You Saw Them Here First

Via the Freedom of Information Act, a reader obtained copies of the Form 180s that were recently signed by John Kerry to permit, at long last, the release of his military records. Here are the three documents that Kerry signed; on their face, I don’t see anything wrong with them, but then, I’m no expert in military personnel records. We look forward to our readers’ comments. Here is the first one; click to enlarge:

And the second:

And the third:

UPDATE: The only apparent anomaly in the Form 180s is that they only authorize the release of Kerry’s active duty records, not his reserve records. This could well be important, in that Kerry’s antiwar activities occurred when he was a member of the reserves. On the other hand, some think that the language of the 180 is broad enough that the Navy may have released Kerry’s reserve records, even though not specifically instructed to.
The people who know, of course, are the reporters to whom the documents were sent. This is a very weird procedure–authorizing the records to be released, but only to specified reporters. It raises obvious questions: did the reporters discuss their role with Kerry or his representative before they were designated to receive the records? Were they required to agree not to make the records public, but only to report on them? What other discussions did they have with Kerry or his representatives? Are they willing to release the records, or at a minimum give us an inventory of what they received so that we can assess the completeness of the disclosure? I have phone calls in to two of the reporters, and will attempt to interview them.

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