Lt. Col. Bill Burkett

Is he the forger? The excerpts below, pulled from the transcript of Hardball with Chris Matthews, seem to lay out the most likely events that led to the 'missing' National Guard files of George W. Bush. Bill Burkett's weirdness considering... As was mentioned earlier, the DoD has 1 week to find the rest. And again, where is Joe Allbaugh? http://editoriale.blogspot.com/2004/04/wheres-joe-allbaugh.html http://editoriale.blogspot.com/2004/03/joe-allbaugh-his-wife-and-california.html ------------------------------ LT. COL. BILL BURKETT, RET., TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD: In a series of three sub-events, I witnessed the governor‘s office call to the adjutant general of the Texas National Guard, a directive to gather the files, and then the subscript to that was make sure there was nothing there that would embarrass the governor. I witnessed also the directive, an informal directive to a staff member to gather those files, and then on a third occasion, I witnessed that in fact, there was some activity under way with some files, some personal files of Bush, comma, George W., first lieutenant, 1 lt., as it was put in handwriting at the top of files within a trash can. MATTHEWS: Well, let‘s set this in time. When did you make these—did you see these events occur? BURKETT: These events occurred in late spring of 1997. MATTHEWS: 1997. Tell me about the location of these events. When did you—where did you—where were you when you witnessed these three events that involved the president‘s National Guard records? BURKETT: Mr. Matthews, I was a traditional guardsman until 1996, and to make this extraordinarily brief, I‘m a strategic planner in the private world, or was. I was brought to active duty for a short period of time under a special project to build a strategic plan that would make the Texas National Guard more effective, more efficient, and more relevant to the active duty force. I had access and in fact worked directly for Adjutant General Daniel James, through other people—it sounds like a conflict, but in this case, when you‘re doing planning, you have to know the vision and the intent of the commander. That was my job as a professional officer. In 1997, I had access to hear the telephone call and then I also had access to hear the transfer and (UNINTELLIGIBLE). MATTHEWS: OK. Let‘s go through the events that you‘ve witnessed, that you‘re eyewitness to. First of all, there‘s a telephone call, a conference call involving the adjutant general, General James. What did you hear him say about the president—or heard said to him about the president‘s Guard records and who was talking? BURKETT: Well, there was nothing said about the Guard records as far as quality or something, but the conveyance directive was, and these are paraphrased words, the exact words are probably within—better phrased outside, and I don‘t want to play a word game, but the conveyance was for the adjutant general to gather those files, or cause those files to be gathered. That Karen Hughes and Dan Bartlett from the governor‘s office would be out, they were writing a book for the governor‘s reelection campaign or something further maybe, and that those files needed to be gathered, and the last conveyance was to ensure that there was nothing in there that would embarrass the governor. MATTHEWS: Whose voice did you hear on the phone? BURKETT: Mr. Joe Allbaugh, chief of staff of the governor‘s office. Mr. Dan Bartlett was also on that telephone call. MATTHEWS: How about Karen Hughes? What was her role? BURKETT: She was not on that phone call. I never had access to, nor did I see Karen Hughes within this entire event. She was simply referred to as coming out to Camp Mayberry (ph) to view the files and write a book. MATTHEWS: How do you know that Dan Bartlett‘s voice was the voice you heard? How do you know Joe Allbaugh‘s voice was the voice you heard? BURKETT: Primarily because there was reference to both of them in the first phone call, there was reference to both of them within the conveyance, the informal but direct conveyance of that message to gather the files to the state service... MATTHEWS: What do you mean by conveyance? I don‘t know that. What is conveyance? (CROSSTALK) BURKETT: It is just, in this case, it was General James was moving between meetings very rapidly. General officers do that sort of thing. Senior officers do that thing. He happened into somebody that was on the way to—he was—that he saw on the way to the meeting that was responsible for that area, and he told him he wanted this done. MATTHEWS: And where was that? Where did you overhear that conversation? BURKETT: That was the following—that was the following day, Mr. Matthews, the day after the directive from the governor‘s office. MATTHEWS: So how many instances did you observe this effort to try to gather the president‘s—the now president‘s records? How many times did you overhear conversations? BURKETT: The first time I overheard a conversation, then I heard the conveyance, as I said, the directive to get it done. The third time I saw files in a trash can.