The controversy surrounding the Denver Three (Alex Young, Karen Bauer, and Leslie Weise), who were removed from a public presidential event because one of them drove a car with an anti-war bumper sticker, refuses to go away quietly. In fact, it seems to be getting more interesting, not less.
Two weeks ago, reports indicated that the man who physically removed the Denver Three — whom they believed to be a Secret Service agent — was a local Republican volunteer. But a new report from Fox News (yes, Fox News) explains that the White House may have had a far more direct role in the fiasco than had previously been known.
The White House later claimed the man who turned them away was a “volunteer” but did not identify him or his affiliation. Since the forum was considered an official event, neither the Colorado Republican Party nor its volunteers were involved, party officials said.
[White House spokesman Trent] Duffy said the White House sends advance teams to deal with logistics for any official event. These teams typically handle the screening for speakers and audience members who will be sitting with or addressing the president during the event. They also keep an eye on the crowds for possible troublemakers.
He said he did not have further information on the Denver incident, but “from what I was told it was fairly obvious to them that they had plans to disrupt the event. … It was a judgment call.”
Forget the fact that Duffy is completely wrong about the “plans to disrupt the event” for a moment and consider what Duffy is getting at here. White House claims about an overzealous “volunteer” are now suspect and, more importantly, the Bush gang may have been directly involved with ejecting three ticket-holding, law-abiding Americans from a public event on public property.
“There is an active campaign underway to try and disrupt and disturb [Bush’s] events in hopes of undermining his objective of fixing Social Security,” White House spokesman Trent Duffy told FoxNews.com. “If there is evidence there are people planning to disrupt the president at an event, then they have the right to exclude those people from those events.”
The question now becomes which “they” Duffy is referring to. In context, it sounds a lot like he’s talking about White House advance teams.
This screams for some follow up from the press corps. It sure sounds like Trent Duffy was admitting that an official working for the White House was directly responsible for checking bumper stickers and removing anyone who they deemed insufficiently loyal to Bush.