Conservatives try to nail Murtha with bogus ABSCAM accusations

[LTR]

Here's the Drudge headline:

MURTHA 'ABSCAM' FBI SURVEILLANCE VIDEO REVEALED FOR FIRST TIME...

And the 'damning' evidence? Nada:

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10427

If one were to believe Congressman Murtha, he met with men whom he believed to be representatives of Arab sheiks on January 7, 1980, to discuss "investments in his district," with the object of bringing in jobs. After news of the Abscam investigation broke and FBI agents fanned out around Washington notifying their targets on February 2, 1980, Murtha told reporters, "I did not consider that any money was offered, and certainly none was taken, and the FBI who taped the entire conversation knows damn well no money changed hands." The February 9, 1980 Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report echoed that story, reporting Murtha as saying, "I assumed the lawyer was going to make the $50,000 .... Then later I thought, 'Their lawyer's getting $50,000 and he's not worth too much because doesn't even know how to get his client into the country.'"

That story continues to this day. The USA Today reported in its 2004 candidate profile of Jack Murtha, "He declared he was innocent, saying he had 'met with two men who I believed had a substantial line of credit that could provide up to 1,000 jobs for the district. I broke no law. I took no money.' A grand jury and the House ethics panel cleared Murtha of any wrongdoing."

And in a February 2006 interview with John McLaughlin, Murtha said he told agents he was not interested in a bribe: "I said, 'I'm interested in investment in my district, period.'" In the same interview, Murtha did not dispel the eager McLaughlin of the notions that calling him an "unindicted co-conspirator" is a "crude, cheap, and actionable smear" and that the ethics committee "exonerated" him. Murtha said he only had "two votes against out of 17 counts. I mean, it was -- it cleared completed . That was in the grand jury stage of it, for heaven's sakes."

I dunno. I read through the whole thing, and I can't find anything that's damning to Murtha. Anyone else?

:shrug:

[ShockediSay]

1. It's the NeoCon Noise & NonTruth Machine

& already it's so active in this election

[tanyev]

2. Well, well, well. Let's talk about what George Bush was doing

in the 70s and early 80s.