Phone Records To Be Shared With Media and Bloggers
Deborah Jeane Palfrey Admits to BRAD BLOG She Had No Way of Knowing Who Her Associates Were, Leaving Clients On List Open to Blackmail...
By Joseph Cannon on 7/5/2007, 4:02pm PT  

Guest blogged by Joseph Cannon

For months, the so-called "DC Madam" --- Deborah Jeane Palfrey --- has been forbidden by a court injunction from discussing or sharing the contents of the meticulous phone records she kept of her Washington D.C. client base.

Before the injunction was handed down, ABC News' Brian Ross had received a partial list. Ross declared, in a broadcast report, that the phone records did not point to any "newsworthy" individuals beyond the three known names of Randall Tobias (former head of the Agency for International Development), Harlan Ullman (developer of the "shock and awe" military doctrine) and former presidential adviser Dick Morris.

ABC dealt only with records going back five years, and did not have access to the earlier records. Long-standing rumors --- as-yet unconfirmed --- have held that Vice President Dick Cheney used Palfrey's escort service, Pamela Martin and Associates, in the 1990s, while he was still the CEO of Haliburton.

Less than two hours ago, Judge Kessler released the injunction. Palfrey is now free to make those phone records available to any journalists or bloggers who ask for them. She has set out certain circumstances for their release; her primary hope is that those looking into the matter will do so thoroughly. Palfrey has expressed disappointment in ABC's treatment of this story.

When contacted by The BRAD BLOG, Palfrey first expressed her thanks to Judge Kessler. "This decision could have gone either way," said Palfrey, "given our current political climate."

In her decision [PDF], as posted by Citizens for Legitimate Government, the Judge wrote:

The List in question is the Defendant's personal property and contains only a log of telephone numbers. It was neither seized by the Government when it searched the Defendant's residence in California, nor listed in the Indictment putting the Defendant on notice as to which items of her property were subject to forfeiture.

The question everyone is asking, and that we asked, of course, is this: Can Ms. Palfrey confirm that Dick Cheney was a client?...

At this time, she cannot.

She emphasized to The BRAD BLOG that all she has is a list of phone numbers. Attaching those phone numbers to names will require detective work. Her clients, she explained, fall into three categories: Those she can recall vividly, those she can recall only dimly, and those she cannot recall at all. The majority fall into the last category.

However, she feels certain that as many as a hundred of her clients held sensitive government positions.

Palfrey noted that her clients opened themselves to the possibility of blackmail. Randall Tobias, for example, was the head of the Agency for International Development, which has often provided cover for CIA agents. Tobias would thus have access to a list of undercover operatives. The idea of a man entrusted with such information being sexually compromised is troubling.

Palfrey made one startling admission to The BRAD BLOG: She had no way of knowing just who her associates were. Pamela Martin & Associates did not have the ability to run thorough background checks on the women who acted as escorts. The possibility exists that clients holding government positions dealt with women who had an external loyalty to (say) a foreign intelligence service, or to a corporation seeking changes in government regulations.

Thus, Palfrey feels that some of her clients may have behaved recklessly and could even have "betrayed the public trust."

We will continue to speak to Deborah Jeane Palfrey, and we will attempt to determine whether noteworthy names match those numbers. Brian Ross' definition of "newsworthy" may not be the same as ours.

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Article Categories: Dick Cheney, DC Madam