Topic: WorldNetDaily
David Neiwert reminds us of the Sept. 4 Salon article by Alex Koppelman on the conservative campaign to portray two Border Patrol agents convicted of firing on an unarmed man and then trying to cover up the crime as heroes. Among those examined are Jerome Corsi's reports on the case for WorldNetDaily (we've previously detailed WND's interest in playing along with the exoneration campaign):
Corsi's most important contribution to the reworked conservative version of the Ramos and Compean case is to attempt to absolve the agents of a coverup. In reality, the incident was only discovered, and the agents prosecuted, because Border Patrol Agent Rene Sanchez, hundreds of miles away in Arizona, heard about it through his mother-in-law. In Corsi's version, however, Ramos and Compean's supervisors knew about the shooting as soon as it happened. Corsi relies on an early, ambiguous memo written by the Department of Homeland Security officer who investigated the shooting; the memo lists the agents' two supervisors among the Border Patrol personnel who were either at the location, helped destroy evidence, "and/or knew/heard about the shooting." The memo apparently refers to the known fact that the supervisors were at the scene of the shooting after it occurred but were not aware that it had occurred. At trial, the defense never tried to claim that the supervisors were present during the shooting, the investigator didn't testify that the supervisors were present at the shooting or had knowledge of it, and the supervisors took the stand themselves to insist they'd had no knowledge of the shooting till after Ramos and Compean were arrested. Compean himself admitted at one internal Border Patrol disciplinary hearing that he didn't report the shooting to his bosses because he didn't want to get in trouble.
Corsi is implying that the supervisors perjured themselves at trial. Contacted by Salon, Corsi stood by his scenario.
Any chance Corsi will come forward to address this criticism of his reporting and explain why he thinks the agents' supervisors perjured themselves? We somehow doubt it (though he has defended his reporting in the past after we raised questions).
