From The New York Times, 2/18/05:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/18/politics/18gannon.html
Doubts About White House Reporter Recalled
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
WASHINGTON -
A former Bush administration official said Thursday that a reporter
calling himself Jeff Gannon who presented questionable news
credentials from an obscure Internet organization, Gopusa, aroused
suspicions at the White House a few years ago.
The official, Ari Fleischer, who was White House press secretary, said
he briefly stopped calling on the reporter at the daily briefings.
"I thought, 'I need to look into this and see if he's part of the
Republican Party,' " Mr. Fleischer said in an interview on Thursday.
Mr. Fleischer said a telephone conversation that he had with the
organization's president and chief executive, Robert R. Eberle,
satisfied him that the writer met his one standard for access to the
West Wing briefing room, that he was not directly financed by a
political party.
Now, a series of damaging disclosures about the writer, whose real
name is James D. Guckert, forced him to resign from Talon News, a Web
offshoot of Gopusa.
Democrats have demanded to know how a man who was apparently a
partisan worker obtained press credentials and special access to the
briefings.
He was often called on by officials, including President Bush, and
asked softball questions.
Since it became known last week that he had hid his real identity,
reports on some Web sites and in The Washington Post linked him to
sexually explicit Web sites that have fueled the story and embarrassed
White House officials who for years waved him into the building.
Mr. Guckert did not respond to e-mail messages seeking comment. In
interviews last week with CNN, he said he had resigned from Talon News
after his family had been threatened.
He characterized Talon News as a "legitimate, conservative online news
service."
Asked about sexually explicit Web sites that he might have worked on,
Mr. Guckert said he "had registered various domain names for a private
client," but did not elaborate.
Over the last few years, Mr. Guckert's frequent presence and slanted
questions at White House briefings elicited smirks and raised eyebrows
from other reporters.
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The plot thickens.
Harry
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