04/16/2010
UPDATE: 4:00 P.M. Click
here for the Fox News segment from this afternoon.
Fox News’ Megyn Kelly has finally broken the wall of silence on major news coverage of the brutal beating of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s top fundraising staffer. A full transcript follows below.
Della Burning, mother of Jindal staffer Allee Bautsch, confirmed that her daughter had been savagely beaten. She refused to discuss whether or not politics were involved (although at one point in the interview she did say the report was “accurate” when New Orleans Police Information Officer said slurs hurled at her daughter during the attack were “political in nature”).
Burning confirmed her daughter's leg is broken in four places and she has five surgical scars and a steel rod now running from her knee to her ankle with seven screws holding it all in place. She did not fall and break her leg as was reported in the lonely and inaccurate story done by the Associated Press.
Burning also confirmed that the attackers did not rob her daughter or her daughter’s boyfriend.
The attack happened one week ago today as Bautsch and her boyfriend left a $10,000-per-plate Republican fundraiser at Brennan’s Restaurant in the French Quarter where a local group of anarchists, the Iron Rail Collective, were among radical leftist groups that organized a protest outside. Attendees had to run a gauntlet of these aggressive protesters hurling slurs as they left the event. (more details at local news outlet The Hayride)
[A quick transcript, all errors mine.]
MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Fox News Alert, breaking news now on a brutal assault in New Orleans and questions over whether it was politically motivated.
It involves a campaign aide to Republican Governor Bobby Jindal. She was attacked after she and her boyfriend attended a GOP fundraiser in New Orleans. There is early word that the attackers were making “political statements” during the attack as they beat the victims.
We have not yet been able to independently confirm those reports. A spokesman at Governor Bobby Jindal’s office says that there is no evidence that those behind the assault were protesters because protesters were seen outside the fundraising event.
Joining me now on the phone is Della Burning. She is the mother of the woman who was attacked. So your daughter is a Republican fundraiser?
DELLA BURNING: That is correct.
KELLY: And she was at this fundraiser for the governor trying to raise money and she comes outside of the event after its over and what happens?
BURNING: She and her boyfriend are walking down the street. Derogatory comments were being made to them. As they turned a corner some areas of the French Quarter are darker than others basically they were attacked in this darker area. It was very difficult to see. It’s more difficult to see from where it is on the street.
KELLY: When you say that derogatory statements were made to them, what do you mean?
BURNING: I don’t want to… it’s easy to mislead the investigation... but I don’t want to get into the political ramifications of them but things were said to my daughter and to her boyfriend that basically everything was about money. From the time they were walking out of the restaurant things were being said to them.
KELLY: Was your daughter robbed? Was she and her boyfriend robbed?
BURNING: No. They were not robbed. She was robbed after, actually, after whoever did this to her, when she was screaming on the ground and the men who did this to her ran off, her purse was stolen.
KELLY: One reporter says that he spoke with the Public Information Officer at the New Orleans Police and that Public Information Officer said that insults of a political nature had been hurled at your daughter and her boyfriend during the attack. Do you have any problem with that report?
BURNING: Honestly this is not a Republican or Democrat problem, this is a problem that a young girl and her boyfriend were attacked and the story hasn’t really come out. And I just want to make sure that these guys are found. That’s the important part of this. There is accuracy in the story. I just think that yes when you do the investigation you do look at the people who were in the area at the time, to be able to bring the right people in for questioning. That’s the really important part.
If the police are doing the ground work and they’re doing the investigation correctly then certain people are definitely going to be brought in.
KELLY: I know that they’re looking at all of the people who were outside of the event at the time. Do you know, did your daughter get a good description of the people who attacked her?
BURNING: They were very average looking kids -- not necessarily kids that you think would harm you. That’s their description of them, but I’m not going to say that they looked like Republicans or Democrats. I’m tired of everybody doing tht.
KELLY: Who looks like a Republican or Democrat?
BURNING: Right.
KELLY: In terms of identifying marks that would help the police track them down?
BURNING: I think what’s more important about this is that everybody stay on track and realize that we’re all Americans and justice just needs to be served. And if the police are following the leads of who was in the area we will get to the bottom of this.
KELLY: We certainly hope so. Della how’s your daughter doing?
BURNING: This was very serious. She has four breaks in her leg. It’s her left leg. She has a rod that goes down the entire center of her leg with seven screws. She has a screw through her entire ankle.
KELLY: Oh, my goodness…
BURNING: For a mother, it’s a lot… you know the recovery is enormous. She has five different scars that she’ll have from this. So this isn’t just something that, you know, that she was pushed down on the ground or something or that she fell. That is not the case.
KELLY: They were stomping her.
BURNING: Joseph and Allee, it was such a terrible thing that, I think that coming out of it, it took a really long time to even be able to make sense of the whole thing. You can understand when something like that happens to you.
KELLY: I know that the report says she broke her leg in five places, he broke his nose, as well…
BURNING: He has a fractured jaw, a broken nose, a black eye…
KELLY: How old is she, Della?
BURNING: She’s twenty five, she’ll be twenty six in June.
KELLY: I don’t know if you can see the screen but this is your daughter and her boyfriend moments after the attack. There she is on the ground before the rescue crews got to her.
BURNING: Yeah, and you know it’s disturbing to me because everybody has their right to an opinion. If you really look at the photograph up close, she is not smiling… when it’s a very small photograph… she’s gritting her teeth in pain.
KELLY: How could she be smiling, she broke her leg in five places. Is somebody alleging that she enjoyed this or was smiling?
BURNING: Oh, yeah. On some of the websites they’re saying she’s smiling in the picture. She is most definitely not smiling. She’s gritting her teeth. Allee’s really strong and really brave. Her inclination would be to tough it out and be able to bear it until she got some help.
KELLY: You can’t grin and bear it when you’ve got your leg broken in five places. Best of luck to her and to her boyfriend. Nobody deserves this whatever the motivations were our hearts go out to them and we hope they catch who did it.
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