You Trust This Guy?
Roll Call Staff
It appears there may be an even more bizarre genesis to the FBI’s already unusual attempt to seize the papers of the late journalist Jack Anderson, who was 83 when he died in December. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to hear about the allegedly sordid past of a former Anderson reporter who tipped off the FBI when it convenes this morning to hold a hearing on the controversy.
According to a Senate Judiciary Committee source, a witness will testify that the entire Anderson investigation was triggered by a tip from a man convicted and imprisoned for sodomizing a young boy and who allegedly admitted to having a history of mental illness.
The witness who will make these charges is Mark Feldstein, a journalism professor at George Washington University, where the Anderson papers are stored.
Feldstein is working on a book titled “Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture,” which is due out next year. So the FBI went to him to seek Anderson’s papers.
The FBI reportedly said it wanted Anderson’s files, going back as far as the early 1980s, as part of its criminal probe of two former lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who are accused of violating espionage laws. The FBI came knocking even though, as The Chicago Tribune noted in an editorial last month, Anderson “had been ill with Parkinson’s disease since 1986.”
Don Goldberg, a veteran spinmeister for the Clinton administration who is now a managing director for Qorvis Communications, says he and other former Anderson associates find the FBI’s attempt to seize Anderson’s papers “outrageous.”
For one, Goldberg said, Anderson had not been an active journalist for at least 15 years before his death. More importantly, he said, “the First Amendment ability of journalists to protect their confidential sources regarding legitimate issues relating to how our government works is sacred. It doesn’t evaporate when a journalist dies. This is nothing more than an attempt to intimidate reporters by threatening them even in death.”
Several close-knit Andersonites plan to attend today’s hearing. One of them, author James Grady, whose spy novel “Six Days of the Condor” was made into the ’70s suspense classic “Three Days of the Condor,” has a notion to corral the Anderson gang to sing the “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the start of the session.
“I think that would be appropriate to remind people where they are,” he said.
Speaking of Investigative Reporters ... Robert Redford’s trip to the nation’s capital next week has nothing to do with Deep Throat.
The liberal group Campaign for America’s Future has snagged the one-time star of “All the President’s Men” (and, as it happens, the aforementioned “Three Days of the Condor”) to add a little Hollywood gleam to its “Take Back America” conference.
Toby Chaudhuri, the group’s spokesman, wrote in an e-mail that Redford, who is 69, will join Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and other activists to officially launch the group’s Apollo Challenge to urge the White House and Congress to “kick our nation’s oil habit.” The conference starts June 12 at the Washington Hilton.
Attendees will also hear from Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
Be Cool. Hey, softball players, keep those beers down if your team is playing down on the Mall this week. Police are out in full force in light of three recent muggings and one sexual assault.
Last week, a police officer issued a verbal warning to a couple of members of the Shays Lounge and the Swinging Johnsons — the softball team of Reps. Christopher Shays and Nancy Johnson, both Connecticut Republicans — before the start of their game last Wednesday against the Hoosier Daddys.
The two teams were warming up, and some of their players were swilling brewskis, when police on bicycle, horseback and motorcycle showed up. “I was wondering when they were going to bring in Scotland Yard,” one eyewitness said dryly.
The informant said he thought some members of the Shays-Johnson team were issued a warning, but not an official ticket. He was right. Sarah Moore, a spokeswoman for Rep. Shays, says an officer simply asked them to put the beer away and gave them “a verbal warning.”
Kate Ackley contributed to this report.
Please send your hot tips, juicy gossip or comments to hoh@rollcall.com.
Energy and Commerce Committee: Barton Holds the Line for the GOP
March 15, 12 a.m.
Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) knows he’s outnumbered. He knows the Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where he serves as ranking member, have the ability to “slam things through” when they want to. Read Full Article
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