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Buchanan's brother threatens Clinton associate
- - - - - - - - - - - - May 20, 1999 | WASHINGTON --
After hearing the allegation -- first broadcast May 11 on CNBC's "Hardball" -- presidential candidate Pat Buchanan's older brother Hank, a 61-year-old former accountant with a history of mental illness, drove from his Maryland home to Washington to find Shearer. And he had a gun. Apparently, Buchanan easily found Shearer's home in a leafy Washington neighborhood. Shearer, who runs the International Student Symposium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, a mediation program for overseas students, has long been suspected in conservative circles of being a dirty trickster for the Clinton camp. Buchanan broke into Shearer's garage and slashed the tires of three cars, one of Shearer's housemates told Salon News. When two of Shearer's students entered the garage, Buchanan allegedly took out a gun and threatened them with it, then threatened a neighbor, who was trying to take out his garbage. Then, according to Shearer's attorneys, Buchanan "fled to a parked automobile without causing any additional harm." Shearer -- who is the brother of the former U.S. ambassador to Finland, Derek Shearer, and the twin brother of Brooke Shearer, the director of the White House Fellowship Program (and wife of Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott) -- was not home at the time. Wednesday, Brooke Shearer confirmed the account as reported by her brother, though Cody Shearer remained unavailable for comment. Buchanan left the scene, but not before one of the threatened parties was able to write down his license plate number and call police. Metropolitan Police Department detectives David Edelstein and Dan Lewis, of the 2nd District, reported to the scene and interviewed witnesses. The two students who had been threatened by Buchanan were taking exams and unable to come to the phone at press time; a housemate said the pair would not comment until they had retained an attorney. "They're just young kids, and they're trying to get their lives together," he said. On Wednesday, police traced Buchanan through his license plate, issued a warrant for his arrest on suspicion of assault with a dangerous weapon and arranged for his surrender through another Buchanan brother, attorney Thomas M. Buchanan. As of Thursday morning, however, Hank Buchanan had yet to be processed in the District of Columbia legal system, according to spokesmen with the police and the U.S. Attorney's office. His surrender is expected within a few days. The series of events began May 11, when Matthews asked Willey about her report that a man had threatened her menacingly on January 8, 1998, alluding to Willey's suspiciously missing cat and her car's tires having been slashed. Matthews asked Willey if she had positively identified any suspects through photographs. "Yes," Willey replied. "So, it's Cody Shearer?" Matthews asked -- because, he explained later, "she had made this identification to me in previous conversations." "I can't tell you," Willey replied. The erroneous report, which was subsequently repeated by Rush Limbaugh, Matt Drudge, the New York Post and others, was first debunked by Salon News columnist Joe Conason on Monday. Six days after the show aired, according to a statement issued by Cody Shearer's attorneys, "Mr. Shearer began receiving death threats from anonymous individuals." | ||
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