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Rathergate Memos Linked to Abilene, TX

The Washington Post reports that one of the experts who was asked by CBS to review the Killiam memos says at least one of the documents was faxed from a Kinkos in Ablilene, Texas. Who's from Abilene?

There is only one Kinko's in Abilene, and it is 21 miles from the Baird, Tex., home of retired Texas National Guard officer Bill Burkett, who has been named by several news outlets as a possible source for the documents....Burkett, who has accused Bush aides of ordering the destruction of some portions of the president's National Guard record because they might have been politically embarrassing, did not return telephone calls to his home.

In news interviews earlier this year, Burkett said he overheard a telephone conversation in the spring of 1997 in which top Bush aides asked the head of the Texas National Guard to sanitize Bush's files as he was running for a second term as governor of Texas. Several days later, he said, he saw dozens of pages from Bush's military file dumped in a trash can at Camp Mabry, the Guard's headquarters.

What top Bush aides asked for a file purge?

The Bush aides Burkett named as participants in the telephone conversation were Chief of Staff Joe M. Allbaugh and spokespersons Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett. All three Bush aides and former Texas National Guard Maj. Gen. Daniel James have strongly denied the allegations.

Earlier this year, Burkett gave interviews to numerous news outlets, including The Washington Post, alleging corruption and malfeasance at the top of the Texas National Guard, many of which have never been substantiated. He has also been a named source for several reports by USA Today, which reported Monday that it had independently obtained copies of the disputed memos soon after the broadcast.

The article reports that Burkett had a beef with the Guard over medical benefits, and that he in the past he suffered a breakdown. He gave several interviews in the recent past, and on August 14, 2004, posted on a weblog claiming to have seen "a two-page counseling statement" signed by Lt. Col. Jerry Killian.

< Rather Wavers Over Authenticity of Guard Memos | Two Americans, Briton, Kidnapped in Baghdad >
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