The Facts
During his hearings that looked into President Clinton's campaign finance abuses in the 1990's, the Clinton's led a massive smear campaign against Dan Burton, investigating him personally and professionally. Although the Janet Reno-led Justice Department was never able to find any evidence of impropriety (despite three years of trying), their liberal allies still spread false and misleading rumors about Dan.
These nasty, negative tactics have been continued as part of the 2008 campaign of Dan's primary opponent, John McGoff. On this page, we set the record straight.
****UPDATE: McGoff smear machine under attack: The tactics of the McGoff attack campaign are turning Hoosier Republicans against him. Check out this article from Howard County Republican Party Chairman Craig Dunn calling on McGoff to apologize for "bearing false witness."****
John McGoff: Guilty of Lying to the Public:
McGoff Half-Truth: Dan Burton supports amnesty for illegal immigrants. (McGoff mail piece, McGoff TV ad)
The FACTS: McGoff tells only part of the story in order to fit into the nasty picture he's painting of Dan Burton. In McGoff's attack ad, he cites a bill authored by Dan Burton in 2006 introduced as a discussion draft to encourage debate on illegal immigration. What he fails to tell voters is that Dan Burton has a strong record opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Here's the Burton record: In 1986, he opposed the original bill that granted amnesty to two million illegal immigrants. In 2007, he introduced HR3549 designed "to withdraw Federal funds from States and political subdivisions of States that interfere with enforcement of Federal immigration law." In addition, he introduced HR3638 "to end the cycle of illegal immigration in the United States."
Read the summaries here and here. View a video by Dan Burton explaining his position on illegal immigration.
Note: What John McGoff isn't telling you is what he plans for illegal immigrants. He calls for setting up "registration centers" to document all illegal immigrants. At the same time, he has no provisions for deporting any illegals at all. View his plan on his website here (you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page).
McGoff Attack: Dan Burton wasted taxpayer money by traveling unnecessarily to South American (including Costa Rica) in January of 2006 and "we don't know what he did there". In addition, McGoff claims the trip had no possible benefit for taxpayers. (McGoff website)
The FACTS: This is the most ridiculous claim that McGoff has made against Dan Burton. Why do we say this? Because McGoff himself attended the trip in question, so he certainly knows what Dan Burton did there. Before the delegation left, he made a spcial request of Burton's office to attend. He attended, but not as part of the official delegation.
Thirty-four individuals were part of the official delegation, headed by Burton and Indiana Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman. Contrary to McGoff's claims, LG Skillman believed the trip was worth the time. See her analysis of the benefits of the trip here.
You can see documentation of McGoff's attendance on the trip here (on his own website). Yes, you read us right. On McGoff's own website he brags about how much good he did for the state of Indiana on the same trip he says was a waste of taxpayer's money.
Note: Dan's mother taught him that lying is a trap. Tell too many of them and you'll soon have a hard time keeping track. Clearly Mr. McGoff fell into the trap on this one. His attacks on Dan Burton are so crazy that even he can't keep up with them.
McGoff Lie: Dan Burton rarely attends committee meetings (McGoff website)
The FACTS: John McGoff is guilty of seriously misrepresenting the truth on this one. Dan Burton has an excellent record attending to the duties of his office. So how does McGoff get away with making this claim? We don't know. Even McGoff is forced to admit that he has no evidence to back up his claims. See link here. He admits that two of Dan Burton's committees don't even take attendance. So, in order to justify their accusations, the McGoff smear machine enters into a thousand page dissertation examining whether or not they can find reference to Congressman Burton speaking at each committee meeting. This is how they determine attendance. This methodology is faulty (we've found evidence to the contrary), but he's hiding it from voters.
Note: If only McGoff would spend a fraction of his time and money writing about public policy (instead of thousand-page documents about Dan Burton) we might actually be able to talk about issues.
In addition, the McGoff campaign regularly faults Congressman Burton for missing one committee meeting because he was in another. For example, McGoff faults Dan for missing the meeting of the Asia & The Pacific Subcommittee of International Relations on April 6, 2005. Where was Dan? He was chairing the subcommittee meeting on the Western Hemisphere. So apparently McGoff expects Dan Burton to be more than one place at a time. We don't have time to review every page of McGoff's thousand-page document, but in the 6 months we examined, almost 1/3 of the McGoff's attendance claims against Dan can be debunked simply because Congressman Burton's committee meetings were held simultaneously.
Note: Indiana voters know that Congressman Burton is a Conservative hero, but even Dan can't be in more than one place at a time.
Other missed committee meetings were due to pressing matters of state. For example, in the month of April 2005 (McGoff spends five pages telling us about that month) Dan missed hearings to meet with President Bush (April 12 and 27, 2005), The Vice President of Panama (April 13, 2005), and to attend NSA classified briefings (April 14 and 19 of 2005).
McGoff Lie: Dan Burton illegally funneled $19,000 from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff into a charity (McGoff mail piece, April 2008).
The FACTS: This lie is particularly awful and yet another example of how desperate McGoff has become. Like nearly every member of Congress, Dan Burton received legal political contributions from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. These contributions came over a period of 10 years. When Dan Burton learned of Abramoff's bad dealings, he donated all of those contributions to charity. He did not collude with Abramoff or coordinate with him in any way.
Note: John McGoff is making things up about Dan Burton. Can we trust him to tell the truth about anything else?
