[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 150 (2004), Part 12]
[House]
[Page 16827]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   BUSH ADMINISTRATION SMEAR CAMPAIGN

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, well, here we go again. Anytime the heat 
is on the Republicans, the Bush administration, they leak something out 
and try and smear somebody.
  The 9/11 Commission report is coming out tomorrow, and just 3 days 
before it they bring up something that has been investigated for 9 
months. They leak it out of the Justice Department.
  Now, even conservative reporters like Norm Ornstein and David Gurgin 
have said they are enormously skeptical about this whole thing. David 
Gurgin said it is suspicious.
  It is not suspicious. It is what they always do. Whenever there is 
something coming up, they find a way to leak out something like against 
Ms. Gorelick on the 9/11 Commission. They never wanted the commission, 
and now it is going to come out and say bad things about them. So they 
are going to smear all the people around it as quickly as possible.
  That is a standard operating position for these people, and it is 
despicable. Why do they not let the Justice Department do the report? 
It was 9 long months ago it started. Let them bring it out when there 
is going to be an indictment.
  We will do the same for the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), and we 
will do the same for all the Members on the Republican side who want to 
raise these kinds of issues. Why do we not wait until the people in the 
Justice Department make the decision?

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