Attorneys for three people banned from President Bush’s Social Security information meeting in Denver last month say the Secret Service has reopened its investigation of the case.
Secret Service agent Mark Hughes called David Miller, an attorney for Alex Young, Leslie Weise and Karen Bauer, said Dan Recht, Miller’s co-counsel.
Hughes told Miller that agents have been sent from Washington to Denver to investigate “whether a crime was committed’ at the Social Security meeting, Recht said Thursday.
The call came after Miller filed a freedom of information request. The FOI filing asked for an earlier Secret Service report containing the name of the person who removed Young, Weise and Bauer from the public event. The earlier report said the only reason Young, Weise and Bauer were forced to leave was because they arrived in a car with a bumper sticker that said “No More Blood for Oil.’
“We got a call from the Secret Service wanting to interview our clients,’ Recht said. “They said they had people out here interviewing people who were at the (Social Security) event.’
Secret Service spokesman Jonathan Cherry refused to say if investigators are in Denver.
A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Bob Beauprez, whose office gave Young, Weise and Bauer tickets to the presidential visit, said the Secret Service had not contacted the congressman’s staff.
Beauprez press secretary Jordan Stoick refused to supply the name of anyone from the White House who coordinated Bush’s appearance in Colorado.
The White House has refused to name its Denver advance team.
Recht said Miller’s discussion with Hughes indicated that the Secret Service will try to talk again to the man who Young, Weise and Bauer claim impersonated a Secret Service agent. That person forced them to leave the March 21 Social Security meeting before the president arrived.
The earlier Secret Service investigation determined that the person who did this was a staffer with the “host committee.’ Local Republicans say the White House ran the event.
Removal of the so-called Denver Three has become a month-long political embarrassment for the Bush administration. The White House refuses to say who booted Young, Weise and Bauer. The Secret Service insists it wasn’t an agent but refuses to reveal the name of the Republican staff member who reportedly admitted to removing the trio.
U.S. Rep. Mark Udall and Sen. Ken Salazar, both Democrats from Colorado, have called for an investigation into whether the Republican staffer broke the law by impersonating an agent.
Udall called a reopened investigation “good news.’
“I feel like the Secret Service has been caught in the middle because of the bad behavior of a political staff member,’ Udall said Thursday.
He cited cases of Bush opponents kept from taxpayer-financed Social Security information meetings in North Dakota and Arizona as representing a “larger pattern.’ That pattern, said Udall, suggests that what happened in Denver “was not just a rogue staffer.’
The Secret Service, Udall continued, needs to quickly identify the person who removed Young, Weise and Bauer to clear its name and get back to its work protecting the president.
But Recht says the new investigation allows the Secret Service not to tell his clients who their malefactor was or who trained him.
“They’re saying that at this point they can’t release the name because it’s an ongoing investigation,’ said Recht, who is still deciding whether his clients will speak to investigators. “If the Secret Service opened another investigation to deny our Freedom of Information Act request, that just adds to the stonewalling.’
It also keeps the White House fielding near-daily inquiries about dirty tricks that unfairly – and possibly illegally – destroy political dissent.
That helps no one’s reputation.
Especially the president’s.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com
