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http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000829349Secret Service Defends Giving Gannon/Guckert Access to White House
By E&P Staff
Published: March 08, 2005 4:00 PM ET
NEW YORK Responding to a request from House Democrats to investigate the approval of James Guckert, a.k.a. Jeff Gannon, to attend White House briefings and presidential press conferences for two years, the U.S. Secret Service has declared that there was “no deviation” from “proper procedures."
Secret Service Deputy Assistant Director Conrad A. Everett defended the vetting in a letter to Rep. John Conyers and Rep. Louise Slaughter, obtained by the Web site, The Raw Story. Guckert is the former reporter for GOPUSA/Talon News who has also been linked to male escort services.
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But Rep. Slaughter told The Raw Story, “While I appreciate the Secret Service's response to some of our questions, the bigger picture remains. The relationship between this Administration and Jeff Gannon was anything but typical and the American people deserve the full, unvarnished truth.”
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John Aravosis of Americablog, who has been prominent in the current uproar, asked: “If Gannon's day pass was effectively equivalent to a 'hard pass' given to long-term White House reporters, why didn't Gannon get a more thorough background check?” In his view, Gannon/Guckert “posed the same potential risk to national security as any hard pass reporter,” yet he was “never forced to get a hard pass, and thus never required to get the hard pass three-month FBI background check.”
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