"Funeralgate;" Governor Bush commits perjury
- Early in the year, the chief regulator for the Texas Funeral Services Commission, Eliza May, receives complaints about two funeral parlors owned by Service Corporation International, the world's largest mortuary corporation. The stories from the parlors are appalling -- corpses improperly embalmed, traumatized relatives, bodies of loved ones infested with insects, coffins leaking "malodorous maroon-colored fluid[s]." May denies licenses for SCI for several properties based on these and other reports; she is immediately castigated by the head of the TFSC as well as SCI's lawyer, Johnnie Rogers. May fires off subpoenas for 15 months' worth of documents from SCI; Rogers subsequently informs May that SCI would not comply with the subpoenas, and an SCI employee, Joshua Kimball, calls the commission's offices and says, "I'm going to kill you all." Against these strongarm tactics, May informs the police, then sends a team inspectors, armed with subpoenas, to inspect without notice two SCI sites. SCI's chairman, Robert Waltrip, is so outraged he calls the commission and threatens to have it abolished by the Texas legislature. He then writes a letter to Governor George W. Bush, denouncing May's "storm-trooper" tactics and demanding an immediate halt to the investigation. Along with Rogers, Waltrip walks the letter to Bush's office; once there, the two have an immediate meeting with Bush's chief of staff, Joe Allbaugh. During the meeting, Bush pokes his head into the office and asks Waltrip, "Hey, Bobby, are those people still messing with you?" When Waltrip says they are, Bush turns to Rogers and says, "Hey, Johnnie B., are you taking care of him?" Rogers says he's doing his best, and Bush, apparently satisfied, withdraws.
- "Bobby" Waltrip is a long-time, big-money donor to the Texas Republican Party, who pumped $100,000 into the elder Bush's presidential library and paid Bush, Sr. $70,000 to address a convention of funeral associations. SCI corporate jets were at the Bush family's disposal, as were an array of largesse. For Bush Jr, Waltrip donated $80,000 to his gubernatorial campaigns. May, an obscure functionary in a small regulatory agency, doesn't stand a chance.
- Senior Bush aides begin pressuring May by phone. In the month of May, she is summoned to Allbaugh's office, who refuses to allow a court reporter to accompany her, and is browbeaten by Allbaugh in front of Waltrip, Bush's general counsel Margaret Wilson, and state representative John Whitmire, who represents Waltrip's home district. Allbaugh concludes the "meeting" by demanding a list of exactly what documents TFSC needs to conclude the SCI investigation. May doesn't break -- during the summer, the commission finishes its investigation and fines SCI $450,000 for its illegal practices. May is summoned back to Allbaugh's office, with Allbaugh again insisting that she come alone, and informs her, "This isn't going anywhere."
- Unsurprisingly, SCI doesn't bother to pay the fine. In the fall, Bush briefly discusses the matter with TFSC chairman (and Bush appointee) Charles "Dick" McNeil; Bush asks him if he and Waltrip have their problems "worked out," and tells McNeil, "Do your job." McNeil follows Bush's instructions by firing May in February 1999. On March 23, an outraged May files a lawsuit against the TFSC, SCI, and Waltrip. On July 20, in order to prevent being deposed in court, Bush files an affidavit, which contains the following: "I have had no conversations with Texas Funeral Services Commission officials, agents, or representatives, concerning the investigation of SCI by the Texas Funeral Services Commission or any dispute arising from it. I have had no conversations with SCI officials, agents or representatives concerning the investigation or any dispute arising from it. I have no personal knowledge of relevant facts of the investigation nor do I have any personal knowledge of relevant facts concerning any dispute arising from the investigation. I have never asked anyone to take a role or to become involved in any way in this investigation or any dispute arising from it or given direction to anyone who might be involved in the SCI investigation or dispute." The entire affidavit is a lie of breathtaking proportions. In response, May's lawyers show a long, detailed article from Newsweek's Michael Isikoff which portrays key figures in the controversy, on the record, contradicting Bush's affidavit, along with other evidence proving that Bush committed perjury. However, the judge who hears the case rules that Bush does not have to testify, releasing him from any responsibility or worries about the scandal just in time for him to begin his campaign for president.
- The case drags on for years, stonewalled at every turn by the Bush administration. The story never appears in the mainstream press, with the exception of Isikoff's article and a few mentions in the local papers. In November 2001, the lawsuit will be quietly settled for $210,000. Weeks later, reports surface that two SCI mortuaries in Florida were recycling graves, removing remains from their places of rest and placing other people in the graves. 9,000 people will stake a claim to a $100,000,000 settlement in a lawsuit stemming from the desecration of graves at these cemeteries. In one instance at Menorah Gardens, a Jewish cemetery, SCI desecrated graves and left corpses in the woods where they were devoured by wild hogs. The general manager of Menorah Gardens, Peter Hartman, commits suicide on December 27, 2001. After the revelations, the current chairman of the Texas Funeral Service Commission, Harry Whittington, another appointee of Governor Bush, reluctantly agrees to pay $50,000 as part of the settlement to end the case. In February 2006, Whittington will join vice president Dick Cheney on a quail hunt, where Cheney will accidentally shoot Whittington in the face with a load of birdshot. Whittington, in an action that in some ways is emblematic of the entire sordid story, actually apologizes to Cheney for frightening and inconveniencing him by getting shot. Also, SCI will be awarded a no-bid federal contract in the fall of 2005 to go into southeastern Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and count and collect corpses. (Wikipedia, Here In Reality, Mark Crispin Miller)
- During the year, as in years before, Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney will rail against the economic sanctions the Clinton administration has imposed on terrorist sponsor nations such as Iraq, Iran, and Libya. In April 1996, Cheney tells an energy conference that "[w]e seem to be sanction-happy as a government. ...The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments." At another conference at the conservative Cato Institute, Cheney tells his audience, "You've got to go where the oil is." Cheney routinely leads Halliburton into contracts with oil-rich countries that are illegal for US business to have dealings with. "It's a scandal, sure, but it's business as usual for Halliburton," says Pratap Chatterjee, a former Caspian research analyst for Project Underground, a nonprofit that monitors the oil and gas industry. "Cheney wasn't paid big bucks for his knowledge of the oil industry or his business skills. It's his political contacts. He knows who to call, on a first name basis." (AntiWar, Village Voice)
- Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and key members of the future Bush administration form the Congressional Policy Advisory Board, where leading conservative thinkers can meet with Republican members of Congress to develop domestic and foreign policy, possible legislation, and critiques of the Clinton administration. Donald Rumsfeld, along with Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz, are some of its most active members. Condoleezza Rice is a late addition to the group. (PBS)
- During the year, Senator John Ashcroft (later to become Attorney General) gives an interview to the virulently racist Southern Partisan magazine, and says, "Your magazine helps set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern Patriots like Lee, Jackson, and Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda." Future president Bush will describe Ashcroft as a man "who believes in civil rights for all citizens." (Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
- During his first visit to Israel, George W. Bush tells journalists that he will inform the Jews, "You're all going to hell." He later says he is joking. It takes a good amount of spinning for consultant Karen Hughes to defuse the impending controversy. (Laura Flanders)
- Early in the year, Energy Secretary Bill Richardson meets in secret with Taliban representatives in Kabul. At the time, US oil and energy companies are excited about the pipeline, not just because of its money-making potential, but because it offers an alternative to building a pipeline through Iran, which has offered its services in constructing a pipeline through its lands. (CCR)