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Saturday, March 29, 1997
Ex-Perot aide says he invented '92 'dirty tricks'
campaign
DALLAS (AP) - A private investigator and security consultant
said he led third-party candidate Ross Perot to believe during
the 1992 presidential campaign that Republicans were trying to
smear him.
"It was a lie," Scott Barnes said in Friday's edition
of The Dallas Morning News. "We orchestrated the whole thing."
Barnes said he and a former producer for the British Broadcasting
Corp., David Taylor, masterminded the operation because Barnes
believed George Bush had to be replaced as president.
Taylor no longer works for the BBC, according to the network's
Washington bureaus, and was unavailable for comment.
Barnes said he convinced Perot that his phones were being tapped,
and that Republicans had photos of one of his daughters in a compromising
position and intended to disrupt her wedding.
Perot dropped his candidacy in 1992, accusing Republicans of
a dirty tricks campaign. The FBI investigated and found no evidence
to support the allegations.
Perot later got back into the 1992 race, but many of his supporters
by then had left to back Bush's re-election or Bill Clinton.
Barnes said Perot was drawn in, "not realizing the whole
thing was a conspiracy, a hoax."
Barnes, who did occasional work for Perot, now says he lied
under oath to congressional committees about the affair.
Perot spokesman Russ Varney called Barnes a "class 'A'
hustler" whose latest statement was another attempt to gain
media attention.
In one scheme, Barnes claimed he told Perot that Jim Oberwetter,
the Texas chairman of the Bush-Dan Quayle campaign, knew of the
tricks. Oberwetter was eventually investigated by the FBI, which
sent undercover agents to offer him information supposedly obtained
by a wiretap. He refused the offer.
"He clearly attempted to do me grave damage," Oberwetter
said of Barnes. Send
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Copyright ©1997,
Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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