第四周英语阅读.docVIP

White House’s Testimony ‘Guidance’ Sep 19, 2011 11:44 PM EDT First it was a four-star general, and now a federal agency official says the White House sought changes to his testimony on a wireless project tied to a prominent Democratic donor. Eli Lake reports. Print Email Comments Philip Falcone, the billionaire political donor whose hedge fund owns a majority financial stake in the satellite-wireless company LightSquared, says he told anyone in the federal government willing to listen that testing his company’s signal for GPS interference on commercial and military equipment “should not take that long.” “Everything is already set up, the labs are set up. All we need are the list of devices that need to be tested. We have been telling the people who are asking for the testing of this for months now,” he said in an interview Monday. Not all the bureaucrats who deal with GPS for the military and the federal government agreed. Still, the White House’s Office of Management and Budget urged federal officials testifying before two House oversight hearings in the last month to say they hoped testing for GPS and LightSquared interference would take only 90 days, according to interviews. The Daily Beast obtained the paragraph the OMB asked government witnesses to insert into their recent congressional testimony, which says in part, “We hope that testing can be complete within 90 days.” The issue of LightSquared and the OMB’s interest in testimony came to light last week when The Daily Beast reported that Gen. William Shelton, the four-star general in charge of the Air Force Space Command, told House lawmakers in a classified briefing that he felt pressured by the White House to change his testimony on LightSquared. Shelton ultimately rejected the White House suggestions and delivered his own testimony last week. “We did not ask for any special favors and we have not asked for any special handouts, and consequently did not receive any special favors or handouts,” Falcone sai