It was suggested I needed a more attention grabbing title for this the first time I posted it, and since the editing period expired on the original post... here you go. :)
This is a copy of the letter I sent to the NY Times, the Washington Post, and USAToday yesterday. It's since also been sent to the Boston Globe and NPR but if people want to give it a media blast then by all means do so! The reason it was originally sent to those three papers should become clear on reading the letter.
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I would like to bring to your attention solid, documented evidence that President Bush committed a federal offense defrauding the U.S. military on his National Guard application in 1968. Specifically, he withheld from the military the existence of a prior incident with the police which he was required to disclose. An article 83 violation of the UCMJ which carries a maximum sentence of dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of pay, and 2 years prison time.
In the president's National Guard application he was required to disclose in full, right down to minor traffic violations, any previous activity involving law enforcement. If he was so much as detained by police it was mandatory that he disclose in full that information:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/3-Grade_Determina... (Page 37, bottom of page)
"19. Have you ever been detained, held, arrested, indicted, or summoned into court as a defendent..."
This information was used both for consideration of his fitness as an officer candidate and for purposes of conducting his security clearance background check. (A pilot candidate required a 'SECRET' security clearance, and this was time of war.)
According to numerous reliable media sources, including your own paper:
Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush072799.htmUSAToday:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-02-11-bush... NY Times:
http://www.dke.org/bushyaletimes.html ...the president was either detained or arrested by Princeton police in 1967 for participating in a small post football game riot in which the Princeton goalposts were torn down. If either is true, and I have found no evidence that it is not as the president even makes mention of the incident himself in his own biography "A Charge to Keep" (although he of course describes it as a bit of harmless fun), then the president was absolutely required to inform the armed forces of that incident on his application when he applied for his Guard slot. It would seem careless of him to mention the incident at all in light of this information... but then his Guard records weren't public when the bio was written.
Information pertaining to that detention/arrest is completely missing from all his Guard paperwork. If he had left off mention of a traffic ticket or something similar then it might be argued that it was a harmless slip of the memory… but instead he comprehensively lists all his minor infractions, down to $10 speeding tickets from 1964, and then withheld the fact that he had been detained by police for participating in a small riot in an incident the Princeton police apparently felt was serious enough to warrant running him out of town completely, LESS THAN A YEAR before submitting his guard application. As both his most serious AND his most recent encounter with law enforcement it would be difficult to argue (although I'm certain the attempt will be made) that this omission in disclosure sections of his application accompanied by warnings of penalties and repercussions for non-disclosure and containing a signed statement by the president that he had been counseled regarding those consequences, was somehow the result of a failure to remember that this arrest had happened or an accidental oversight. The content of what was disclosed is further evidence against the non-disclosure being accidental or the result of poor memory.
$10 speeding tickets from 1964 were remembered and included. Minor traffic collisions also got disclosed. His arrest at Yale for the small infraction of stealing a hotel Christmas wreath (the charges were dropped) was also included, however it was accompanied by a note that a Yale security official would vouch for the harmlessness of the 'prank'… something Bush was unlikely to get from the Princeton police, as it was NOT a harmless offense he committed there. If some military investigator were to call the Princeton authorities they might hear descriptions like "mob", "riot" or "destruction of property"... it is clear that only the information which stood the best chance of seeing Bush's application rejected (and which also stood the least chance of being discovered by any background check) failed to appear on that application.
The withholding was obviously never discovered (the investigators would have had no reason to check with Princeton authorities, and this was not the day of google searches and well-integrated criminal databases, so there was little risk of discovery at the time) and it is now too late to prosecute in any case as the statute of limitations on the crime is well past... but the fact remains that the lengths the president went to to get into the Guard went well past exerting family influence or having it exerted on his behalf. In order to avoid combat duty in Vietnam he committed a federal offense to get into the National Guard and completely solid documentation of this fact exists and is in plain public view. The Guard may very well have denied him entry as a pilot if this more serious information had been disclosed to them despite any influence being wielded behind the scenes on the president's behalf by a certain Texas Speaker of the House. It at the very least would have made his job considerably more difficult. After all, it was already a matter of convincing them to take someone with no piloting experience or qualifications whatsoever and a 25% pilot aptitude score into a coveted pilot slot... and while 25% may be the MINIMUM acceptable score the Air Force highly recommends any aspiring pilot score at least in the 70s.
Listed below are links to all the relevant documentation. By all means please do fact check the details for yourself before reporting the story. I will be forwarding this information to several major news services... and I would hope, once the accuracy of this information has been verified, that it will be reported to the public as it seems to me that this should be of considerably more concern than just exactly how seriously John Kerry was wounded while serving his *volunteered for* combat duty in the war and whether or not he lost quite enough of his blood during that service to satisfy some people's sense of propriety regarding the awarding of purple hearts.
Also, given this information I would think it prudent that someone also check into why the president's "25" score on his pilot aptitude test does not appear to be his original one. A different score has been clearly scribbled out and another written in it's place and initialed by the test control officer. This is curious, since to the best of my knowledge candidates are not permitted to retake the test for a minimum of 180 days, and if the new score was a result of retaking the test that means it would have had to be taken AFTER Bush had already been accepted as a pilot, which would be a bizarre time to be retaking a qualification test to say the least. However, if it is not a result of retaking the test... what justified the change? The old score is completely obscured and illegible but you’ll excuse me for harboring doubts that it was a downward revision.
If you should decide to move forward with this story I would only ask one thing. As a courtesy, please e-mail me and let me know in advance when you will be running the story so that I can be sure not to miss it.
Thank you for your time.
-Grant Comeau
First required disclosure:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/1-Enlistment_Pack... (Page 14):
Notice that at the bottom of the page is the (signed) statement that Bush has been informed by his recruiting officer of the consequences of withholding information.
Second required disclosure:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/3-Grade_Determina... (Page 18)
Third required disclosure:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/3-Grade_Determina... (Page 20)
Fourth required disclosure (Here we see that Bush has a Yale official willing to inform anyone asking that the arrest he DID disclose was for a harmless “prank”.):
http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/3-Grade_Determina... (Page 37)
His arrest waiver:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/bushdocs/10-3_2000_Personn... (Page 8)
Article 83:
www.jag.navy.mil/documents/mcm2000.pdf (page 285-286)
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-Grant
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