Thursday, March 12, 2009

SMU thinking about Bush presidential library in '01 according to court papers.


Shortly before former President George W. Bush took his first presidential oath of office, SMU president Gerald Turner apparently already had focused on the need to expand the campus for a presidential library, according to court papers filed this week.

Turner and former White House counsel Harriet Miers were among those deposed in recent months regarding a lawsuit over whether Southern Methodist University is the rightful owner of land that could be used for the Bush library.

Turner and Miers were quizzed for hours by lawyers suing the university.

Excerpts of their remarks came to light as Bush's lawyer tries to fend off an attempt to force him to give sworn statements in the case. At issue are private conversations at the White House and at the Bush home in Crawford.

In his deposition, Turner acknowledged that SMU already was concerned in January 2001 that it would need more land to compete with other colleges in a bid for the presidential library.

Turner said "it would make us more competitive if we had more choices of land," recalling his thoughts from the period after Bush was first elected president.

The comment is the earliest indication that SMU officials were concerned about the size of the Dallas campus, even before Bush's first inauguration.

Read on.

1 comment:

airJackie said...

Yes this has been going on as even the Leader of SMU and his wife were kicked out for fraud. Doesn't seem like a Religious school to me with so many criminals and perverts running the place. I was shocked when the SMU Leader's wife was having sex with students and having shoping sprees.