Jim Spencer of The Denver Post has an interesting column on the process he undertook in an attempt to discover who kicked out the so-called “Denver Three” from an event with President Bush last spring:
The process is called redacting. It supposedly deletes legally protected information from documents before they become public. The Secret Service applied the concept liberally to my request for information about three people thrown out of a presidential Social Security forum in Denver. The whole judicial disposition section was whited out.
This missing data seems critical to understanding why a White House staffer did not illegally pose as a Secret Service agent when he forced Alex Young, Leslie Weise and Karen Bauer from a taxpayer-financed forum before the president arrived. But on Tuesday, the first anniversary of the political mugging of the so-called Denver Three, folks were only marginally closer to figuring that out.
Documents released by the Secret Service in response to my months-old Freedom of Information Act request clearly demonstrate that no agents decided that Young, Weise and Bauer had to leave the White House “town meeting.” But the documents – cleansed of the names and reasons of the people who did remove the three – show Secret Service agents acting as muscle in a wholly political, possibly unconstitutional act.
In the Secret Service’s words, the “White House staff” made three properly ticketed citizens leave a nonpartisan, publicly paid-for White House event because “the staff had identified the three individuals as potential protesters.”…
…The documents I got never explain how the White House staff determined that the three were “potential protesters” nor do the documents offer legal justification for excluding people from seeing the president when they have the right credentials and do nothing wrong.
You must be logged in to post a comment.
BY: ParkHill
IN: Trumpflation is Here
BY: Genghis
IN: Why DNI Tulsi Gabbard Should Scare The Hell Out Of You
BY: Genghis
IN: You’re Gonna Need an Actual Opinion on Ukraine, Gabe
BY: JohnInDenver
IN: Trumpflation is Here
BY: SSG_Dan
IN: Wednesday Open Thread
BY: kwtree
IN: Jeffco GOP Sure Knows How To Pick ‘Em
BY: harrydoby
IN: You’re Gonna Need an Actual Opinion on Ukraine, Gabe
BY: Conserv. Head Banger
IN: Jeffco GOP Sure Knows How To Pick ‘Em
BY: spaceman2021
IN: Trumpflation is Here
BY: unnamed
IN: Obligatory Lauren Boebert/Kid Rock Gossip Thread
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter to stay in the loop with regular updates!
Who cares? I care. If only because the White House keeps stonewalling on such a trivial matter. These stooges are like my teenage daughter. She won’t admit to the most obvious and smallest of errors, so when she tells me something on large things that just don’t sound right, how could I possibly give her the benefit of the doubt?
Also, since we as taxpayers paid for this event, the fact that they threw out a citizen – FOR ANY REASON – is wrong. Maybe if Bush paid back the US Treasury for this trip I might be more placated. If nothing else that would be few thousand additional dollars below the record deficit cap Bush has asked for.
Give it a break. Who cares.
If it had happened to me I’d be miffed….for a day or so. Their fifteen minutes of quasi fame was over a long time ago. Life is short, let it go Denver Three.
It just says a lot about the leadership and capability of the President when he has to be insulated from his own constituents and isolated from any viewpoint but his own. Not to mention that you, I and everyone paid for the event, so should be permitted to be present regardless of our individual opinions – they were properly ticketed and had already entered, remember. Maybe Bush’s responses would be a bit more genuine or reflective if he had to answer any questions harder than: “Mr Bush – you are so wonderful. How can I help you on the Social Security issue?” Give me a break.
Bush defines an empty suit.