16:50 - 12 March, 2005
Biden and Gannon?
Jeff Gannon Continues to Hint at the Involvement, in Gannongate, of the Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Joe Biden
By ADVOCATE STAFF
On February 19th, 2005, The Advocate reported that the Ranking Minority Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Joe Biden (D-DE), had said, on Bill Maher's cable television show "Real Talk,"
The bottom line is that, why isn't every major network in the country investigating a security breach [with regard to the Jeff Gannon affair]?Forget anything else. How could the F.B.I....seventeen years I was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the Ranking Member, I read more F.B.I. reports than I ever wanted to know. How could that happen and no one have any idea who this guy was?
Forget everything else, assume he went in there and he was a saint. How could that be? We should know that.
There should be, the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate should be investigating it, the House Judiciary Committee should be investigating it.
And if it were the other party in charge, it would be investigated.
However, when the time came to send a letter to the Bush Administration demanding answers on the Gannongate scandal--specifically, what special contacts in Washington Jeff Gannon had in order to get access to the White House--Joe Biden's signature was nowhere to be found. Aides to Biden said the Senator was given insufficient time to read the letter and decide whether or not to sign it.
Coincidence, or calculation? At the time, many wondered how a Senator so intent on investigating Gannongate could fail to lend his John Hancock to the only effort being made in Congress to do so.
Then something odd happened.
As The Advocate noted in this March 6th, 2005 article,
[i]n other, late-breaking news, Gannon has made a fabulously tantalizing assertion on his blog: that he met U.S. Senator Joe Biden (D-DE) "some years ago" under circumstances Gannon did not disclose. Gannon added, "[t]here is so much more to this story that has yet to be told."
Is The Bulldog hyping a forthcoming book, or getting ready to name some names?
At the time, Gannon appeared to be referencing a prior contact between himself and Biden which, the former Talon News "reporter" implied, was not one the Senator would wish to publicly recount. Said Gannon cryptically, "I wonder why [Biden] didn't mention meeting me some years ago[?] C'mon Joe, think..."
The tone of Gannon's comment suggested that something about the former meeting between the two was illicit--either in fact, or in context. [That is, either the circumstances of the meeting would bring controversy to Biden if they were known, or else, and more innocuously, the mere fact that Biden already "knew" Gannon, even if that prior knowledge had a non-controversial basis, would somehow weaken the Senator's position on a prospective Gannongate investigation].
Well, the story has now taken an incredible twist.
Says Gannon on his blog, today, "lefty bloggers [are] oddly silent about this," referencing, via hyperlink, this Newsmax article on a gay sex scandal.
Involving a member of Joe Biden's staff.
Now, The Nashua Advocate makes no bones about putting little stock in Newsmax; they're not a source we regularly (or ever) cite. Nor does the "gay sex" angle appeal to The Advocate in covering the Gannongate scandal--except (as we've always said) to the extent it might explain how Gannon got into the White House. Indeed, Bill Maher, just moments before his interview with Joe Biden, speculated aloud that Jeff Gannon had contacts in high places in Washington, due not to his journalistic skills, but due to his possible involvement in the gay sex trade in the city.
According to Newsmax,
A former aide to U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden has been sentenced to three years in prison for stealing more than $400,000 in campaign funds partly to buy gifts for men he met through the Internet.Roger Blevins III, 34, a former assistant campaign treasurer for Biden, was sentenced in federal court Thursday after pleading guilty last year to two charges, including interstate transportation of stolen property.
Assistant U.S. Attorney April Byrd said Blevins wanted to play "sugar daddy" to three Florida men he met online. Prosecutors alleged he made almost two dozen improper transfers or withdrawals from Biden's account in 2002 and 2003 and spent the money on expensive dinners, wine and luxury cars, including a Porsche Boxster and a BMW convertible.Blevins apologized in court Thursday, saying his actions were "stupid, ignorant and wrong." He said he never intended to harm the Delaware Democrat's political career.
A phone message left with a Biden spokesperson was not immediately returned Friday.
[A more credible news source, Delaware Online, also has a story on this. As the story notes, "Blevins spent the money on three individuals he met through a gay pornographic Web site..."].
The Advocate does not submit, here, that Joe Biden was involved in any of this.
But Jeff Gannon seems resolute in implying that he was.
And the fact that a suspected on-line gay hooker, Jeff Gannon, is making cryptic references to meeting a U.S. Senator during the time he (Gannon) was an on-line gay hooker, and the fact that Gannon is suggesting that that meeting is not something the Senator would wish to disclose, and the fact that Gannon is making these cryptic references just days before the conviction of a former staffer of that same Senator for--you guessed it, an on-line gay sex scandal--is extraordinarily curious.
Curious, at the very least.
