, any public offense. Any person violating any
of the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a
misdemeanor.

 

[fubar]

Conspiracy to commit a felony is not a felony by the way. There must be substantial steps taken to actualize the conspiracy. Not saying those steps havent been taken but conspiracy to commit a felony is not a felony.

The creation, distribution/broadcast and continued protecting and defense of forged military records seems like fairly substantial steps to me.

We all know Dan Rather isn't going to Jail for this, but it would just be too much fun to find out that james carville was behind this, linking him, kerry, rather in a conspiracy that violated mccain feingold's 60 day rule and exposed CBS for the completely partisan organization it is.


Pat Buchannon's latest Worldnet Column:
"Indeed, if these memos turn out to be fakes, CBS and Rather will be guilty of, at least, having been played for fools. At worst, they could be convicted in the court of public opinion of collusion in a plot to bring down a president – a plot into which they were lured by a blinding bias against George W. Bush."

 

[5stringJeff]

Conspiracy to commit a felony is not a felony by the way. There must be substantial steps taken to actualize the conspiracy. Not saying those steps havent been taken but conspiracy to commit a felony is not a felony.

Wrong. Conspiracy to commit a felony is a crime. Verbal planning is all that is required, according to the military law class I took in college. And this is a federal case, since the forged memos were sent via fax.

 

[dilloduck]

Wrong. Conspiracy to commit a felony is a crime. Verbal planning is all that is required, according to the military law class I took in college. And this is a federal case, since the forged memos were sent via fax.

Maybe Martha would be willing to decorate Dans, cell for him?

 

[fubar]

I wonder if Drather is as much a cowboy as he fancies himself ? What'll he do if the Justice Dept were to simply say " Forging military records is a crime and we are very interested in WHO created them."

Drather versus John Ashcroft. Not much of a contest is it?

 

[MJDuncan1982]

Cospiracy is not a felony. There is a book out about how to assassinate Bush. Those guys are not arrested. There HAS to be substantial steps taken. Talking about it is not illegal. Do you want to start criminalizing thought?

If I talked with someone about pulling a D.C. type shooting then there would be no crime. If I went online and bought a sniper rifle then yes that would be a substantial step.

The law is NEVER cut and dry. Cospiring to commit a felony still requires a substantial step to realize such thought. Look deeply into the word "conspire" and I'm sure the case-law will show that merely discussing a matter will not pass the test.

That is unless a statute has been passed to supercede case-law but there will still be a definition of what it is to conspire in the statute.

And by the way: your post proves my point. Look at section 184:

"No agreement amounts to a conspiracy, unless some act, beside
such agreement, be done within this state to effect the object
thereof, by one or more of the parties to such agreement and the
trial of cases of conspiracy may be had in any county in which any
such act be done."

Your post shows that the mere act of conspiring is not a felony, there must be "some act".

 

[MJDuncan1982]

And GOP JEFF,

It is not necessarily a Fed Case. The plaintiff gets to decide, when diversity exists (no parties are of the same state) whether or not to take it to the State or Federal level. Yes, there may be diversity but that merely makes it possible for the case to be within the Federal Courts jurisdiction. It can be tried possibly under TX law or whatever state CBS is located depending upon sufficient jurisdiction.

 

[MJDuncan1982]

And one more thing...Dilloduck, this is not under the jurisdiction of the military. Military law is very different from civil (civil and criminal) law.

 

[MJDuncan1982]

And sorry guys for beating this to death but I want to settle it.

Texas (the original post was about TX because this is where the alleged conspiracy occurred) Penal Code Section 15.02:

"(a) A person commits criminal conspiracy if, with intent that a felony be committed:
~ ~ (1) he agrees with one or more persons that they or one or more of them engage in conduct that would constitute the offense; and
~ ~ (2) he or one or more of them performs an overt act in pursuance of the agreement."

Notice the AND after (1). Agreement to commit criminal conspiracy under TX law is not alone enough to constitute the felony. There must, under TX law, be an "over act".

 

[musicman]

Seems to me there WAS an overt act. The story made it to the airwaves; the attempt to slander the President of the United States using these obviously forged documents was premeditated and malicious. This wasn't some airy-fairy what-if scenario, confined to dank cellars. This HAPPENED.

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

Don't know if anybody has seen this, but....

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040918/ap_on_el_pr/bush_guard_questions

AUSTIN, Texas - A retired Texas National Guard official mentioned as a possible source for disputed documents about President Bush (news - web sites)'s service in the Guard said he passed along information to a former senator working with John Kerry (news - web sites)'s campaign.

In an Aug. 21 e-mail to a list of Texas Democrats, Bill Burkett said after getting through "seven layers of bureaucratic kids" in the Democrat's campaign, he talked with former Georgia senator Max Cleland about information that would counter criticism of Kerry's Vietnam War service. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the e-mail Saturday.


"I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. (Cleland) said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with," Burkett wrote.


Burkett, who lives just outside of Abilene, wrote that no one at the Kerry campaign called him back.


The e-mail was distributed to a Yahoo list of Texas Democrats. The site, which had about 570 members Saturday, is not affiliated with the state party.


Republican National Committee (news - web sites) spokesman Jim Dyke suggested collaboration between Burkett and the Kerry campaign. "The trail of connections is becoming increasingly clear," he said.


"The Kerry campaign had absolutely nothing to do with these documents, no ifs, ands, or buts," spokesman David Wade said. "Jim Dyke inhabits the fantasy world of spin where George Bush (news - web sites) pretends we haven't lost millions of jobs and everything in Iraq (news - web sites) is coming up roses. He'd be better served getting answers from the president, not hurling baseless attacks."


Burkett, who identifies himself as a Democrat, did not return several phone messages left by The Associated Press over the past week. There was no answer at his telephone number Saturday.


Burkett's lawyer, David Van Os, a Democratic candidate for the Texas Supreme Court, issued a statement this week saying Burkett "no longer trusts any possible outcome of speaking to the press on any issue regarding George W. Bush."


Burkett, who retired from the National Guard in 1999, has been cited in media reports as a source for a CBS News "60 Minutes" story about documents allegedly written by one of Bush's former commanders that indicated the future president ignored an order to take a physical.


The authenticity of the documents has been called into question by some experts and relatives of the late Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, who supposedly wrote them when he supervised Bush in 1972 and 1973. One of the memos indicated that Killian had been pressured to sugarcoat Bush's performance.


CBS has stood by its reporting, but said the network would redouble its efforts to determine the authenticity of the documents.


Leading operatives for the Texas Democratic Party did not receive Burkett's August e-mail, said Kelly Fero, one of the state party's strategists.


"The Democrats who run the party and are sort of the main strategists in Texas never saw it," Fero said. "We have lots of groups of Democrats who communicate among themselves constantly by e-mail."


Burkett, 55, told the AP in a lengthy telephone interview in February that he now is a supporter of Democrats, although at the time he said he didn't necessarily back Kerry.


He said he overheard a conversation in 1997 between then-Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh, and then-Adjutant Gen. Daniel James of the Texas Air National Guard in which the two men spoke of getting rid of any military records that would "embarrass the governor."


Burkett said he saw documents from Bush's file discarded in a trash can a few days later at Camp Mabry in Austin. Burkett described them as performance and pay documents. Allbaugh and James denied the allegations.





Burkett retired from the National Guard after more than 28 years of service because of medical reasons. He was involved in a lawsuit against the Guard over his medical benefits, which he lost on appeal.

 

[musicman]

Oh, I get it - it's basically the INTERNET'S fault. Damned untrustworthy bloggers - they should all be shut down.

THIS is their answer? Pathetic, man.

 

[MJDuncan1982]

Again, I'm not discussing the content of the issue, just the law regarding it. Whether or not there were substantial steps is another matter.

 

[fubar]

MJD, are you being deliberately obtuse?
A: let's have a conversation about how to forge documents to achieve a goal.

B. Someone committed the action of forging documents. Someone emailed them to people. They have been recieved by CBS News. They have been broadcast across the entire United States.

Scenario "A" appears to be Your Argument. Scenario "B" is reality.

My supposition was/is: At least one felony HAS been committed - forgery. A further POSSIBILTY is that more than one person was involved and CBS News is either stunningly inept and biased OR they are willingly participating in perpetrating a fraud on the entire voting population of America.