Rather, CBS Spar Over Withheld Documents

Lawyers for Dan Rather and CBS were back in court today, arguing over a motion by Rather to force the release of documents connected to the independent investigation (or "independent," as Rather would have it) of the 60 Minutes II story on President Bush's military service record that led to Rather's departure from the network and, ultimately, to his $70 million suit against his former employer.

Rather is demanding to see thousands of documents generated by the two-person panel CBS appointed to conduct the inquiry, consisting of former attorney general Richard Thornburgh and former Associated Press chief Louis Boccardi.

"CBS induced Mr. Rather to apologize personally on national television, to abandon his own further investigation, and to stay silent about his belief in the truth of the story by falsely and tortiously promising Mr. Rather, among other things, that the Panel would conduct a full and independent investigation," reads the 25-page motion from Rather's attorneys. "The Panel's failure to do so evidences CBS's true motivations were not to report the news, but to appease the Bush Administration and its partisan allies in Congress, whose anger over the substance of an important news story threatened the business interests of its parent, Viacom Inc."

The motion calls it "highly suspicious" that "Bush family allies" Thornburgh and Boccardi were presented as independent voices and accuses CBS of funding the legal effort by Thornburgh's law firm, K&L Gates LLP, to assert its privilege to keep the documents private.

CBS's lawyers responded with a filing of their own dismissing Rather's motion as "replete with factual errors and bloviation" and calling it "yet another attempt to salvage his case by claiming that CBS is 'hiding' critical information from him." In the response, CBS denied paying K&L any legal fees in connection with the privilege dispute and clarified its reason for wanting a Republican, Thornburgh, on the panel: to defuse charges that the network harbored a liberal bias.

"There is no evidence whatsoever, as Rather suggests, that the Panel was part of any government-corporate conspiracy," concludes the statement. "Rather's theory is a fantasy and his motion is nothing more than an intrusive and expensive fishing expedition."

Nothing was decided at today's conference. The judge presiding over the case, Justice Ira Gammerman, heard arguments from both sides and asked to review some of the withheld documents in order to determine their relevance for himself.