The WSJ reports on written answers submitted by Hurd to questions from the House subcommittee investigating the matter. The questions follow his appearance from the subcommittee on September 28, an appearance that saw him receive a much lighter touch than Patricia Dunn.
The questions focus on whether and when Hurd knew that pretexting was used in the HP investigation, and in particular the information reported to him by investigators in one meeting in July 2005. His answers, at least the extracts published by the Journal, portray him as either unable to remember the precise facts on which his possible culpability now turns, or deliberately concealing them. So far, there doesn’t seem to be any clear evidence demonstrating his knowledge – other participants in that meeting assert that they can’t recall whether or not pretexting itself was discussed with Hurd. But smoke is swirling. Example:
Several of the subcommittee’s questions homed in on a remark that Mr. Hurd made to H-P’s outside counsel in August of this year that he got the impression that H-P’s investigators may have been obtaining phone records from some Web site. But he said he couldn’t clarify whether he got that impression from the July meeting.
“I cannot say who made the remark about obtaining phone-record information off the Web or when that remark was made without speculating,” Mr. Hurd wrote. “What I recall is that at some meeting someone mentioned getting phone-record information off of the Web and thinking there must be some sort of Web site with this information.”
When Ms. Dunn gave similar testimony at the subcommittee hearing in late September, she was ridiculed by some House members, who found her belief that private phone records were publicly available to be implausible.
The subcommittee asked Mr. Hurd to explain his understanding of a PowerPoint slide presented at the July 2005 meeting, which said “intelligence” had been obtained that indicated one H-P director “appears to have contacted” certain journalists.
In response, Mr. Hurd wrote that he didn’t recall any discussion at the July 2005 meeting of “what ‘intelligence’ meant or what specific types of ‘intelligence’ had been obtained.”