WND » Thompson and Hays

Police agency silent on WND lawsuit charge

Thompson and Hays — Thu, 10 May 2001 01:00:00 +0000

SAVANNAH, Tenn. — The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation is apparently ducking for cover in the $165 million libel lawsuit filed by Gore fund-raiser Clark Jones of Savannah, Tenn., against WorldNetDaily.com, reporters Charles C. Thompson II and Tony Hays, and numerous other defendants.

The lawsuit revolves around a series of 18 investigative reports published by WND between September and December 2000, most of them documenting charges of corruption involving then-Vice President Al Gore and others in Gore’s home state of Tennessee.

Central to Jones’ claim of defamation is the allegation that Jones may have used his political influence to kill a TBI investigation into narcotics trafficking in Hardin County, Tenn. Through his attorney Houston Gordon, Jones denies in court documents that there was an investigation or that he was a target of investigation — this despite numerous named sources in the WND articles attesting to the investigation and Jones as a subject. Those sources include a top TBI official, Ed Holt, the deputy director for criminal investigations, who confirmed to Thompson in a telephone interview on Feb. 2, 2000, that there had indeed been a probe and that Jones was a party to it. TBI also submitted documents to the journalists supporting the existence of such an investigation.

Larry Wallace, director of the TBI and a longtime crony of former Vice President Al Gore, recently issued a written statement to the Courier newspaper of Savannah, Tenn., in which he denounced the WorldNetDaily series as an attempt to “destroy” both him and the TBI’s upper management. Yet, in addressing the question of whether the TBI was now investigating, or ever had investigated, Clark Jones for narcotics trafficking, Wallace declined to comment, citing “advice of counsel.”

During Wallace’s tenure, the TBI has rarely retreated from providing press comment, even on ongoing investigations. Indeed, Wallace went out of his way to curry favor with the Tennessee Press Association by hosting a luncheon for its members during their winter convention this year in Nashville. Even when investigating the theft of 24 lbs. of cocaine from the TBI evidence room, the agency regularly made itself available for comment.

But Wallace’s refusal to comment on the Clark Jones matter has raised questions. Wallace, who is well known in Tennessee for ingratiating himself to politically influential people such as Jones, has also threatened to take legal action against WND’s series criticizing the state’s premier police agency.

“If Larry Wallace could have come to Jones’ rescue by convincingly denying such an investigation,” said a former TBI agent speaking on condition of anonymity, “he would have. The fact of the matter is that there was an investigation and too many people know about it.”

Eyebrows were also raised at the local Courier newspaper and its editor, Jim Thompson, who has been vocally supportive of Jones, whose car dealership is one of the paper’s major advertisers. “Yeah, I thought that was pretty strange, too,” said news editor Ron Schaming of Wallace’s “no comment on advice of counsel” statement.

Other efforts by Jones and his attorneys to discredit the WND articles have also been rebuffed. A Knoxville, Tenn., private investigator, who is a retired FBI agent, contacted former Tennessee Commissioner of Public Safety Robert Lawson, in an apparent effort to get him to recant his statements in the WND series. Lawson had told Thompson and Hays that Jones’ name had appeared in state police files in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a suspected drug dealer.

“I stand by every quote from me that [WND] printed,” Lawson says he told the private investigator, “and if you come back again I’ll drag some more skeletons out of the closet.”

At present, the Jones lawsuit is in the U.S. District Court of the Western District of Tennessee in Jackson, with Judge James Todd presiding. The case was removed to federal court by attorney Michael F. Pleasants representing WorldNetDaily, Hays and Thompson. Although Gordon has filed a petition to remand the case back to the Hardin County Circuit Court where it was initiated, as yet no hearing date has been set on his request.

Editor’s note: WorldNetDaily has established a Legal Defense Fund to offset legal costs in defending itself against this lawsuit. Contributions can be made online, or by calling WND toll-free at 1-877-909-1776. Also, a check, made payable to WorldNetDaily Legal Defense Fund, can be mailed to: WorldNetDaily.com, Inc., P.O. Box 409, Cave Junction, OR 97523.

Related stories:

Car dealer sues WND

Why Gore lost the presidency

Related column:

Will WND be muzzled?

Agents seek reform of 'corrupt' police agency

Thompson and Hays — Fri, 20 Apr 2001 01:00:00 +0000

A group of active-duty Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents, citing WorldNetDaily’s and other media reports of widespread incompetence and corruption within the state’s premier cop shop, is lobbying state legislators for reform at the embattled agency, but Tennessee lawmakers appear to be turning a deaf ear to their pleas.

In fact, the TBI, subject of several WorldNetDaily investigative reports, may be collapsing from within, say insiders. And Director Larry Wallace, a longtime ally of former Vice President Al Gore, is threatening employees with termination for talking to state auditors, members of the state legislature and the news media.

The agents, who for the purposes of lobbying for change have taken the name, “Brotherhood of Truth, Bravery, and Integrity,” wrote a letter, marked “Confidential,” to state Rep. Frank Buck and copied to state Sen. Curtis Person of Memphis.

In that letter, a copy of which was obtained by WND, the authors advised the legislators that “The Tennessean [newspaper] has reported on the incompetent, ineffective and inefficient actions of the current top TBI officials. WorldNetDaily has reported on the corrupt actions of the current top TBI officials.” The authors, noting that TBI Director Larry Wallace “is the only state official that reports to no higher authority” and comparing him to “the Commissar of the KGB in Russia,” urge the legislators to create an oversight committee.

The group explains their anonymous status in the last paragraph: “The top TBI officials -– Director Wallace, Deputy Director Reeves -– have told TBI employees, ‘Any TBI employee who talks with auditors, legislators, or reporters will be terminated!’” Sources within the TBI and the Tennessee state legislature have confirmed to WorldNetDaily that a similar letter was sent to the Tennessee State Comptroller’s office.

Once respected as one of the finest state police agencies in the country, the TBI had a reputation in the 1980s for taking down crooked sheriffs. But that reputation floundered during the 1990s after Wallace’s appointment as director. Among his first actions was to disband the agency’s highly regarded public integrity unit. Former TBI directors such as current District Attorney General John Carney and Judge Arzo Carson have publicly denounced Wallace, and both former and current TBI agents have cooperated with WND during its investigation, despite threats of reprisals by Wallace.

WND has repeatedly reported on apparent corruption within the agency, including Wallace’s alleged penchant for interfering with and even killing investigations that involve politicians and their fundraisers. Both print and broadcast media across the state carried a January 2001 story broken by WTVF-TV in Nashville and WND, about the theft of more than 20 kilos of cocaine from a TBI evidence area by a rent-a-cop with outstanding felony charges — who never underwent a “required” TBI background check. The guard used a wire coat hanger to access a “theft-proof” evidence locker in TBI’s new $2.5 million headquarters.

Wallace and his general counsel David Jennings admitted last year to officials with the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies (a non-profit organization that certifies police agencies) that WorldNetDaily reports concerning the illegal removal of evidence from TBI custody were essentially true. CALEA, which employs Jennings as a consultant, failed to take any action against the TBI despite the confession.

Even more puzzling than CALEA’s failure to act is the apparent reluctance of the Tennessee state legislature to initiate even the mildest of investigations into TBI’s alleged misdeeds. Buck, considered at one time to be Wallace’s most outspoken critic in the legislature, has failed to return repeated calls for comment. Both Republican and Democrat leaders were made aware of the allegations against the TBI nearly a year ago. Butch Morris, a former TBI narcotics agent and now chief of police in La Vergne, Tenn., testified before the legislature in 1998 about the agency’s shortcomings. Morris was fired soon after that testimony.

According to sources close to the legislature, state lawmakers are afraid to touch Wallace because of reports that he has compiled private files on each legislator, reminiscent of J. Edgar Hoover’s secret files. One former TBI agent noted, “it looks like Larry Wallace is holding Tennessee hostage and is getting away with it.”

Cop shop’s evidence sloppiness ‘inexcusable’

Gore plays fixer to ‘crooked’ uncle

Officials say Gore killed drug probe

Drug-dealer's reprievecalled 'highly suspicious'

Thompson and Hays — Tue, 13 Mar 2001 01:00:00 +0000

In his frenetic last day in office, Bill Clinton issued 177 pardons and commutations. More than 30 of these didn’t go through the rigorous screening process that typically takes 18 to 24 months and is designed to weed out people who continued to break the law. And more than six weeks after Clinton departed the White House, Justice Department officials are still at a loss as to who many of these people are or how they received presidential pardons and commutations.

Justice officials recently informed several reporters that they were “highly suspicious” about the pardon of James Timothy Maness. All they knew about Maness was that he received a three-year suspended sentence in 1985 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee (Memphis) for conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance

Where does Maness reside now? They had no idea. What controlled substance did he conspire to distribute? They threw up their hands. Who sponsored his parole and how had it landed on Bill Clinton’s desk, much less been signed? They had no earthly idea.

With a medium amount of difficulty, WorldNetDaily tracked Maness down. He lives in West Memphis, Ark., just across the Mississippi River from Memphis. Repeated efforts to reach him for comment failed.

Maness, 27 years old at the time of his arrest, routinely goes by the name Tim. According to the two arresting officers, they had received a tip that Maness was trafficking in large quantities of prescription and illegal drugs. Through an intermediary, they arranged to meet Maness in the Hickory Hills section of Memphis where the two undercover officers, L.O. Phelps and Rick Jewel, were waiting.

A surveillance team made a video tape as Phelps and Jewel bought 12 pounds of alleged Quaaludes from Maness.

“They turned out to be ‘Mexican Quaaludes,’” Phelps told WND. In reality, they were diazepam (valium) pills made to resemble Quaaludes through the use of a pill press. “There were so many that we just weighed them instead of counting them,” said Phelps. “This was no street-level dealer. This guy was further up the food chain than that. We’re talking about $200,000 at 1985 prices.”

Typically, an arrested drug dealer will cooperate with the police in return for a reduced sentence. “Almost all will do at least a little talking,” said Jewell. “But Maness didn’t. He wouldn’t say a word. The only reason a drug dealer doesn’t talk is because he wants to stay in business.”

If Phelps and Jewell had what seemed such an airtight case, why did Maness receive what amounted to little more than a slap on the wrist? Especially when W. Hickman Ewing, Jr., was U.S. attorney in Memphis at the time. Ewing, who later spent six years as deputy Whitewater Independent Counsel pursuing Bill Clinton and his cronies, and who once even drafted an indictment on Hillary Rodham Clinton, had a reputation of being hard as nails on drug dealers. Moreover, the case was assigned to U.S. District Judge Julia S. Gibbons, who routinely meted out stiff sentences for drug offenders.

In essence, the case fell between the cracks. It was supposed to be handled by assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Disenza, a veteran prosecutor who normally tried cases of this sort. But Disenza was in 6th District court when the Maness trial began. Reba Robinson, an unseasoned prosecutor who never handled a drug case before or since, was thrown into the breach. Robinson faced Stephen Shankman, an experienced defense attorney who is now the federal public defender in Memphis. Robinson was out of her league.

Shankman told WND he had only a vague recollection of the Maness trial.

“How much time did my client get?” he asked.

A three-year suspended sentence.

“Boy! Did he get lucky!” Shankman said. Disenza agreed, saying that Judge Gibbons would normally have sentenced Maness to three to eight years in the penitentiary for the offense for which he had been convicted. Robinson left the U.S. Attorney’s office and no longer practices law.

Since Maness was an Arkansas native and had been convicted in 1985, the logical route to an expedited pardon would have been through Roger Clinton, Bill Clinton’s younger half-brother who himself received a pardon. Roger Clinton pleaded guilty in January 1985 to cocaine distribution charges and served one year of a two-year sentence in return for testifying against a number of other defendants.

Roger, a sometimes rock singer who was arrested in a beach community near Los Angeles for suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs less than a month after he was pardoned, submitted six names for his half-brother to pardon, most of them conspirators in his drug dealings. The president allegedly turned all of Roger’s recommendations down.

“It sort of caused a rift,” Roger said, according to an Associated Press report. “My feelings were hurt. I was a disaster.”

Last week, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times reported that authorities were investigating whether two Arkansas businessmen, Dickey Morton and George Locke, using Roger Clinton’s name had swindled two men by promising pardons. One victim, Guy Lincecum, forked over $235,000 to the businessmen for a pardon he never received. Roger Clinton said that though he knew the two businessmen, he had never authorized either one to use his name.

Little Rock criminal defense attorney John Wesley Hall, who defended Roger in the cocaine distribution trial, told WND he was familiar with most of Roger’s criminal associates dating back to the mid-1980s and that Tim Maness was not one of them.

Arkansas sources told WND that Maness’ source of influence with Clinton was most likely U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a 40-year-old freshman with a “squeaky-clean” reputation.

First elected to the House of Representatives in 1992, Lincoln in 1999 became the second woman in Arkansas history to win a U.S. Senate seat. (Hattie Caraway was the first in 1932.) Among her other committee assignments, Lincoln serves on the Select Committee on Ethics. She defended Bill Clinton during his impeachment travails. Tim Maness contributed $500 to Lincoln’s 1998 senatorial campaign — the only such campaign contribution that Maness is known to have made.

Repeated messages to Lincoln’s press secretary, Drew Goesl, containing questions regarding Lincoln’s alleged involvement in Maness’ pardon went unanswered. Finally, Goesel called back and said, “I have no information at all about the pardon. We don’t give pardons. The White House does that.”

Later, Goesl called back and said he had personally talked to the senator and that she denied any knowledge about the pardon.

“It was the president’s call. She (Lincoln) doesn’t personally know every one of her campaign contributors,” Goesl said.

That Maness received a presidential pardon is made all the more perplexing by the fact that area law officers suspect Maness is still active in the drug trade, a fact that would have raised red flags during a Justice Department vetting. But, like Marc Rich and others, Tim Maness was spared that hurdle.

“I’m upset now that this thing (the Maness pardon) wasn’t run through channels,” Ewing said. “If anybody had asked my opinion, I would have advised them not to grant this pardon.”

Former Shelby County Deputy L.O. Phelps was equally blunt. “I don’t think it’s right. We got the guy red-handed with $200,000 in dope; he skates with a suspended sentence on that, and now gets a presidential pardon. I don’t like it.”

The pardon of Tim Maness raises more questions about Clinton’s photo-finish run on Jan. 20. How did a mid-level narcotics trafficker, who refused to cooperate with authorities and is even now suspected of being up to his old tricks, rate a presidential pardon? And if Lincoln wasn’t his go-between, then who was? And why was the Justice Department bypassed?

Despite Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s assertion that “we’ve already found out pretty much all we’re going to find out,” there are, apparently, more avenues left to be explored, including the pardon of James Timothy Maness.

Together, Thompson and Hays have written several dozen investigative reports for WorldNetDaily.com, including the series, “TENNESSEE UNDERGROUND,” that ran between early September and Election Day, Nov. 7, 2000. Their groundbreaking work on Gore will soon be available as a WorldNetDaily book, titled “Why Gore lost Tennessee.”

Cop shop's evidence sloppiness 'inexcusable'

Thompson and Hays — Tue, 06 Feb 2001 01:00:00 +0000

New details are now emerging in the theft of 24 kilos of cocaine from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s new headquarters, details that TBI Director Larry Wallace was attempting to suppress and that further embarrass the state’s top law enforcement agency.

The latest controversy surrounding Wallace — a long-time political ally of Al Gore — and the TBI was first revealed on Jan. 11 by WTVF-TV reporter Scott Couch. A Tennessee highway patrolman appeared at TBI headquarters to retrieve 100 kilos of cocaine seized in a interdiction stop in Dickson County. The defendants were about to go on trial. However, agents could find only 76 kilos.

The first explanation for the missing cocaine was that TBI might have lent it out to another agency for use in a sting operation, despite the fact that evidence in a trial cannot legally be used for that purpose, nor can seized drugs be used at all without a court order. In near-comic-opera fashion, Wallace dispatched agents across the state, hoping to track down the missing cocaine.

“Do you have any of our cocaine?” agents are reported to have asked area agencies.

Eventually, TBI agents stumbled on the involvement of security guard Jody Mark Tolar. Employed by a subcontractor, Tolar should have undergone a background check by the bureau. But, by the TBI’s own admission, Tolar’s check was never completed.

“We never received the paperwork,” said agent Mark Gwyn. At the time of his employment, Tolar had two outstanding indictments in Nashville, one on a drug-related charge.

According to high-ranking TBI officials, Wallace launched a full court press to keep the theft a secret. Of primary concern to Wallace was concealing the fact that Tolar had simply used a wire coat hanger to break into the evidence area of TBI’s new $20.5 million headquarters. An earlier WND report broke that story, which was confirmed by undercover agent T.J. Jordan in a court appearance two weeks ago.

However, those same sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, now say that Wallace is guarding an even more damaging secret surrounding the theft. According to those sources, Deputy Director Robert Reeves was advised in late October or early November that drugs were being stolen from the “theft-proof” evidence area. Reeves dismissed the information, allegedly developed by Metro Nashville police, saying that security was “too tight” and that the evidence area couldn’t be breached.

Metro Public Information Officer Don Aaron would not confirm or deny the report.

“I have no personal knowledge of that,” Aaron told WND. “But you have to remember that we have 1,600 officers, and it’s impossible to keep up with what everybody does.”

A separate law enforcement source has now told WorldNetDaily that TBI officials were advised by one of their own confidential informants some four months ago that narcotics from the evidence vault were showing up on the street.

“They just blew it off,” this officer, a narcotics agent in west Tennessee, told WND. “They [highranking TBI officials] said it was impossible.”

Unfortunately, that informant was almost literally telling the truth. According to an e-mail sent to Nashville radio talk show host Phil Valentine during the week that the cocaine theft was discovered, a jogger in Nashville stumbled across a brick of white powder with a TBI evidence tag on it, lying next to a dumpster. The jogger called Metro Nashville police, who advised him that the powder was probably cocaine and worth some $10,000. TBI agents arrived and scooped up the brick, denying that it was cocaine.

Wallace and the TBI have been buffeted for months by allegations of corruption and wrongdoing. Chief among those allegations were misdeeds concerning evidence in TBI’s former headquarters. Wallace and TBI General Counsel David Jennings admitted to the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies that they had inappropriately handled evidence, including removing evidence from lock-up without a court order. They assured CALEA officials that such problems would be rectified when they relocated to the new TBI headquarters, a move accomplished last August. The Tolar case indicates that those assurances were based more on quicksand than concrete.

Although District Attorney General Dan Alsobrooks, who was prosecuting the drug-trafficking case connected to the stolen cocaine, downplayed the significance of the incident, Tennessee lawmen believe it’s more serious than that. One middle Tennessee police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, stated bluntly that “all of the evidence in that area is tainted now. The chain of custody has been broken, and a good criminal lawyer can use that to his client’s advantage.”

And with the newest revelation that Tolar had been stealing narcotics for several months, any number of court cases could be jeopardized. Most damaging of all, however, is the discovery that a TBI official was made aware of the problem more than three months ago.

“They could have done something about it,” the police officer said. “But they didn’t. That’s inexcusable.”

TBI Spokesperson Mark Gwyn has announced that the agency will answer no further questions about the incident.

Gore playes fixer to ‘crooked’ uncle

Officials say Gore killed drug probe

Top police agency loses 24 kilos of cocaine

Thompson and Hays — Thu, 11 Jan 2001 01:00:00 +0000

A security guard at the new, ultra-modern Tennessee Bureau of Investigation headquarters used a wire coat hanger to steal 22 kilos of cocaine seized by the Tennessee Highway Patrol as evidence in a Dickson County, Tenn., narcotics case, according to high-ranking Tennessee Bureau of Investigation officials.

And fighting for his political life, TBI Director Larry Wallace, a longtime political ally of Vice President Al Gore, is pulling out all stops to keep the details of the incident out of the press.

Those same TBI officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Wallace, whose ongoing problems with securing evidence were detailed in earlier WND reports, has been calling in favors from all over Tennessee to keep the story from going public.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation officials were unaware that the cocaine was missing until a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer arrived last week to pick up the evidence for trial. The TBI couldn’t find the cocaine or any record showing its disposition.

In an effort to track down the missing evidence, Wallace sent his agents out to sheriffs’ offices in the region asking whether TBI had loaned it to them for a sting operation. A law enforcement tip to reporter Scott Couch of WTVF-TV in Nashville led to a brief report of the theft on Jan. 6. WSMV-TV in Nashville ran a more detailed account on Jan. 9, based on a statement from Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman Mark Gwyn.

But the TBI statement left out the method the guard used to gain entry to the evidence area, the actual amount of cocaine missing, the amount of cash seized, and the fact that the cocaine was evidence in a pending narcotics case. Confidential sources within TBI headquarters have provided WND with further details of the incident.

Arrested in the case was 27-year-old Jody Mark Tolar, an employee of a security firm subcontracted by Meridian Management of Florida. Meridian has a five-year contract with the state of Tennessee to provide security, custodial, maintenance and grounds care for TBI headquarters. Both Tennessee General Services Deputy Commissioner Ed Jones and Meridian Management refused to name the security firm, although Jones confirmed that the state had approved Meridian subcontracting the security for the building.

However, the state does not have a copy of the contract between Meridian and the subcontractor, U.S. Security.

Wallace, the TBI’s director since 1992, had lobbied the state legislature for the new facility for several years. Chief among his arguments for the $20.5 million appropriation was the inadequacy of evidence storage at their former location. Evidence had been stored in an old cafeteria, and TBI officials admitted to Commission on the Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies program officer Steve Mitchell that they illegally removed evidence from unsecured locations in order to pass the commission’s inspections.

Ignoring those admissions to Mitchell, CALEA renewed the TBI’s accreditation last August, about the same time that the new headquarters was opened. At that ceremony, on Aug. 31, 2000, Wallace called the building “the flagship of the criminal justice system in Tennessee.”

Despite those boasts, Tolar used a wire coat hanger to penetrate the allegedly “theft-proof” evidence vault. The guard allegedly gained entry through double-glass doors equipped with push-bars. The coat hanger was slipped between the doors and then hooked around the bar. Once pulled, the door opened with little effort. According to several Tennessee narcotics officers, the missing cocaine had a street value of $2 million or more.

An internal investigation led TBI agents to Tolar. According to the official TBI statement, agents obtained a warrant and searched Tolar’s home, locating some 8 kilos of cocaine and an undisclosed amount of cash. However, WND has learned that only 4 kilos were discovered and that agents seized some $88,000 in cash. The remaining 16 kilos are still missing.

The narcotics case has now collapsed for lack of evidence. Tolar is scheduled to appear in court tomorrow on drug conspiracy charges. Six other people have been arrested, but Gwyn declined to name them, although he noted that none of the six were employed by the TBI or the security firm.

In a black eye to the embattled law enforcement agency, spokesman Gwyn was forced to admit that a proper background check had never been completed on Tolar, who is under indictment in Nashville for reckless driving and a drug-related charge stemming from a March 17, 2000 arrest.

“We never received [a] background application on Tolar,” was Gwyn’s only excuse for the lack of a background investigation. Gwyn was also unable to provide the date that Tolar began working at the TBI building and whether he had clearance to be in the evidence area. Arrested with Tolar were six other individuals, but only one of those, Dustin Driver of Nashville, was charged with conspiracy as well.

This marks the second time in the last six months that reports of TBI losing evidence have surfaced. The other was the case of Johnny Moffitt, who was convicted of shooting his brother-in-law, Kenneth Waller, to death in 1989. Moffitt’s original conviction was overturned by the State Court of Criminal Appeals in Jackson, Tenn., in 1999, which ruled that the trial judge gave incomplete instructions to the jury and improperly excluded evidence that might have given Moffitt a viable alibi.

Moffitt refused a plea bargain arrangement in January 1999, maintaining his innocence and insisting that he was not guilty. Circuit Court Judge Roy Morgan ordered a new trial, but Moffitt agreed to the guilty plea last October because evidence that could have exonerated him was lost by the TBI — including the gun, his jacket and the casings allegedly from the gun used in the shooting. In yet another bizarre twist, after Moffitt consented to the guilty plea, it was revealed that the TBI had lost all of the evidence in the case and that a new trial would likely have resulted in Moffitt’s acquittal.

The incident is certain to further cloud Director Larry Wallace’s already cloudy future. After Wallace requested additional funding from the state legislature specifically for security measures in the new building, the theft of the cocaine may spur lawmakers to open an investigation of the agency, once a respected law enforcement agency and now having trouble securing its own headquarters.

Related stories:

Gore plays fixer to ‘crooked’ uncle

Officials say Gore killed drug probe

Why Gore lost Tennessee

Thompson and Hays — Tue, 05 Dec 2000 01:00:00 +0000

SAVANNAH, Tenn. — Vice President Al Gore is tortured by the fact
that he lost Tennessee, say friends. After all, had he won his home
state — the state he represented all his years in Congress — he would
now be President-elect Gore, with or without Florida.

“I know that’s one thing bothering him the most, that he lost
Tennessee,” said close friend Steve Armistead, who spent his summers
with Gore while growing up in Tennessee, according to a
New York
Times report. “The other night he asked me, ‘What happened in Tennessee?’”

Although the media have accurately reported that Tennessee’s 11 electoral votes would have put Gore at 271 and thereby made him the next president of the United States, most have missed the reason Gore suffered his first-ever defeat in Tennessee.

Indeed, 24 years ago in his first run for Congress, Gore won an overwhelming 94 percent of the vote. His dominance was such that he ran unopposed for his next two House terms. And when he ran for his second term in the Senate a decade ago, Gore became the first statewide candidate in Tennessee’s history to take all 95 counties.

So why did Gore lose Tennessee on Nov. 7 — the first time a presidential candidate has failed to win his own state since George McGovern lost his native South Dakota in 1972?

The usual press analysis is that Tennessee’s demographics have changed, sending the once-Democratic stronghold tipping to the Republican Party. Sen. Fred Thompson and Gov. Don Sundquist have echoed this idea, while Rep. Bill Jenkins, from historically Republican upper east Tennessee, noted in an Associated Press report that “Tennessee didn’t leave Gore. Gore left Tennessee.” He pointed to Gore’s changing stance on gun control and abortion as bellwethers.

Yet, while these issues may have played a role, the answer is far more fundamental than that.

“It was the character issue,” says popular Nashville radio talk host Phil Valentine. “Thanks to talk radio and sources like WorldNetDaily getting out the truth, I believe it tipped the state to Bush.”

Valentine initially broke a
story on Gore’s ties to alleged
criminal figures in Wilson County, Tenn., next door to Gore’s home county. Shortly after that, WorldNetDaily ran a series of investigative reports detailing Gore’s involvement in and interference with criminal investigations linked to his uncle,
retired judge Whit LaFon and top campaign fundraisers like
Clark Jones, of Savannah, Tenn. According to Valentine, it was stories like those that spelled Gore’s defeat.

“They [the stories] stayed under the radar nationally,” he said, “but around here they were on everyone’s lips.”

Charlotte Alexander, editor of the Decatur County Chronicle in Parsons, Tenn., agrees.

“Absolutely, it was the integrity issue,” she affirms. Alexander’s paper ran the WorldNetDaily series of articles profiling Gore’s seamy political dealings in Tennessee.

“We sold out of every edition that carried those stories. People literally drove in from hundreds of miles away to buy 25, 50, 100 copies, whatever they could afford, to take back with them,” she said. “We had well-known Democrats come in here after reading those stories and say out loud that they couldn’t be associated with somebody that behaved as Gore had.” Alexander even had additional copies printed, but the public soon gobbled those up as well.

“Those [WorldNetDaily] stories coming out about Gore involving himself in criminal investigations were just too much,” says former Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agent Milton Bowling. “I’m a Democrat, but I couldn’t get past that. I know plenty of people who felt the same way. It was never a matter of party in Tennessee; it was always about character and integrity. Gore flunked that test.”

The WND articles clearly had a major impact in Tennessee’s legal community, especially those reports dealing with Gore’s ties to Tennessee Bureau of Investigation Director Larry Wallace. According to former TBI director and now District Attorney General John Carney, at a recent meeting of the Tennessee District Attorney Generals Conference, the articles were widely discussed, yet only one DAG took issue with them, and that was longtime Wallace friend and Gore supporter Gus Radford of the 24th Judicial District.

“Gus was the only one trying to undermine them [the WND articles],” said Carney. Carney is now looking beyond the election toward bringing reform to the Tennessee law enforcement community after eight long years of Clinton-Gore influence. “Something needed to be done,” Carney said flatly. “That’s the message that went out in the communities. It’s time this mess got cleaned up.”

Is Tennessee turning Republican? Not really. Tennesseans have been conservative politically for decades. Since 1968, Tennessee has been a swing state in presidential politics, usually voting Republican, but giving its electoral votes to Democratic neighbors like Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Bill Clinton in 1996. The fallacy of the establishment media’s argument — that the state’s political demographics have changed — becomes clear upon examination of the way Tennesseans voted in their congressional races this year.

Historically, the mountainous regions of east Tennessee were staunchly Republican, while middle and west Tennessee were Democratic strongholds, with only Memphis holding a substantial Republican bloc. Any Republican candidate for state office had to come out of east Tennessee with a huge margin to overcome the Democratic totals in the western two-thirds of the state.

Despite Thompson’s and Sundquist’s claims to the contrary, the people of middle and west Tennessee have not changed their politics. In what was basically Gore’s old congressional district, Democratic incumbent Bart Gordon trounced his Republican opponent, and outpolled Gore in every county including Gore’s home county, Smith.

In Nashville, long a Democratic base, Rep. Bob Clement, son of a populist Democratic governor, outpolled the vice president by more than 28,000 votes. And Clement’s district does not include all of the city.

But the 6th District was no exception. In upper and central west Tennessee, home of the 8th District, Democrat incumbent John Tanner carried every county against a credible opponent. In Madison County (Jackson, Tenn., and hometown of Gore’s uncle, Whit LaFon), Tanner outpolled his party’s standard-bearer by more than 8,000 votes. By the media’s yardstick, Tanner, Gordon and Clement should have felt some of the same heat as Gore — but not only did they win convincingly, they outpolled their party’s presidential candidate in his home state.

Republican Rep. Ed Bryant and Rep. Van Hilleary hold seats that span historically Democratic counties, but in both cases, more than half of their victory margins came from the traditionally Republican territories in their districts. Moreover, Tennessee has a habit of returning incumbents, no matter the party.

Gore carried west Tennessee, but only marginally, and then only because of the Ford political machine in Shelby County (Memphis). The large African-American family has controlled Democratic politics in Memphis for decades, and Harold Ford Jr., who currently holds the congressional seat in that district, was Gore’s choice to deliver the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention. But even the Ford machine couldn’t make up the losses Gore sustained in what should have been his strongholds, middle and west Tennessee. And it was voters in those two regions, observers say, that brought concerns about Gore’s character and integrity to the ballot box with them.

The Gore campaign was evidently concerned about the influence of the WorldNetDaily stories early on. Doug Hattaway, one of Gore’s primary campaign spokesmen, personally called media outlets across middle and west Tennessee in late September and early October, pleading with, and in some cases reportedly threatening, news directors to keep the stories off the air and out of print.

“Doug Hattaway called me,” said freelance TV reporter Tommy Stafford. Stafford had produced a story for WMC-TV in Memphis on the Thompson-Hays articles in WorldNetDaily. “He hammered at me,” said Stafford, “but I told him, ‘Look, I interviewed these guys. They’re credible.’” Hattaway then turned his attention to the news director at the Memphis station and the story was put on indefinite hold. “It was that kind of arrogance, plus the credibility issues, that beat Gore in Tennessee,” said Stafford. “Political parties didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“It was an uphill battle against news sources like the Tennessean, who refused to tell the true story,” said Valentine. “I think people began to question Gore’s character and integrity here in Tennessee. I think the truth came back to bite Gore in Tennessee, and I find it ironic that, if Florida holds for Bush, it will be Tennessee that was Gore’s downfall.”

“Whether the mainstream media believed the WorldNetDaily stories were credible or not,” said Alexander, “the voters did. I’ve never seen articles that attracted the kind of attention these did. They cost Gore the margin he needed in middle and west Tennessee. They cost Gore Tennessee’s electoral votes. That’s a fact.”

If you would like to sound off on this issue, please take part in the
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Newspaper threatened over WND articles

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – An 8-year-old, $165 million defamation case against WND springing from a series of stories about then-presidential candidate Al Gore has been settled.

The terms of the out-of-court agreement with auto dealer Clark Jones are confidential. The settlement averts the need for a trial in Tennessee that was scheduled for next month.

Below is the text of the settlement statement jointly drafted by all parties in the lawsuit. Both sides agreed to limit comment on the lawsuit to this statement:

“A lawsuit for libel, defamation, false light and conspiracy was filed by Clark Jones of Savannah, Tennessee against WorldNetDaily.com, Tony Hays and Charles H. Thompson II arising out of a press release issued by WorldNetDaily.com on September 18, 2000, and articles dated September 20, October 8, November 24 and December 5, 2000, written by Tony Hays and Charles H. Thompson, II, posted on WorldNetDaily.com’s website.

“The original news release by WorldNetDaily.com of September 18, 2000, and the article by Hays and Thompson of September 20, 2000, contained statements attributed to named sources, which statements cast Clark Jones in a light which, if untrue, defamed him by asserting that the named persons said that he had interfered with a criminal investigation, had been a ‘subject’ of a criminal investigation, was listed on law enforcement computers as a ‘dope dealer,’ and implied that he had ties to others involved in alleged criminal activity. These statements were repeated in the subsequently written articles and funds solicitations posted on WorldNetDaily.com’s website. Clark Jones emphatically denied the truth of these statements, denied any criminal activity and called upon the publisher and authors to retract them.

“Discovery has revealed to WorldNetDaily.com that no witness verifies the truth of what the witnesses are reported by authors to have stated. Additionally, no document has been discovered that provides any verification that the statements written were true.

“Factual discovery in the litigation and response from Freedom of Information Act requests to law enforcement agencies confirm Clark Jones’ assertion that his name has never been on law enforcement computers, that he has not been the subject of any criminal investigation nor has he interfered with any investigation as stated in the articles. Discovery has also revealed that the sources named in the publications have stated under oath that statements attributed to them in the articles were either not made by them, were misquoted by the authors, were misconstrued, or the statements were taken out of context.

“WorldNetDaily.com and its editors never intended any harm to Clark Jones and regret whatever harm occurred. WorldNetDaily.com has no verified information by which to question Mr. Jones’ honesty and integrity, and having met him, has no claim or reason to question his honesty and integrity. WorldNetDaily.com wishes him well.”

Newspaper threatened over WND articles

Thompson and Hays — Fri, 24 Nov 2000 01:00:00 +0000

SAVANNAH, Tenn. — Tennessee attorney Houston Gordon, former state Democratic Party head and the 1998 party candidate for U.S.
Senate against Fred Thompson, is attempting to intimidate a west Tennessee weekly newspaper editor for having reprinted three
WorldNetDaily articles.

According to Charlotte Alexander, editor of the Decatur County Chronicle, she received a call two weeks ago from someone identifying
herself as an employee of Gordon’s Covington, Tenn., law firm. The caller asked general questions about the newspaper and then hung
up. This week, Gordon himself called Alexander and advised her — in what she termed a “bullying” tone — that Clark Jones, a
subject of several of the
WorldNetDaily articles penned by reporters Charles C. Thompson II and Tony Hays, will “probably sue for libel” over allegations made in those articles.

Gordon and Jones have a long personal history. Both have been major factors in the Tennessee Democratic Party with Gordon serving as chairman and Jones, most recently, acting as treasurer for Tennessee Democratic Victory 2000. A car dealer in Savannah, Tenn., just south of Decatur County, Jones was named in 1993 as one of 11 members of the President’s Commission on Small Businesses.

Jones is so well known in Gore finance circles that he was contacted and interviewed by the Philadelphia Inquirer and other newspapers for stories on his fundraising efforts for Gore. And so close is their personal relationship, that Gore bought Al III an Oldsmobile Alero from Jones’s car dealership. (The 18-year-old was arrested Aug. 12 for speeding, driving 97 mph in a 55 mph zone, and pleaded guilty this week.)

The primary WorldNetDaily article dealing with Jones involved a Tennessee Bureau of Investigation probe in Hardin County, Tenn., home to Savannah. After a clandestine meeting with Jones, the investigation, which eventually encompassed Jones, his brother Charlie and Chancery Court Judge Ron Harmon, simply died. The FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency ultimately picked up the probe.

When WND released the articles in late September, Jones contacted a number of local sources quoted in the pieces and asked that they recant their statements. Out of more than a dozen sources, only realtor Benny Austin claimed he’d been misquoted. Several of the other individuals quoted were told by Jones that Savannah Mayor Bob Shutt, a key source in the article, had recanted his statement in writing. Not so, said Shutt, who told WorldNetDaily, “I would never do that.”

Tony Hays, one of the WND writers, contributes local news to an area online newspaper,
The Savannah Journal. About the same time that Charlotte Alexander received her first call from Gordon’s office, Hays got a similar call. In this case, Gordon employee Scott Simon claimed he wanted to list a classified ad to sell his car. After asking pointed questions about Savannah Journal staff members and circulation, Hays called the bluff and replied: “You don’t want to advertise a car; you’re on a fishing expedition for Houston Gordon and Clark Jones.” Hays was not contacted again.

Oddly, WorldNetDaily, the original publisher of the articles, has not been contacted by Gordon’s office. According to libel law, the original publisher bears the primary liability. And since WND is located in Oregon, the case would have to be filed there. In any case, Gordon and Jones will have to meet three difficult burdens of proof: a) that the allegations in the article were false; b) that Hays and Thompson knew they were false and printed them anyway; and c) that they did so with actual malice or reckless disregard for the truth.

For her part, Charlotte Alexander is more than ready for the battle. “If they want to go to war, I’ll be there. If I’d had any doubts as to the credibility of the articles or authors, I would never have reprinted the series.”

Noting that she sold out of all issues containing the WorldNetDaily articles, Alexander added, “Most people who come into the office comment that it’s about time the truth was published.”

Repeated calls to Gordon’s office were not returned.

Al Gore’s Uncle Whit

Gore plays fixer to ‘crooked’ uncle

Officials say Gore killed drug probe

Gore rep tries to keep media off WND stories

Gore condoned Russian mafia?

Gore’s, Talbott’s Red Russian roots

Gore’s WWI uncle AWOL

Al Gore protects local corruption?

CIA official: Gore compromised by secret past

Al Gore, polluter?

Experts fear Russia to blackmail Gore

Gore brings back $640 toilet seat

Gore book author withdraws support

Al framed councilman for newspaper scoop?

Gore protected military thieves?

MEMPHIS, Tenn. – An 8-year-old, $165 million defamation case against WND springing from a series of stories about then-presidential candidate Al Gore has been settled.

The terms of the out-of-court agreement with auto dealer Clark Jones are confidential. The settlement averts the need for a trial in Tennessee that was scheduled for next month.

Below is the text of the settlement statement jointly drafted by all parties in the lawsuit. Both sides agreed to limit comment on the lawsuit to this statement:

Gore protected military thieves?

Thompson and Hays — Tue, 07 Nov 2000 01:00:00 +0000

When Daniel Scott Burrus stole gas masks, flight bags, flak jackets,
helmets, magazines for .223-caliber ammunition and night-vision goggles
from the Oklahoma Air National Guard this year, he was indicted by a
federal grand jury. Shawn Timothy Nelson was shot and killed after he
stole a tank from a California National Guard base in 1995. But when
several National Guardsmen in Al Gore’s backyard were caught filching
military equipment from area Guard units in 1992, then-Sen. Gore,
according to the investigator that handled the case, stepped in and kept
the thieves from being court-martialed.

The 1990s saw a plethora of cases involving theft from U.S. military
facilities, many from the National Guard, as in the 1993 case of Mark S.
Carter, a former Michigan Guardsman who told a congressional committee
that he hawked M-16 rifle parts at a gun show because of “severe
financial difficulty.”

In Tennessee, in the aftermath of the Persian Gulf War, many of the
National Guard units came back with quantities of equipment they had not
previously been assigned, much of it surplus. Some 2 or 3 million
dollars worth of that equipment disappeared from National Guard units
surrounding the Cookeville, Tenn., area.

Then-National Guard Capt. Richard Holt, a lifetime police officer and
later chief of police in Cookeville, was assigned by the Tennessee
National Guard to track the missing equipment. His investigation led
him to a number of local guardsmen and other citizens.

“It wasn’t tremendously difficult” to find the culprits, he told
WorldNetDaily. When the dust had settled, Holt had relocated $1.2
million worth of the missing property, mostly on the farms and property
of guardsmen and other prominent citizens of the Cookeville area. One
non-commissioned officer had two expensive graders on his property.

Holt retrieved the property and set about preparing cases against his
suspects.

“I wanted to prosecute all of them,” Holt remembered, “but I
especially wanted to court-martial the guardsmen involved. They
deserved to be drummed out of the service.” But before he could bring
charges, a letter came from Gore’s office urging a halt to the
courts-martial.

“He just shut us down,” said Holt of the 1992 investigation he
headed. “He said the whole matter should be dropped.”

Nothing Holt could do kept the cases active. He has since retired
from the National Guard and now works with the Tennessee District
Attorney General’s Conference.

Just as perplexing as Gore’s alleged protection of the government
thieves, is what happened to the equipment that wasn’t retrieved.
According to federal government sources, much of the material that has
gone missing from military installations now has links to militia and
white-supremacist groups.

A 1996 Dayton, Ohio, Daily Herald story details a June 1994 incident
when a self-storage unit was found to contain numerous military items
including several crates of “military explosives.” Other searches
related to the incident uncovered photographs of camouflage-dressed men
atop an armored vehicle equipped with large caliber machineguns. The
storage unit was located in Hendersonville, Tenn. — less than 100 miles
from Putnam County.

In fact, an analysis of government records by the Dayton Daily News
indicates that during the Clinton-Gore years, theft of military weapons
has been rampant — but has netted the defendants little or no jail
time.

“More than three times every week,” reported Russ Carollo and Jeff
Nesmith of the Daily News, “the military reported losing explosives and
other weapons.” Of 166 weapons-related courts-martial studied by
Carollo and Nesmith, less than half (78) were sentenced to more than six
months. Another third received confinements of 90 days or less.

But that’s just when they’re caught. The growing lack of fiscal and
property oversight during the Clinton-Gore years seems to have
aggravated an already severe problem. A 1997 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
article notes that many thefts go unreported by the Army, such as the
1996 Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo., case involving the theft of 54 claymore
mines — more than the Army had reported in the previous seven years.
The Air Force Audit Agency reported in 1994 that some 1,200 M-16 rifles
were unreported in the Air Force’s small-arms registry. Las Vegas
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Agent Ed Verkin recalls that
when he called a military base to notify officials of one of their
weapons he had recovered — which was then lying on his desk — military
personnel denied that it was missing.

For Holt, these stories make perfect sense.

“When politicians interfere with prosecution, civilian or military,
it sends a message to everybody else that they can risk stealing
government property with a fairly good chance at impunity,” he told
WND. “In the case I investigated, Al Gore seemed more interested in
protecting his friends than safeguarding the taxpayers’ money.”

Al framed councilman for newspaper 'scoop'?

Thompson and Hays — Tue, 31 Oct 2000 01:00:00 +0000

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The former Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
supervisor in charge of the 1974 arrest of a black city councilman has
revealed to WorldNetDaily that the investigation was phony, designed to
aggrandize young Al Gore’s reputation as an ace investigative reporter
working for The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, while ruining the
reputation of an innocent man.

The former agent, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said he
still feared for his life from “the same clique of people who are behind
Al Gore.” This agent has a legendary reputation among older and retired
TBI agents for candor and bravery.

“He’s the real thing. If he tells you something, then you can bank
on it,” said John Carney, who headed the Tennessee Bureau of
Investigation in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Carney also said this
supervisor played a major role in apprehending then-Tennessee Gov. Ray
Blanton for selling pardons, paroles and liquor licenses during the
mid-1970s.

According to the case supervisor and other former agents, the TBI was
investigating alleged corruption — namely, widespread solicitation and
acceptance of bribes in return for zoning concessions — on the part of
members of the Metro Council.

However, Nashville was a loose-lipped, incestuous town 30 years ago,
and the TBI secret investigation of the council quickly leaked to John
Seigenthaler, editor of the Tennessean. Word of the probe also leaked to
two council members — Avon Williams, a black council leader who was a
particular favorite of Seigenthaler’s, and Mansfield Douglas, another
black council member — as well as to Gilbert Merritt, a young attorney
who would be appointed at the age of 28 to be U.S. attorney in
Nashville.

(Merritt’s legal career later skyrocketed, largely through his
political wheeling and dealing. He went on to be named a U.S. District
judge in Nashville and a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge in
Cincinnati. He was also on President Bill Clinton’s short list to be
appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. A friend of Al Gore’s family for
most of his life, he was known affectionately as “Buddy” by Albert Gore
Sr.)

Council member Douglas was delegated to alert the entire 42-member
council about the state law enforcement agency’s sting operation. This
discussion allegedly took place at Seigenthaler’s home where the
participants watched a Super Bowl Game. Douglas, a well-respected Metro
Council member, refused to talk with WorldNetDaily.

Tennessee Bureau of Investigation agents assigned to the Metro
Council case said they were aware that their investigation had been
compromised. They also said they were sure Al Gore knew that all the
potential targets on the commission had been tipped off.

Nevertheless, Gore told Seigenthaler that he had the makings of a
spectacular investigative news story involving bribery of a Metro
Council member.

At the time, Gore, who was considered a mediocre writer and reporter
by other staff members at the paper, was by all journalistic standards
uniquely unqualified to handle such a sensitive story. At
Seigenthaler’s insistence, Gore had attended a two-week-long seminar on
investigative reporting at Columbia Journalism School in New York in
1972. That was about the sum total of his journalism education, and he
had very little on-the-job experience.

According to “Gore: A Political Life,” by former ABC News reporter
Bob Zelnick, Gore claimed he had been approached by a wealthy Nashville
land developer, Gilbert Cohen. (Cohen had previously leaked secret
information to Gore about police misbehavior while Cohen was foreman of
the local grand jury. That was a clear violation of criminal law, but
Gore and The Tennessean were still grateful for the tidbits.)

Cohen told Gore that Morris Haddox, a popular, young African-American
Metro Council member, who also owned a pharmacy, was shaking him down
for $1,000 to secure a construction permit. Gore wanted to wire Cohen
and send him in with some of the alleged extortion money to entrap
Haddox.

The TBI agents, knowing full well that Haddox and all the other Metro
Council members had been tipped off, wanted nothing to do with the
operation. Seigenthaler then leaned on his lifelong friend, District
Attorney General Tom Shriver, for help. Shriver, who had once been a
Tennessean copy boy, held TBI’s and the Metro Police’s feet to the fire
and had them go along with Gore’s scheme.

Wearing a wire, Cohen met Haddox with a $300 down payment on the
bribe. Haddox told prosecutors that he had been tipped in advance about
the attempted entrapment and was merely holding the $300 (which had been
supplied by the Tennessean) to turn it over to the police. The paper and
the prosecutors held the story while they attempted to sort out problems
with their evidence. For one thing, the tapes were virtually inaudible.

The African-American community was outraged, charging the case had
been a political “scenario” written by Seigenthaler and Gore. And there
was another matter: Haddox and Williams were political opponents who
were expected to run against each other in an upcoming state senatorial
race. Seigenthaler supported Williams over Haddox, and as a result of
the indictment, Haddox was forced to leave the race, his reputation
ruined for many years, while Williams was elected.

The first trial ended in a mistrial. Haddox was acquitted in a
retrial a month later. His attorney, William C. Wilson called the case,
“the meanest, vilest, sneakiest method of law enforcement.”

“It was John Seigenthaler’s way of making his boy, Al Gore, into a
hero, but it backfired,” said the TBI supervisor who participated in the
Haddox sting. “However, it dragged a man’s life through the mud for 26
years, and that’s a crime.”

“I don’t hate Al Gore,” Haddox told WND. “I’m probably going to vote
for him. I just wish he’d be more open about saying that he was sorry
for what he did to me.”

Shortly after these crushing verdicts by two juries, Gore turned in
his investigative hat. He took a leave of absence from the paper and
began a course of study at Vanderbilt Law School, which he never
finished. He also wrote editorials part-time for the Tennessean.

But that wasn’t the end of Gore’s version of what happened during his
days at the Tennessean. When Seigenthaler called Gore in 1976 and
convinced him to run for Congress, they both realized that Gore’s
credentials were thin. He had only held two jobs as an adult. He had
been a junior non-commissioned officer pushing papers in a rear echelon,
non-combat billet, and he had failed as an investigative reporter.
However, both of those jobs were burnished to the point that Gore was
repelling Viet Cong onslaughts and sending malefactors to jails all over
the country.

Eventually, he was taken to task on both counts, especially during
his 1988 first presidential campaign, when he bragged to the Des Moines
Register that his investigating reporting “got a bunch of people
indicted and sent to jail.” He was forced to admit that was hyperbole,
but he never admitted framing an innocent man for self-aggrandizement.
Repeated efforts to contact Gore’s campaign were unsuccessful.

Attempts to reach Judge Merritt in his chambers in Nashville and
Cincinnati were unsuccessful. Avon Williams is deceased. Cohen moved
away from Nashville some years ago, and WND’s repeated efforts to reach
him failed. Seigenthaler, who is chairman emeritus of the Tennessean and
an official on Gannett’s Freedom Forum First Amendment Committee, also
refused to answer WND’s telephone calls.

Gore book author withdraws support

Thompson and Hays — Mon, 30 Oct 2000 01:00:00 +0000

A former FBI agent who specialized in Tennessee political corruption
and wrote one of the earliest and most positive biographies of Vice
President Al Gore has taken out ads in the Nashville Tennessean
newspaper publicly withdrawing his support from Gore.

Henderson “Hank” Hillin, a 26-year veteran of the FBI and a one-time
sheriff of Davidson County, Tenn. (Nashville), took the extraordinary
step because, as he said in his ads, “I no longer admire the VP, no
longer trust his character or integrity. Al, I mistook your ambition for
leadership. Your struggle with the truth is depressing.”

His 1988 biography,

“Al Gore Jr.: Born to Lead,” was a highly flattering account of Gore’s life leading up to his aborted run for the presidency that year.

Hillin is considered one of the straightest arrows of the “old” FBI, a man committed to law, honesty and ethics. His abrupt turnaround shocked some of his acquaintances, but Hillin talked to WorldNetDaily about why he ran the ads.

“I just couldn’t take it anymore,” Hillin said. “There was just so much of it [Gore's exaggerations].” Gore’s dishonesty, said Hillin, plus revelations of the vice president’s fundraising activities among Chinese groups and his

association with Soviet agent and American
entrepreneur Armand Hammer, made Hillin’s decision for him.

“When Gore took all that money from the Chinese, that was the end of it. One of the last communist powers in the world and here was Gore cozying up to them,” Hillin said. “When I wrote the biographies of Gore Jr., I wasn’t aware of how closely connected he was with Armand Hammer. Hammer was definitely a Soviet agent,” continued the former FBI agent. “I’m not campaigning for anyone. I just feel like he really let me down. I feel like Al has gotten under the influence of bad people.”

And in a blow straight to the heart of Gore’s credibility gap, the ads say, “Sorry, Mr. VP, but Bill Bradley said it first and best: ‘If we can’t trust you as a candidate, then how can we trust you in the White House?’” The ads also take Gore to task for such moves as “flip-flopping on abortion” and his ill-considered tolerance of President Clinton’s ‘immorality’ in the White House.

Hillin led the investigation into the infamous Tennessee pardons and paroles scandal of the late 1970s and ’80s. Aides to then-Gov. Ray Blanton were selling releases from Tennessee state prisons for as much as $10,000 each. The FBI probe resulted in the unprecedented early swearing-in of Blanton’s successor, Lamar Alexander, in 1978, three days before the planned inauguration. Tennessee officials, including current Lt. Gov. John Wilder and then-house speaker (and later governor) Ned McWherter, were afraid Blanton was set to sign another batch of pardons on the eve of his departure from office.

Eventually two top Blanton aides and a high-ranking state trooper were indicted and convicted in the scam. Author Peter Maas wrote a fluff book called “Marie,” detailing the story of Marie Ragghianti, a member of Blanton’s pardons and paroles board, which Frank Capra Jr. filmed in 1985. Hillin himself penned his first book on the case called “FBI: Codename TennPar.” Blanton eventually went to prison, convicted of selling liquor licenses in Davidson County. The pardons and paroles case spawned a federal bid-rigging investigation that resulted in indictments against 249 corporate defendants and 251 individual defendants in 20 states.

After his retirement from the FBI, Hillin began work on an unauthorized biography of Gore in preparation for his run for president in 1988. His book lauded Gore as “America’s most promising and outstanding candidate for national office since President John F. Kennedy.” A rework of the book,

“Al Gore Jr.: His life and
career,” appeared in time for the 1992 campaign.

Hillin’s ads come at a critical time in the campaign for Tennessee, just as Gov. George W. Bush is showing a slight lead in the state. What impact, if any, this major defection will have on the Gore numbers is yet to be seen, but Gore campaign spokesperson Tina Moffat expressed disappointment at Hillin’s decision.

“It’s unfortunate that he feels that way,” she told the Nashville Scene, “but he’s entitled to his own opinion.”