Talk:Wes Cooley (politician)

Untitled
Information from the 1996 Voters Guide can be found on the web: http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/may2196/pamphlet/fedcan/cooleyw.html In this 1996 version, Cooley's campaign seems to be claiming only "U.S. Army, 1952-54."

Was it a 1994 Voters Guide that led to Cooley's conviction?

Information apparently supplied by Cooley for Congress '98, which I found on what seems to be the Oregon Secretary of State website, has this to say about Mr. Cooley's military service: "U.S. Army: Company L, 63rd Infantry; Basic Airborne, Fort Benning, GA; 25th Special Forces Operation Detachment; 10th Special Forces Group; HQ & HQ Company, Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, NC." and "U.S. Army, Special Forces; Veteran, Korean Conflict; Military Specialty of Demolition Specialist (MOS33533 - prefix "3" indicates completion of Special Combat Training)." http://www.sos.state.or.us/elections/may1998/guide/rcan/repcon/coolew.htm

Something seems fishy about the "'98'"---so I wondered, did he actually run again, AFTER being convicted in 1997 of falsifying information? Evidently so, as is seen in an AP story from Cave Junction, Oregon, in the Hanibal Courier-Post, http://www.hannibal.net/stories/042798/Excongressman.html Ex-congressman finds road back to be lonely (Last modified at 10:41 a.m. on Monday, April 27, 1998)

"Athough Cooley was convicted last year of a felony for lying in the Oregon Voters Pamphlet, to this day he refuses to admit he never served in Korea. He insists that he simply cannot prove it because some of his military records were destroyed in a fire. . . . . Cooley, 66, lives on a small ranch near Bend and owns a vitamin company. . . . Four years ago, as a part-time state senator, he edged out four competitors for the GOP nomination. With an endorsement from his Republican predecessor, longtime incumbent Bob Smith, he waltzed into Congress. . . . But doubts were raised about Cooley's history from the beginning. A Phi Beta Kappa key turned out to be a lesser honor from a community college. A ninth-place finish in an international motorcycle race was unsupported by records. . . . Even the circumstances of his second marriage were suspect. His wife, Rosemary, had collected monthly veteran's benefits from 1965, when her Marine Corps husband died, to 1993, when she married Cooley in California. But friends said the couple had married in Mexico in 1983, and loan papers filed in 1985 showed the Cooleys were identifying themselves as a married couple then. Federal law prevents a military widow from collecting benefits if she remarries or lives with another man. The FBI investigated the potential fraud, but Rosemary Cooley was not charged. . . . What finally drove him from office were persistent reports casting doubt on his claim that he'd fought in Korea with the fledgling Army Special Forces. . . . .Cooley said he'd been sworn to secrecy about his mission. Although some of his Army records burned, those that survived gave no hint he ever left Fort Bragg, N.C., and his old sergeant denounced Cooley as a liar." [article Copyright 1998 Hannibal Courier-Post]



I remember a televised press conference Rep. Cooley held, in which a reporter asked him who his commanding officer in Korea had been, and he said something like, "it's classified top secret," but, when pressed, he later said something like, "Buddy. That's it! Sergeant Buddy. Sergeant Buddy was my commanding officer." To most of the questions, his answer was something like "I have ordered an ongoing investigation into this matter of my top secret military service record, and pending this pending investigation into that matter, it would not be proper for me to comment further." [P.S. I guess what he actually said was "Poppy! Sgt. Poppy!" (not St. Buddy).]

"The truth is out there."
Can anyone verify whether Wes Cooley actually said this, and (if so) the exact date and occasion?

CNN report March 1997
Squib from CNN: Cooley Lied About Military Record SALEM, Ore. (CNN, March 18) -- Wes Cooley, a former Republican representative from Oregon, was found guilty Tuesday of falsifying his military record in the 1994 state Voters Pamphlet. A judge placed the 64-year-old Cooley on two years' probation, ordered him to do 100 hours of community service,and pay $5,000 in fines and $2,110 in court costs. Cooley, who said he served in special forces in Korea among his qualifications for candidacy, was found in violation of the election law. He dropped his congressional bid last year and left office in January. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/03/18/briefs/

Margaret Carlson squib story, May 13, 1996
"Oregon Congressman Wes Cooley won't say whether he married his second wife in the mid-1980s, as his voter-registration card and friends say he did. Or in 1994, when his wife notified the Veterans Affairs Department that they could stop sending her $900 a month in benefits as the widow of a Marine captain. His press spokesman says Cooley, a member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, will let us know when he got married as soon as he has "all the facts at his disposal." The Cooleys could owe the VA as much as $100,000. He's already under investigation for a claim that he served in the Army Special Forces in Korea, and has admitted that his campaign materials falsely awarded him a Phi Beta Kappa key." http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/time/9605/13/carlson.shtml

FEC
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe1998/orh.htm

Oregon Republican Primary, May 19, 1998 DISTRICT 2

Walden, Greg               R             36,909   54.66 Atkinson, Perry A.         R             22,162   32.82 Cooley, Wes                R              6,156    9.12 Newkirk, John D.           R              2,166    3.21 Scattered                  W(R)             133     .20 Total Party Votes:              67,526

relation to Wes Cooley the motorcyclist?
His ex-wife Beverly Charboneau said he spent the war in Fort Bragg, N.C.

"One of BidBay's vice presidents, Wes Cooley, is a former congressman from Oregon who was forced to quit his re-election campaign in 1996 amid accusations he had lied about fighting in the Korean War. He was convicted in 1997 of lying about his record in the Oregon Voters' Pamphlet and was sentenced to two years of probation, though his conviction was set aside last year. Oregon law provides that convictions for certain minor crimes may be set aside when all conditions of a sentence have been satisfactorily discharged."

http://news.com.com/2100-1017-270809.html?legacy=cnet

Is former Congressman Wes Sadric Cooley related to the Wes Steven Cooley who is in the Motorcycle Hall of Fame? (Photos of the younger Cooley resemble the disgraced former member of Congress, but maybe it's just the moustache.)

A brief review
It appears that a very lengthy and completely unsourced description of an alleged Stolen Valor violation by Rep. Cooley sat in this article, unchallenged and undisturbed, for six years. This is shameful. WP:BLP requires that any negative information about a living person must be either well-sourced, or immediately removed. I'm not going to do the research. If Rep. Cooley's detractors want this information in his WP biography, they'll do the research and provide reliable sources for every sentence -- and they won't appear as single-use IP accounts to put it back in with a National Enquirer writing style. Furthermore, it won't provide details about other scandals involving Republicans from Oregon such as Bob Packwood (which belong in their respective biographies, and not here). Phoenix and Winslow (talk) 17:21, 1 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Good call. I added back some cited info about this case, and took out some other possibly inflammatory information that needs citing. --Esprqii (talk) 18:34, 1 June 2010 (UTC)