BREAKING NEWS– NYT; BUSH WIRETAPS REPORTERS OF WIRETAP STORY

NY (WPI) - The New York Times in its on-line edition claims today that the Bush White House ordered the National Security Agency to tap the paper’s phones of those of its reporters suspected of obtaining the illegal NSA wiretap story from government officials.

The Times admitted withholding publication of this story for nearly six months because of threats and cajoling from the White House. This follows the suppression of the original NSA illegal wiretap story. Accustomed to obeying presidential requests since the negotiations for the 1997 Telecommunications Act which allowed the publishing giant to expand, the executives withheld the original wiretap story for nearly a year.

President Bush himself had summoned the paper’s editor and publisher to the oval office and menaced them with chilling accounts about how “important” and “secret” the wiretaps were. Bush asserted that if the paper told the public of the illegal nature of the domestic spying it would “result in the certain death of thousands of innocent Americans!”

The brevity of the six month delay in breaking the story that the paper was now being bugged by the NSA was attributed to a growing sense of outrage at both the White House and the Justice Department.

“The White House should have announced that the NSA was wiretapping the newspaper way back when it started. We knew. We didn’t like it but they assured us that they would tell the public at the appropriate time so as not to endanger innocent lives and national security. Well, they never did. They kept putting it off. We felt they were stalling.” Said Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was central to the decision to allow domestic spying by the NSA, has opened an investigation to learn who leaked the information to the Times. Gonzales has refused to recuse himself.

“I urged the President to implement the NSA wiretaps when I was his counsel. I told him, ‘Congress gave you a blank check with that “Any means necessary” language. They’re all lawyers, they signed the contract!’ Why should I not do my duty now to prosecute the traitors who gave the story to a newspaper.”

The visibly angry Gonzales added, “ I just want to caution those reporters who might claim that they weren’t associated with the story- that is an unacceptable excuse! Anybody at the New York Times is fair game. If every single Times reporter has to go to jail, I fully support that- and that includes Krugman and Rich!” (Paul Krugman is a political columnist and Frank Rich is an Arts columnist who frequently criticizes the White House.)

White House spokesman Scott McCellen warned that this might not be the end to the investigations.

Speaking to the press this morning he said, “Now that the Times has revealed that they knew we were wiretapping them and their reporters it raises a very serious security question as to HOW them came to know about it. Leaking information about domestic spying on a national newspaper is a serious crime. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Americans might have been slaughtered without the benefit of these wire taps. Nobody will ever know how many people the President has actually saved by bugging the New York Times.”

McCellen refused a question as to why the President’s prayers for the safety of the West Virginia miners went unanswered. “What happened to the separation of church and state?” he snapped at the reporter as he left the podium.