Ack to the Future, Part Trois(Menage That Is)

So on her Twitter feed Celarier is reporting that Representative Linda Sanchez held a hearing focusing on Herbalife yesterday. Thankfully she toned down that language in the article itself to refer to it as a "briefing" and "information session" that was full of staffers, and not lawmakers.

$HLF focus of Sanchez pyramid hearing: "Keep the pressure on" http://t.co/2RnfrNcXkB #nyp
— michelle celarier (@mcelarier) January 30, 2014

She also bragged last night that she'd have happily called Senator Markey's office had she not been in a closed door congressional briefing with Representative Sanchez.

I wanted to call Sen. Markey today but was in a closed-door Cong briefing on pyramid schemes with Rep. Linda Sanchez. $HLF Read in @nypost
— michelle celarier (@mcelarier) January 30, 2014

You'll remember that Representative Sanchez is the Congresswoman that wrote the letter to the FTC that Bill Ackman was showing off at dinner before the FTC even received it. Apparently, Celarier was also the only journalist that was at this closed door hearing, I mean briefing, I mean information session. It takes a few hours to get to D.C. so she must have known about this meeting well in advance, and if she knew about it in enough time to boogie on down there for the meeting, then Pershing Square must have certainly known about it too. Considering just how much Pershing and Celarier share with each other it would be hard to believe they didn't know about it, so it makes me wonder if Pershing Square reps were also there? Maybe we'll find out.

A direct quote from Celarier's article says

Sen. Markey “certainly bumped up the profile” of the call for an Herbalife probe, Sanchez told The Post before the event.

I'll sure say so! To be a little more precise, in my opinion, Senator Markey's letters bumped up the profile of how information about Herbalife appears to be manipulated. And if I were the esteemed Senator, I would be very displeased with my staff right now. Unless unbeknownst to him his office recently had an intern named "copier@persq.com" it would appear that someone on his staff had either a serious lapse in judgment or made serious clerical errors that have allowed Pershing Square to go back to the future.

Celarier is claiming that she inadvertently posted Pershing Square letters but that the January 22nd dates all match up. Unfortunately for our little love triangle that isn't the case.

We must have posted ones from PSQ. They were the same thing. Both dated jan 22 No conspiracy here. End of story
— michelle celarier (@mcelarier) January 30, 2014

There are two letters floating around for each of the recipients and there are inconsistencies in each case. 

The Markey letter to Chairwoman Ramirez was originally dated January 22nd, however the version currently available from Markey's staff is dated at January 23rd.

Factsaboutherbalife.com is hosting the version dated a day earlier at January 22nd, that was last modified on Tuesday Jan 21 at 11:19:38 AM and Celarier's version is absolutely identical to that, except that it appears to be a scan of the pdf Pershing is hosting and provided to her by Pershing ("copier@persq.com"). The version currently hosted by Markey's staff was last modified Wednesday Jan 22nd, at 6:34:43 PM. In addition to having different dates on the letter itself and different time stamps associated with them you'll also note that the position of the signature in the current Markey version is different from the Pershing/Celarier version. 

The same pattern is also true for the letters Markey's office sent to Chairwoman White at the SEC. The Markey letter to Chairwoman White was originally dated January 22nd however the version currently available from Markey's staff is dated at January 23rd.

Factsaboutherbalife.com is hosting the version dated a day earlier at January 22nd, that was last modified on Tuesday Jan 21 at 11:21:11 AM, and again Celarier's version is absolutely identical to that, except that it appears to be a scan of the pdf Pershing is hosting and provided to her by Pershing ("copier@persq.com").The version currently hosted by Markey's staff was last modified Wednesday Jan 22nd, at 6:37:06 PM. In addition to having different dates on the letter itself and different time stamps associated with them you'll also note that the position of the signature in the current Markey version is different from the Pershing/Celarier version.

The same inconsistencies emerge when looking at the letter that was sent to Mr. Johnson. The Markey letter to Johnson that is currently available from Markey's staff is dated January 23rd and was last modified Wednesday Jan 22 at 6:36:10 PM, however the version available from the NY Post and Pershing Square is dated a day earlier at January 22nd.

The NY Post and Pershing have identical versions of the letter (both dated Jan 22nd), but in this case Pershing is also hosting a scan of the letter and not the original PDF, and yet again the Celarier/Pershing version also has an inconsistent signature.

All of this brings us back to the central question posited yesterday: if the Markey server is currently hosting letters that are all dated January 23rd, and were all last modified Thursday, January 23, 2014 at around 9:45 AM how did both Pershing Square and Celarier get letters from that same webpage but that were last modified two days prior and have different dates and signatures? Wouldn't that indicate that Celarier and Pershing had both received earlier letters and that they also received those letters sometime between Tuesday Jan 21 at 11:21:11 AM and Thursday Jan 23 at 9:45am? 

Ackman and Celarier seem to have an uncanny knack for time travel. The real question for Senator Markey to root out from this little three way is who precisely in his office is the other slice of bread in the Celarier sandwich.