aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South
Monday, April 25, 2005
Gannon/Guckert’s comings/goings
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), through a Freedom of Information Act request, got the Secret Service logs of James Guckert’s (aka Jeff Gannon) access to the White House.
Guckert made more than 200 appearances at the White House during his two-year tenure with the fledging conservative websites GOPUSA and Talon News, attending 155 of 196 White House press briefings. He had little to no previous journalism experience, previously worked as a male escort, and was refused a congressional press pass.
Perhaps more notable than the frequency of his attendance, however, is several distinct anomalies about his visits.
Guckert made more than two dozen excursions to the White House when there were no scheduled briefings. On many of these days, the Press Office held press gaggles aboard Air Force One-which raises questions about what Guckert was doing at the White House. On other days, the president held photo opportunities.
On at least fourteen occasions, Secret Service records show either the entry or exit time missing. Generally, the existing entry or exit times correlate with press conferences; on most of these days, the records show that Guckert checked in but was never processed out.
Among the many questions raised by the documents, Salon asks:
First, if White House day passes—and the abbreviated security check that goes along with them—are meant for the occasional use of reporters who don’t need a permanent “hard” pass, why was Gannon allowed to use such day passes more than 200 times in less than two years? Is anyone else allowed, in effect, to turn a day pass into a “hard” pass, or was Gannon alone in his near-constant day pass access?
Second, in the post-9/11 world, is it too much to ask that the Secret Service keep track of who is coming and going at the White House? ...Maybe it’s just sloppy bookkeeping, but how hard can it be to get this stuff right? The White House isn’t exactly Grand Central Station, and the Secret Service checks everyone who comes and goes. Is there a reason other than ineptitude for missing many of Gannon’s entries and exits? And if it’s just ineptitude, what is the president going to do about that?
4/27/05 UPDATE: STill more from Salon today:
...a group of internet sleuths calling themselves ePluribus Media have just raised a whole new set of questions about the matter. They’ve compared the Secret Service “access control” records with video clips of White House press briefings, and they say they’ve found five tapes that show Gannon at briefings inside the White House on days that the Secret Service says he wasn’t there at all. The group asks: Did the Secret Service screw up that much on its own, or did someone at the White House figure out a way to help Gannon get in without appearing on the Secret Service logs?
