Vets, others call for resignation of prosecutor in Swift Boat ad (Ore) [View All]

[Nambe]

By JIM PARKER, kgw.com Staff

OREGON CITY -- A group of Oregon veterans and Clackamas County residents rallied outside the Clackamas County District Attorney's office Monday afternoon calling for the resignation of a prosecutor who appeared in a controversial television ad criticizing Sen. John Kerry's Vietnam War service.

Alfred French, 58, a senior deputy district attorney, appeared in the recent ad by the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth and said: "I served with John Kerry. . . . He is lying about his record." French also signed a legal affadavit attesting to the claim. But French, in an interview with The Oregonian newspaper last week, said he was relying on the accounts of three other veterans when he said Kerry lied. ..

That acknowledgement fueled Monday's protest, where demonstrators contended French is unfit to serve as a prosecutor after swearing to facts that he never personally witnessed. "It is outrageous that Al French and others would try to smear the military record of John Kerry, a man of courage who put his life on the line to save the lives of others," said Don Stewart, a local veteran who organized the protest. "To lie in a sworn affidavit goes beyond political smear, it is cause for this assistant district attorney to resign, and resign now." ..