Joe Scarborough and Corporate McPravda want you to forget Lori Klausutis

[Octafish]

Seeing the smirking Joe Scarborough makes me think of Lori Klausutis.



The 28-year-old woman worked on his staff.
Her body was found July 20, 2001,
near her desk in his official congressional GOP Florida office.

Sorry, I can't find her picture.

Going by the lack of outrage at the guy's presence on the teevee
makes me believe most Americans don't know the story.
Here's a bit of background:

A Death in the Congressman s Office Joe Scarborough

Does Anybody in the Press Care About Lori Klausutis?

By Denis Wright and Chris George

August 8, 2001 (APJP)
Special Report

Once upon a time, the phrase "investigative reporter" actually meant something. It usually involved hard work, possibly even mentation. Now, it seems, they just make stuff up. Especially on the Fox News Channel, where an uninitiated viewer could easily think she/he had tuned in Comedy Central. It's "Chandra-Chandra-Chandra" with the occasional "Condit is just like Clinton" thrown in. Given our media's 24/7 obsession with the Gary Condit "scandal", you might assume that there is a real dearth of hard news to pursue.

In reality, there is indeed a news story percolating out there. The story bears remarkable and ironic similarities to the Condit/Levy story. Both involve Congressmen, rumors of infidelity, and the fate of a younger female subordinate. The details are so similar as to remind one of two alternate universes. The difference between the two stories? First, in the Klausutis case as not in the Levy case, there is a real body, very dead. Second, the Klausutis case involves a Republican.

The story had a brief flutter in the Northwest Florida press, which ran a few very short stories on Lori's death. With the exception of the Northwest Florida Daily News, they were of the "Aw-what-a-shame/ nothing-to-see-here-move-along-now-folks" variety. But nationally, this mysterious death earned a mere one paragraph mention in The Washington Post's NATION IN BRIEF column:

"FORT WALTON BEACH, FL. - Lori Klausutis, a 28-year-old office worker for Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fl), was found dead in the congressman's district office. Police said preliminary findings from the medical examiner's office showed no foul play or any outward indication of suicide."

Unbelievably, that was it. The story was simply dropped. A young female employee of one of Florida's Congressmen had died unexpectedly in the Congressman's office. There were no witnesses to her death and the cause of death was not apparent. Klausutis' boss, Joe Scarborough had recently resigned from Congress prematurely and unexpectedly, amid rumors about his marital fidelity and soon after a divorce. He had also abruptly resigned as publisher of the Independent Florida Sun, claiming that resigning from Congress and as publisher was necessary to spend more time with his sons.

Such circumstances make one pause. Sick to death of the clear bias of the corporate owned media, and suspicious of the odd nature of this death, we began to dig for answers. The more information we discovered, the more unlikely, and the more newsworthy the story became.

CONTINUED...

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010808Klausutis.html

The editors of American Politics Journal raise three important issues:

Three Pivotal Questions

by the Editors

September 1, 2001 (APJP) -- Over at The American Prospect's message board thread concerning this very article, Phoenix Woman has asked a trolling Scarborough "defender" three pivotal questions. We'd love to know the answers ourselves:

1) If Lori's death was just a simple accident, then why did Rep. Scarborough and his spokesman Miguel Serrano feel the need to go to two different local TV stations within three hours of her body's being found and invent a nonexistent history of chronic medical conditions for her -- in other words, why did they feel the need to lie about Lori's health?

2) Would you trust without question the word of a Medical Examiner who lost his ME license in two separate states (Missouri and Florida) because he LIED about his autopsy work (for instance, saying he had autopsied some brains when he hadn't)?

3) Why should whoever wrote Ms. Klausutis's obituary feel it was appropriate to mention nearly everything about her life -- EXCEPT where she'd been working since 1999?

If he was a Democrat, it's a good bet ABCNNBCBSFauxNoiseNutwork would immediately be screaming for his appointment with the electric chair.

In this affair, apart from quitting Congress and his newspaper, Joe Scarborough hasn't even had his hair mussed.

[Freida5]

1. Wow. I just thought he was a sexist pig

[Octafish]

4. He's a complicated fellah.

Here's an update to the story, which was pushed out of the public eye by other events of the day.

"NEVER BOUND BY THE TRUTH"

by Chris George and Denis Wright.
Special Report

"Read cover to cover. Never bound by the truth."
-- Motto of Joe Scarborough's paper, the Florida Sun

EXCERPT...

Speaking Ill of the Dead

On the morning of July 20th, within three hours after Lori's body was found and even before her family had been notified, the ABC affiliate in Pensacola (WEAR, channel 3) published on their website "Scarborough's office says Klausutis had a history of health problems....they believe she died Thursday afternoon." When queried on WEAR's source, Tom Wahl, an assignments editor stated that he "heard a representative from the D.C. office who was in town mention 'a history of health problems'". Anna Dobbins of WEAR stated that the station had received a phone call around 11:00 AM on July 20th from Joe Scarborough himself, stating that "a young woman had died in his office and that she had a complicated medical history, specifically surrounding 'stroke and epilepsy'". About a week later, according to Dobbins, Scarborough's press secretary Miguel Serrano called back to ask that they stop reporting the "complicated health history" part of the story. Joe, he said, had spoken in error. When confronted with statements by WEAR staff that her boss had been passing on details of Klausutis' health, Scarborough staffer Lois Hoyt called it a "lie" that Scarborough had done so.

WGTX radio, 1280AM, reported on their web site " staff members told WGTX that Klausutis was suffering with ill health for some time". When queried, Ron Kelly, news director, stated that not long before Lori's death, they'd done an on the air interview with Joe on his upcoming resignation. He also said he had spoken with Miguel Serrano who told him that Lori suffered from ill health.

An associate, R. S. Miller, tells us that she then called Serrano back and told him that the reporters were standing by their stories regarding the nature and the timing of the release of the reports from Scarborough's office and, indeed, Scarborough himself. Serrano refused to confirm or deny whether he had even spoken to these newspersons, and he would not comment on whether the newspersons were lying or even mistaken. He became testy when asked about Lois Hoyt's claim that the news stations were lying and asked "Isn't there anything else you could be doing?"

Serrano seemed supremely indifferent to the notion that telling the truth to the media is important -- a strange attitude for a former Justice Department attorney and presumably an officer of the court. But this is the post-Kenneth Starr era; perhaps he's accustomed to a media that also isn't bound by the truth. When told that Hoyt called it an outright lie that Scarborough had told WEAR that Klausutis had suffered stroke and epilepsy, Anna Dobbins snapped, "What's the story here? Politicians always backtrack."

The story, Ms. Dobbins, is that Lori's family deeply resented the tales of ill health. Norm Klausutis, Lori's father-in-law, sent a scathing letter to the Northwest Florida Daily News denying that she had health problems, and members of Lori's immediate family made it clear to us that although she had been in a very serious automobile accident many years earlier, she had suffered no health problems thereafter. None. Scarborough and his staff appear to have engaged in outright fabrication of non-existent health problems, presumably to minimize press scrutiny -- and paining the family. Of course, they wouldn't have succeeded in causing the family anguish had the press been more inquisitive about how Scarborough happened to have confidential medical information on Klausutis and why he was in such a rush to disseminate it. Furthermore, as we wrote in our previous article, rumors that Lori Klausutis had committed suicide circulated. We would hope, however wanly, that these rumors did not also originate from Congressman Scarborough's office.

CONTINUED...

http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010911Klausutis.html

Even without this happening, the guy is weird.

It did. And his actions speak volumes.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Warning ... this story is totally bogus n/t

[Octafish]

5. Really? I don't think so.

And if it is -- in total or in any part -- I'll be the first to admit a mistake.

Until then, enlighten me, please.

For those interested in exposing the truth, more on the subject (with a lot on Jeb Bush's marital situation):

The Stink In Florida:

Saving Jeb By Smearing Columba;

A Dead Republican Intern

By Jack McCarthy
CounterPunch
August 24, 2001

EXCERPT...

A more striking example of republicans superior news management is the strange case of the dead intern found in the office of Florida republican congressman Joe Scarborough.

As noted in a "special report" in "http://www.Americanpolitics.com", despite the near orgiastic press frenzy surrounding the disappearance of Democrat Gary Condit gal pal Chandra Levy, barely a feather has been ruffled on behalf of the real corpse found on the (Fort Walton)district office floor of Joe Scarborough on July 20th.

Despite initial reports from the controversial coroner in the case, Dr. Michael Berkland,(Berkland's medical examiner license was revoked in Missouri for reporting false information) that Klausutis suffered seizures as a result of an auto accident years ago, the deceased woman's family denies this according to APJ writers Denis Wright and Chris George.

Discrepancies between initial reports and the autopsy have raised suspicions (e.g. Originally Berkland reported no head trauma. The autopsy revealed a bruise on Klausutis' head), and can best be appreciated by reading the APJ piece in its entirety.

But what truly should hit any conscious media/political observer over the head is the discrepancy between media reaction to the Levy case versus the Scarborough affair.

Imagine that Scarborough, who shocked supporters recently by announcing his retirement from congress, and more shock by divorcing his wife, was a democrat. Is their any doubt that the Republican attack machine would have generated a feeding frenzy.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/florida2.html

From what I understand, Ms. Klausutis was not a mere intern. I thought she was a paid staffer.

Find anything yet, Fredda Weinberg?

[Fredda Weinberg]

10. I'm not stepping in that sewer again. This was a married woman

Mrs Klausutis and her family was harrassed enough.

[arendt]

14. Who are you defending? The only implication I got was that Scarborough murdered her...

I don't recollect a lot of news about an affair.

Joe Scarborough is a slimeball, and I wouldn't put it past him.

Why do you muddy the waters by dragging in the Klausitis family. That smells real strongly like the way Terry Schaivo's family butted into their daughter's life.

What is your relation to them that you come on all authoritative?

arendt

[mod mom]

19. It's much easier to bow out than to defend your dismissal, isn't it?

[Rex]

30. Wow what a non answer.

You backtracked from bogus story to family harassment in record time. :eyes:

[ClassWarrior]

8. Except it's not.

NGU.

[PDJane]

9. Well, not bogus, precisely..........

but the whole deal is rather fishy. Coincidence is a very rare beast, and it looks like so much else.

[Fredda Weinberg]

11. It was deliberately made up to counter the Condit situation. Unfortunately

I know the "authors" ... one of whom called me before speaking to Mrs Klausutis' father. Finding out that the family considered the cause of death natural, he posted that the man was a wingnut.

Sorry, but that steps over the line with me. We should all stop this ... now.

[arendt]

13. You are going to have to produce documents instead of "I know the authors"...

I watched this whole stinking mess.

The autopsy doctor was a hack. The story changed three times in two days. The Klausitis family denied she had a serious medical condition. First she "just dropped dead". Then, when they found the head wound, it became "she hit her head while falling after passing out".

I remember the news. It was a stinking pile of BS.

You have absolutely no right to tell anyone here that "we should all stop" anything here.

arendt

[beezlebum]

17. ms. weinberg

1) is the daughter of holocaust survivor(s), so she is the authority on what is/is not the birth of and/or full fledged fascism, totalitarianism, authoritarianism, etc.
2) her brother is a judge, so she is the authority on all things legal and otherwise
3) she knows the "authors," and one called her just prior to speaking to the family members of the victim, so she is the authority on this story.

you're right- she doesn't have the "right" to tell us what we may or may not think and/or speak of- she has the authoritay!!1!

[Atman]

27. You're a loon.

Oh, I forgot the n/t.

.

[Jim Sagle]

16. You're a goddamn liar, Fredda. Why are you still allowed to be here?

[redqueen]

37. Why waste your time?

There's enough people around here that already know about this story, and will counter every one of your 'mistakes' with facts.

[postulater]

3. What.

You thinking he killed her or something?

[seemslikeadream]

6. YEP

[Octafish]

7. I don't know. I do know that our nation's mass media have been AWOL.

From how he acts, though, Joe certainly is touchy whenever the subject is brought up.

Joe Scarborough threatens to sue Michael Moore

by Mimir
DailyKos
Tue Jun 15, 2004 at 05:34:32 PM PST

Scarborough did not appreciate Moore's explanation to an NBC reporter as to why he would not appear on Scarborough's show. Moore rehashed the facts concerning Lori Klausutis, a young intern found dead in Scarborough's Florida office, around the time Scarborough announced he would not seek reelection. Scarborough says Moore accused him of being a murderer:

SCARBOROUGH: You going to talk to Michael?
GOLDBERG: When he has time for me.

SCARBOROUGH: When he has time for you, just tell him to stop going around calling me a murderer or I`m going to have to call my lawyers. Will you do that for me?

GOLDBERG: Well, I`m sure you can get to him yourself, Joe, but I appreciate you having me on. I really do.


Once again, Moore is casually commenting on facts that he reasonably assumes the media already knew about. Scarborough will come out with egg on his face, as Peter Jennings did for challenging Moore's apt description of Bush as a deserter. If Scarborough is serious about his threat, then he will suffer a worse defeat than Bill O'Reilly (in going after Franken).

These guys never learn. I hope Scarborough makes Moore's day!

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/6/15/203432/052

As to guilt or innocence, that's a matter for a jury to decide.

From what I have seen, this matter hasn't even made it to a grand jury for investigation.

Do you think if Joe was a Democrat, that would be the case?

[Fredda Weinberg]

12. Stop flogging this dead horse ... Scarborough wasn't in the state

the night this poor woman died. She was found the next day by a constituent who happened to be a nurse and the condition that was described is consistent w/a catatonic state leading to asphyxiation. Foul play was never suspected by the authorities or the family.

Now please, let this woman rest in peace.

[arendt]

15. I repeat, why are you so personally invested in shutting down any conversation?

The more you object, the more curious I become.

You have the right wing story line down perfect. No mention of the rapidly changing alibi or the crooked coroner.

arendt

[kath]

24. and no mention of the *large* skull fracture, complete with a contra-coup bleed,

which indicates that MASSIVE force was applied to her skull...

[varelse]

18. Fredda, you've certainly got my attention

right where you don't want it.

Unless you're employing reverse psychology here, your posts are likely to have the opposite effect from what you (apparently) intend.

Just sayin'

[Malikshah]

41. Seriously, methinks the poster doth protest way too much.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Joe? Is that you?

[mitchum]

20. So there is the possibility that JOE SCARBOROUGH MURDERED A WOMAN...

?
Interesting

[truebrit71]

22. ..or had knowledge of that fact...

..

[Octafish]

23. It is a tragedy.

Ms. Klausutis was described as the kind of person this world needs more of.

Until I hear that Joe SCARBOROUGH, leader of the Clinton impeachment,
has been interviewed and cleared by a citizen's grand jury,
I'm against his running around a free man,
let alone appearing on television.



It is interesting. Florida,
mixed with a Senator from Godfather II situation.

[MonkeyFunk]

43. He was in DC

when she died in Florida.

His arms aren't THAT long.

I hate Scarborough, but this is bogus.

[AntiFascist]

21. Wow.....just wow....

Why has the entire Kennedy family come out in strong support of Obama? (with the exception of RFK, Jr. who might have learned something from what Lori Klausutis discovered right before she died.)

I dare not post any links that might get this entry disappeared. I refer you to the 'True Colors files'.

"While John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. was reported to have died in an accidental plane crash on July 16, 1999, Division 4’s preliminary report reveals careful details dissimilar to those reported by news outlets, indicating what the team described in its report as “classic media disinformation, if not outright lies” pertaining to suspect circumstances surrounding the death of the only son of President John F. Kennedy who was himself assassinated on November 22, 1963 under a similar investigative cloud."

[Octafish]

25. There are so many good people I miss every single day...

...for every single hour and for every single minute and for every single second. I've lost three friends and family members in three different plane crashes.

Something is very wrong when people like Joe Scarborough -- a PUBLIC FIGURE -- don't have to answer a single question about a suspicious death under suspicious circumstances, covered up with obvious lies. Those lies have been put out by Scarborough and his office.

It seems America has two sets of laws.

One for the rich.

Another for the poor and Liberal.

[AntiFascist]

28. I'm so very sorry Octafish, I had no idea....

something is definitely very wrong with this government. All we can do is try to enlighten as many people as possible, before it is too late for us.

[Octafish]

29. My Friend, theirs were accidents.

Weather caused two crashed and engine failure the other.

And then there are events staged to seem like accident. Or suicide.

CIA wrote a book on it.

Edit: Forget the vreb.

[Atman]

26. It makes his on-air attitude very easy to understand.

He's an accomplished liar. Literally. Very accomplished. He got away with murder.

I absolutely cannot stand the man. He is without a doubt one of the very worst on television (except for the rest of them). However, I turn on his goddamned show every morning just as sure as I turn on the coffee pot. Not because of Joe, in spite of him. His sidekicks (Mika especially, and Willy) are everything Joe isn't -- intelligent, informed, humble, inquisitive. Joe is just a stupid fucking dolt. He lies so much and so well that his incessant bouts of sarcasm are indistinguishable from when he's deliberately telling a whopper.

And why not? What else could be expected of a human being who takes another's life, lies about it and gets away with it, and instead of being ostracized in rewarded with his own television show? No wonder he's a smug, self-righteous, condescending, know-it-all asshole. It's worked for him in the past.

.

[Octafish]

31. The anger of knowing something is not right and yet having to go along with it. Or else.

While I'd like to believe he's not, history paints the guy as a sociopathic turd of the first rank.

politex has created an excellent archive:

http://www.bushwatch.com/lori.htm



Poppy's had a few close calls in his career, too.

[upi402]

32. Well, we wont be getting REAL media now unfortunately

too bad dennis wasn't allowed to even voice his views in our own damned party's debates.
it was then i knew, edwards was up next.

at least they wont be suicided now.

[Octafish]

33. I'm worried for McCain's health.

IMFO, he's the mad puke we want to face in the fall.

Lt. Cmdr. John McCain, USN, and his daddy the admiral decided it was OK to lob around the flight deck of a United States Navy aircraft carrier with WW2-vintage 1,000-pound bombs. One of the tired old things gave way and led to the deaths of 134 sailors and marines.

Aboard the Forrestal...



The naval pilot quickly pulled himself from the cockpit, scrambled down the nose and leaped through the flames. Sitting in a Skyhawk on the port side aft, Lt.-Cmdr. Robert "Bo" Browning saw the explosion. "I looked up immediately and saw the two A-4s in front of me engulfed in flames. I saw a 1,000-pound bomb roll off the aircraft and roll about six feet back toward the middle of the flight deck and the bomb was resting in the pool of burning JP-5 fluid. The flames were spreading rapidly, moving with the wind on the deck. When I observed the first explosion, I saw two men who were running aft with fire hoses taking the full blast. I believe they were killed instantly. I saw one man covered with flames. I watched him making efforts to beat out the flames on his body."

http://www.owensoundsuntimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=868577&auth=Sean+Chase

That must be why he's so angry all the time.

http://milfuegos.blogspot.com/2006/01/navy-records-on-uss-forrestal-incident.html

Edit: Big. Lots.

[Thothmes]

34. Not the case

The fire started when a Zuni missile cooked off of an aircraft to the rear of McCain's A4. It hit his aircraft and started the whole mess. At that time, the Navy did not have thermally protected bombs. As a result of the Forrestal fire, the Navy developed thermally protected bombs. They had been dropping WWII vintage bombs from carrier aircraft since WWII.

[Octafish]

35. The Zuni missile knocked the 1,000 pounder off the A-4 pylon -- designed to hold 500-pound bombs.

On Oct. 27, 1966, there was a fire aboard the USS Oriskany that claimed the lives of 44 sailors and marines. In that accident, 1,000 pound bombs exploded soon after being exposed to fire.

One of the flight officers aboard the Oriskany at the time was John McCain. One would think he would remember the dangers of using the World War II-era bomb. Certainly the captain of the USS Forrestal and McCain's dad, the admiral, would remember as well.

[Thothmes]

36. As stated above

There was no thermally protected bombs in the U.S.Navy's inventory of ordnance. These would not be available until near the end of the Viet Nam war. Every aviation flag officer in the fleet knew that the bombs onboard their carriers were not thermally protected. As did the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States. The word from the White House use what was available.

[Octafish]

38. Thanks for making it plain.

Navy Ops are a mystery. It's been so long since my Army Junior ROTC days.

BTW: LBJ sure got his war, didn't he? Have you read John Newman's "JFK and Vietnam"?

[Thothmes]

42. Unfortunatley you are right, he got his war.

Havent read Mr Newmans book. Last book I read on SE Asia was a book called "the Last Battle". It was about French military efforts in Viet Nam ending at Dien Bin Pheu. Excellent account of their failed efforts.

[Carni]

39. I read the delightful Katherine Harris started that murder rumor?

I don't like Scarborough's schtick...but I thought the whole murder rumor was started by K Harris to keep him from running against her.

I don't have links or the ambition to go find any (unless someone actually wants them) but for those who want to dig into this you might check that angle out.

I personally don't think he murdered the woman, but I have no idea!

[pleah]

40. I had not heard about this case. I hope her family keeps fighting for the truth.

Confirms my feelings, that JOEBLOW, is just as dirty as the rest.

[tsuki]

44. I am from NWFL and I want justice for Lori Klausutis. nt

[allisonthegreat]

45. So they patted him on the hand and gave him a talk show unbelievable.

I need to read the info provided. I am assuming there was an autopsy? And they found nothing and the medical examiner lied in other states just lovely. I remember hearing about this a while back...Just disgusting!