White House offered “guidance” to second witness in LightSquared inquiry!

[Soul Crusher]

White House offered “guidance” to second witness in LightSquared inquiry
at 8:45 am on September 20, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/09/20/white-house-offered-guidance-to-second-witness-in-lightsquared-inquiry/?print=1



The Daily Beast’s Eli Lake opened up a new scandal in the White House by revealing that a four-star Air Force general told Congress that Obama administration officials had pressured him to change his testimony about LightSquared, a company with ties to Obama and his election campaign.  Eli follows up today with a report that a second witness, a head of a federal agency, says the White House also offered him “guidance” by asking him to insert a paragraph expressing confidence in LightSquared’s efforts:

[T]he White House’s Office of Management and Budget urged federal officials testifying before two House oversight hearings in the last month to say they hoped testing for GPS and LightSquared interference would take only 90 days, according to interviews.

The Daily Beast obtained the paragraph the OMB asked government witnesses to insert into their recent congressional testimony, which says in part, “We hope that testing can be complete within 90 days.”

The issue of LightSquared and the OMB’s interest in testimony came to light last week when The Daily Beast reported that Gen. William Shelton, the four-star general in charge of the Air Force Space Command, told House lawmakers in a classified briefing that he felt pressured by the White House to change his testimony on LightSquared. Shelton ultimately rejected the White House suggestions and delivered his own testimony last week.

On Monday, a second witness, Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, told The Daily Beast that he too was asked by the OMB to insert the 90-day timeframe into his testimony before the House Science Committee, but he refused. The hearing originally was scheduled for Aug. 3, then rescheduled for Sept. 8.

Russo says he assumed that the White House approached all of the other witnesses and asked them to insert the paragraph into their prepared testimony.  Russo scoffed at the notion that the testing could be complete in 90 days, and ended up editing out that claim.  While Shelton told Congress that the White House exerted pressure on him to insert that claim, Russo told Eli that he considered it more “guidance” than pressure.


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wow!   this fucker might actually get his ass impeached after all. 

[Soul Crusher]

White House’s Testimony ‘Guidance’
First it was a four-star general, and now a federal agency official says the White House sought changes to his testimony on a wireless project tied to a prominent Democratic donor. Eli Lake reports.

by Eli Lake  (/contributors/eli-lake.html) | September 19, 2011 11:44 PM EDT



Philip Falcone (/newsweek/2008/03/04/who-are-the-world-s-richest.html) , the billionaire political donor whose hedge fund owns a majority financial stake in the satellite-wireless company LightSquared, says he told anyone in the federal government willing to listen that testing his company’s signal for GPS interference on commercial and military equipment “should not take that long.”

“Everything is already set up, the labs are set up. All we need are the list of devices that need to be tested. We have been telling the people who are asking for the testing of this for months now,” he said in an interview Monday.

Not all the bureaucrats who deal with GPS for the military and the federal government agreed. Still, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget urged federal officials testifying before two House oversight hearings in the last month to say they hoped testing for GPS and LightSquared interference would take only 90 days, according to interviews.

The Daily Beast obtained the paragraph the OMB asked government witnesses to insert into their recent congressional testimony, which says in part, “We hope that testing can be complete within 90 days.”

The issue of LightSquared and the OMB’s interest in testimony came to light last week when The Daily Beast reported that Gen. William Shelton, the four-star general in charge of the Air Force Space Command, told House lawmakers in a classified briefing that he felt pressured by the White House to change his testimony on LightSquared. Shelton ultimately rejected the White House suggestions and delivered his own testimony last week.

“We did not ask for any special favors and we have not asked for any special handouts, and consequently did not receive any special favors or handouts,” Falcone said.

 Anthony Russo, National Coordination Office, Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing at NOAA, testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, Sept. 15, 2011., Lauren Victoria Burke / AP Photo

On Monday, a second witness, Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, told The Daily Beast that he too was asked by the OMB to insert the 90-day timeframe into his testimony before the House Science Committee, but he refused. The hearing originally was scheduled for Aug. 3, then rescheduled for Sept. 8.

“They gave that to me and presumably the other witnesses,” he said. “There is one sentence I disagreed with, which said that I thought the testing could be resolved in 90 days. So I took it out.”

Russo said he objected to that language because “I have low confidence that we can complete all of the testing in 90 days.” He estimated that such testing would take at least six months. Russo called the White House efforts to alter his testimony “guidance rather than pressure.”


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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/09/19/lightsquared-second-witness-rejects-white-house-testimony-guidance.html