The FBI wants go through all of the papers of recently deceased columnist Jack Anderson, supposedly looking for classified documents so they can be confiscated. The reporting would seem to indicate that the FBI made a demand for the documents without bothering to obtain a subpoena or warrant.
The attorney for the family told the FBI that, as Mr. Anderson wouldn’t have agreed, neither will they.
The arrogance of these people: rude, crude, and unglued.
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7 comments
This really stinks. We live in interesting times.
One has to assume the FBI lacks a warrant; otherwise, as I noted in my post on the subject, they’d simply go, warrant in hand, and compel delivery of the papers. This is an attempt at raw intimidation of the press, and Anderson’s family is calling the FBI’s bluff, saying they’re willing to go to jail if that’s what it takes to prevent this heavy-handed act.
If the FBI can simply go in and take whatever quantity of unspecified documents it wants from anyone it wants, without a warrant, we no longer have anything that could reasonably be called due process, and the leaders of the FBI who order such takings are no better than thugs.
It has been a while since Jack Anderson was active, so this was just a fishing expedition, payback for things Jack wrote about in the past.
They keep attacking the Fourth Amendment.
They’re probably anxious to get their hands on any photos Anderson might have acquired of J. Edgar in fishnet stockings and a leather bustier…. And I think I’m going to leave that image unfinished. I just ate, and it’s making me queasy to think about it.
Isn’t the equivalent of unscrewing a screw up? Or to be more blunt, unf*(k a f*(kup?
Jack had a lot more than he published, or so he indicated in a lot of the interviews I’ve read, so his biography could contain a lot of surprises that many people don’t want to see the light of day.
Thanks for that image, Michael.
I think that you are on target for a lot of what the Shrubbery has been doing, Phinky. We should already have access to a lot of documents from the Reagan years, but these people have changed the rules to keep them from coming out. Bush Senior might not want people to see a number of things that are in the Reagan records, especially concerning Iran.
It’s not at all unusual for a civil servant – i.e., retired CIA, to have his/her papers confiscated after their death. It’s part of the package. But going after a journalist is another matter. The late Mr. Anderson’s son and family are perfectly within their legal rights to reject the FBI’s request – I hope they can hold out.
The FBI is going to have to show some reason for the warrant, which I don’t think they can. Mr. Anderson ceased active work too long ago for the request to be reasonable.