Senator Leahy Is Not Satisfied with the Anthrax Investigation

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The biggest news from a blogger chat with Patrick Leahy at the DNC today came in response to a question I threw out as we adjourned–about whether or not he was convinced with the FBI’s case in the anthrax case. We had this exchange:

emptywheel: Do you think Ivins acted alone? Are you convinced Ivins sent the anthrax letters?

Leahy: No, I’m not satisfied. I think someone was involved either before or after. I’m not satisfied with the answers I’ve gotten.

I suggested that he had seen significantly more evidence than the public had seen–he gave me a funny look; I’m not sure what that meant.  

He said SJC will do a hearing with Mueller in mid-September. Leahy expects some hard questions from both Democrats and Republicans.

We Have Met The WMD Terrorists, And They Are US

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Well, here comes a new entry in the Captain Renault "I am shocked, shocked to hear of this" file. It turns out that Jose Rodriquez and the CIA are not the only ones that Cheney and Bush have ordered to destroy critical material evidence the subject of investigations into international terror cases. Nope; of course not. They have put their grubby little thumbs to the screws on the Swiss as well. From the startling new reporting in today’s New York Times:

The president of Switzerland stepped to a podium in Bern last May and read a statement confirming rumors that had swirled through the capital for months. The government, he acknowledged, had indeed destroyed a huge trove of computer files and other material documenting the business dealings of a family of Swiss engineers suspected of helping smuggle nuclear technology to Libya and Iran.

The files were of particular interest not only to Swiss prosecutors but to international atomic inspectors working to unwind the activities of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani bomb pioneer-turned-nuclear black marketeer. The Swiss engineers, Friedrich Tinner and his two sons, were accused of having deep associations with Dr. Khan, acting as middlemen in his dealings with rogue nations seeking nuclear equipment and expertise.
…
The United States had urged that the files be destroyed, according to interviews with five current and former Bush administration officials. The purpose, the officials said, was less to thwart terrorists than to hide evidence of a clandestine relationship between the Tinners and the C.I.A.
…
Yet even as American officials describe the relationship as a major intelligence coup, compromises were made. Officials say the C.I.A. feared that a trial would not just reveal the Tinners’ relationship with the United States — and perhaps raise questions about American dealings with atomic smugglers — but would also imperil efforts to recruit new spies at a time of grave concern over Iran’s nuclear program.

So the prosecution and trial of the Tinner group, and related avenues into the depths of the spiderweb of influence and dealings of AQ Khan is lost. Good thing that our good allies against terror, the Pakistanis, have their thumbs on AQ Khan and are getting to the bottom of how Khan’s "rogue" network was able to operate. Eh, not so much. Now, we know that in the Bush Administration, all policy and interaction with Pakistan begins and ends with Dick Cheney. Kind of Read more →

So, Why Were The US Attorneys Fired?

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For so long now we have been eagerly awaiting the results on the DOJ IG/OPR investigation into the curious and unprecedented firing of nine US Attorneys by the Bush Administration. Heh, but will it ever really arrive? Will Karl Rove and Harriet Miers ever have to testify? Eh, I don’t know, you have to wonder after a while. One thing is clear though, just about all of the original explanations given by the Bush Administration have been discounted, if not disproved.

Much discussed are the cases of David Iglesias, Bud Cummins, Carol Lam and John McKay. But right now, I am more interested in three of the lesser discussed of the sacked USAs. Margaret Chiara, Tom Heffelfinger and Paul Charlton.

There have been many discussions, both here and across the blogosphere dissecting why these particular US Attorneys were fired. There have been many theories, and the bottom line is that there is probably no one grand unifying theory other than that the Bush Administration was manipulating the DOJ and the USA offices for various political hit jobs; i.e. multiple motivations. One of the ones we have gone into here is the interplay with Native American issues. And Chiara, Heffelfinger and Charlton were all, due to the nature of their physical jurisdictions, highly involved in Native American issues. Marcy has done recent posts calling into question the legitimacy of the stated basis for firing Chiara.

Over a year and a half has passed since Margaret Chiara was fired with a bunch of other US Attorneys–and we still have no good explanation why she was targeted. The apparent reason, though, is a rumor that she was having a gay relationship with an AUSA in her office, traveled with her on the government dime, and gave her preferential bonuses.

But today’s Monica Goodling report includes a denial from Chiara and the AUSA–Leslie Hagen–that they were in a relationship.

So, if the stated rationale for Chiara’s firing is in doubt, maybe we ought to give renewed consideration to the Native American aspects and implications. Marcy was on this early and hard with Native Americans And The USA Purge, Part I and Part II. Don’t hesitate to take a look back at those posts, they are pretty interesting.

The reason I come back to this area is that today’s Washington Post has a nice little article that similarly undercuts Read more →

Rolls Royce And The Incomparable Imperialists

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rolls_royce_1913.thumbnailDuring my college years, I spent several summers working at a classic automobile restoration shop in Santa Monica. One of the most spectacular pieces of automotive machinery that I have ever seen in my life was in the shop over two of the summers, and I had the privilege of working on it. A 1913 Rolls Royce Silver Ghost. One of the finest cars ever made, synonymous with quality and character, and solid to a fault.

Today, I am moved to hold another Royce in that reverence. Judge Royce Lamberth of the United States DC District Court. From Guantanamo to Cobel to a host of other important cases, Judge Lamberth has had the guts and determined conviction to to make tough, fair and necessary rulings that question authority and stand up to big government and behind the common citizen. He is a Rolls Royce Silver Ghost, and we need a lot more like him.

Here is today’s example of how it is done by Lamberth. From the Washington Post:

Lawyers representing many of the 265 detainees at Guantanamo Bay say they are heading for a unexpected logjam that could delay federal court hearings: a shortage of interpreters.

After the Supreme Court ruled that terrorism suspects held at the military prison in Cuba have a right to seek their release in federal court, lawyers are gearing up for what they expect to be an avalanche of legal briefs and new evidence filed by the Justice Department. Lawyers say they are trying to rush to meet with their clients in advance of cases that judges may want to hear quickly.

"The shortage of interpreters will pose a problem, because it’s already difficult enough to get to Guantanamo and to see one’s client," said Martha Rayner, a lawyer who represents two detainees and is also a clinical associate professor of law at Fordham University Law School in New York. "But without an interpreter, the meeting can’t take place."

The issue concerns lawyers so much that they clashed with the Justice Department recently when the security clearances for several Arabic interpreters were rescinded for unexplained reasons. Worried the pool would grow even smaller, the lawyers said they enlisted the help of U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who prodded Justice officials into fixing the clearance problems.

When a lay journalist reports that Judge Lamberth "prodded Justice officials", you can be pretty sure that he excoriated them. Read more →

The Gitmo Shrinks Find Their Super Ego And Cowboy Up

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As several of you have noted, there has been a rather significant event at the Gitmo Show Trials. Lt. Colonel Diane M. Zierhoffer, a US Army psychologist who ordered the illegal torture of a juvenile, Mohammad Jawad, invoked her right not to incriminate herself and refused to testify in the case of Mohammad Jawad. She took the Fifth.

Her testimony was sought by defense attorney Maj. David Frakt in a hearing on his motion to dismiss charges based upon government misconduct in using prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, and other torture techniques against his client in an attempt to make him more pliable in interrogations. Following a month-long isolation, apparently recommended by the military psychologist, Mr. Jawad – who entered Guantánamo as a teenager — attempted suicide.

The psychologist’s testimony would have marked the first time that a member of the secretive Behavioral Science Consultation Team (known as BSCT or “biscuits”) had been called to testify in a detainee hearing. The BSCT program has been highly controversial among psychologists and other health professionals. The psychologist invoked her rights under Article 31 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military equivalent of the 5th amendment right against self-incrimination/right to remain silent.

“The fact that the BSCT Psychologist now apparently recognizes that her conduct was criminal in nature is very significant,” said Maj. Frakt. “We have alleged, based on classified government records that the BSCT psychologist’s recommendation led directly to the illegal abuse and inhumane treatment of Mohammad Jawad. This invocation of the right to remain silent seems to confirm that.”

“The evidence in this case confirms our worst fears, that military psychologists are working to break down detainee’s psyches,” said Dr. Stephen Soldz, an expert psychologist who had been called by Maj. Frakt to testify that the BSCT psychologist had violated the professional credo of “Do no harm.”

Zierhoffer’s, and her fellow colleagues in the BSCT biscuit brigade, apparently have an operational definition of "Do no harm" with which I am not familiar. It would appear that "Do no harm" is fully operational as to her own self interest, but not to the humane interests of the powerless vulnerable souls she, and they, are ethically and morally obligated to protect.

The relevant professional association, the American Psychological Association (APA), has been having a fairly interesting internal discussion on how stridently the group will disapprove and sanction the gross ethical failings of the biscuit Read more →

The Bates Decision: A Question Unasked And Unanswered

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First off, a mea culpa. I was one of the first and strongest saying that Judge Bates would opt to just punt the contempt controversy back into Congress’s lap. I didn’t necessarily believe that he would hand a victory to the Bushies, but I did think he would, for the most part, take a pass by claiming it was not really a question for the courts and that Congress had alternative remedies available, that had not yet been exhausted, thus the issue not appropriate for consideration at this time (In fact, Bates noted on page 70 of the opinion that he would have been on solid ground doing just that).

I was wrong.

The Bush/Cheney unitary executive cult got their rear ends handed to them. Again. How shocking. Or, you know, not. They are basically batting an 0-fer since Cheney took Scalia on the robber baron aristocrat jet set hunting trip and managed to get a decision allowing him to keep the nation’s energy program secret from the nation.

But now, predictably, the dark hats of Miers, Bolten and Bushco want to delay the effect of Judge Bates’ ruling until the next of never on the appeal. However, as MadDog (good to have the dog back I might add) points out, the white hats of Conyers’ House Judiciary Committee have a response to that.

Plaintiff Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Representatives (“Committee”) opposes Defendants’ motion for a stay pending appeal on the following grounds:

(1) Ms. Miers’s claim of absolute immunity has no likelihood of success on appeal because it is baseless and contrary to Supreme Court precedent, and was thoroughly and irrefutably rejected by the Court;

(2) the Court’s non-final order of July 31, 2008 (“Order”) is not appealable, and thus a stay needlessly would cause further harmful delay;

(3) Defendants suffer no harm, let alone irreparable harm, from (a) appearing at a congressional hearing or (b) producing non-privileged documents and descriptions of the documents they seek to withhold on the basis of executive privilege;

(4) the Committee will suffer considerable harm as a result of the Executive Branch’s delaying tactics, which virtually assure that the Committee’s investigation into the forced resignations in mid-Administration of nine United States Attorneys in 2006 (“Investigation”) will not be completed until after the 110th Congress has concluded and the current Administration has left office in January 2009; and

(5) a stay would undermine the public interest by hindering the Congress from developing, if necessary, any relevant legislative remedies designed to improve the effective and fair functioning of the Nation’s criminal justice system.

This is a nicely done, pointed response to the transparently disingenuous delay tactics of the Bush Administration. In going through the decision and the latest arguments on the shape of the appellate process by the parties, I realize there is another facet to this equation that has been bugging me. Despite how good Bates’ decision is, why did it not address the refusal by the DOJ to prosecute a duly constituted, and valid on it’s face, contempt citation referred by the United States Congress?

Bates’ decision has drawn nearly uniform praise from across the board (with the exception, of course, of the parties negatively affected by it and their sycophants) including on this blog. Martin Lederman is indicative:

It is an extraordinarily thorough, scholarly and thoughtful opinion — surely one of the best opinions ever written on questions relating to executive/congressional disputes. It is also, IMHO, correct on the merits, of virtually all of the many legal questions it discusses. It is important not only for its holding on the immunity question, but also for its holding and analysis on congressional standing, and for its unequivocal rejection (pp. 39-41) of one of the Administration’s principal arguments with respect to all of these privilege disputes in the U.S. Attorney matter…

I find it shocking to be writing these words, but I pretty much agree. However, there is one glaring issue that is not addressed in the decision that is critical to this greater discussion of power and privilege, and I predict that will prove unfortunate in the future. To wit, is it appropriate for the US Attorney, in this case Jeffrey Taylor of the DC District, upon specific command of the Attorney General, in this case the ever obstructing Mike Mukasey, to refuse to prosecute a duly constituted and valid on it’s face contempt citation referred by the United States Congress?

A whole lot of people, both expert and non, have already been asking "what happens next"? What happens when Miers, Bolten, Rove et al. either blow off their repeat summons, or give unprincipled refusals to answer proper examination by the Committee? Without a prior resolution of the propriety of the Mukasey/Taylor refusal to prosecute the properly referred contempt citation, Read more →

Sticky Fingers McCain Does It Again

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John McCain is an angry, mercurial, petulant and self serving man who believes that John McCain is entitled to say, do and take whatever John McCain wants and John McCain needs. In this regard, he has no honor, and no shame. From pilfering Iraq policy from Obama, to foreign policy from Wiki, to video from Wayne and Garth, Sticky Fingers McCain just takes what he wants because he feels he is entitled to it. The world is his due, because St. McCain was, you know, a POW. Everything else is his gravy.

The latest thing Sticky Fingers McCain has ripped off is Jackson Browne’s song "Running on Empty". Jackson isn’t real happy about it and is suing McCain in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles over the misappropriation.

Browne, a lifelong Democrat, is seeking unspecified damages as well as a permanent injunction prohibiting the use
of “Running on Empty” in any form by the McCain campaign.

“Not only have Senator McCain and his agents plainly infringed Mr. Browne’s copyright in ’Running on Empty,’ but
the federal courts have long held that the unauthorized use of a famous singer’s voice in a commercial constitutes
a false endorsement and a violation of the singer’s right of publicity,” Lawrence Iser, Browne lawyer, said.

It hasn’t even been a week since McCain was slapped for stealing the "We’re not worthy" bit from Mike Myers and Dana Carvey, and he is already back at it again. The cookie recipe theft was kind of comical at first, but the unapologetic theft and misappropriation just keeps coming and coming. After a while, it really does show a pattern and practice of arrogant and dishonest behavior.

Lets hope that Jackson Browne lays the wood to McCain hard and puts him in his place. Of course, that will make the volatile McCain furious, and when McCain gets furious, veins start bulging in his neck and he turns red with anger. He becomes a fiery red ball of fury that lashes out, assaulting and attacking whatever is in his path, from fellow US Senators, to NASA Administrators to his own wife. Jackson Browne is no shrinking violet though; he is ready for McCain’s angry rednecked fury. McCain has a condescending and boorish habit of calling people "My friend". Let me clue you in, Jackson isn’t the rednecked McCain’s friend.

Shorter WaPo: The Anthrax Case Sux

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Last week, the FBI selectively leaked the news that Bruce Ivins had taken personal leave on September 17, 2001; they seemed to be arguing that Ivins had taken leave to drive to Princeton, all in time to return for an appointment that evening.

A partial log of Ivins’s work hours shows that he worked late in the lab on the evening of Sunday, Sept. 16, signing out at 9:52 p.m. after two hours and 15 minutes. The next morning, the sources said, he showed up as usual but stayed only briefly before taking leave hours. Authorities assume that he drove to Princeton immediately after that, dropping the letters in a mailbox on a well-traveled street across from the university campus.

But then some DFH bloggers pointed out that that theory was impossible.

It would not be possible for Ivins to have mailed the anthrax. According to my calculations above, the window during which Ivins could have put the letter in the mailbox on September 17 was from 10:25 to 1:35. But here’s what the FBI itself says about the window in which the letter was mailed:

The investigation examined Dr. Ivins’s laboratory activity immediately before and after the window of opportunity for the mailing of the Post and Brokaw letters to New York which began at 5:00 p.m. Monday, September 17,2001 and ended at noon on Tuesday, September 18, 2001. [my emphasis]

In other words, had he mailed the anthrax when they’re arguing he did, the letter would have been picked up at the 5:00 PM pick-up (if not an earlier one–often boxes have a mid-day pick-up as well), and post-marked on September 17, not on September 18.

So, after their operative theory couldn’t even withstand the scrutiny of the DFHs in the world, they revised their theory.

Meanwhile, government sources offered more detail about Ivins’s movements on a critical day in the case: when letters were dropped into the postal box on Princeton’s Nassau Street, across the street from the university campus.

Investigators now believe that Ivins waited until evening to make the drive to Princeton on Sept. 17, 2001. He showed up at work that day and stayed briefly, then took several hours of administrative leave from the lab, according to partial work logs. Read more →

I Hate to Say I Told You So…

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In May of last year, I questioned whether, after Monica Goodling won immunity, we’d get anything from giving her immunity.

And as today’s article explains, in that role she has done a number of things that clearly violate federal employment practices. She has denied promotions to people who appear to be Democrats, has asked partisan questions in interviews for career positions, and she asked one nice Republican if he had ever cheated on his wife.

We’re about to excuse Monica all of these actions–actions which span six years of efforts to politicize DOJ–and in so doing, ensure that the IG investigation into these activities may expose further illegalities, but no actionable way to hold Goodling accountable for them. And what are going to get in exchange? What higher up is she going to deliver us, with her immunized testimony?

And in August of last year, I pointed out that all of the people who had politicized our government had resigned from the Administration–and therefore given the Administration immunity for having turned our government into an instrument of the Republican party.

by The Washington Post, enlisting political appointees at every level of government in a permanent campaign that was an integral part of his strategy to establish Republican electoral dominance.

[snip]

Investigators, however, said the scale of Rove’s effort is far broader than previously revealed; they say that Rove’s team gave more than 100 such briefings during the seven years of the Bush administration. The political sessions touched nearly all of the Cabinet departments and a handful of smaller agencies that often had major roles in providing grants, such as the White House office of drug policy and the State Department’s Agency for International Development.

Well, so what? What are you going to do about it?

See, for the most part, we’re talking about civil Hatch Act violations. And the punishment for civil Hatch Act violations? To be fired from your job. Shall we review the names of those most involved in leading this process?

  • Karl Rove
  • Sara Taylor
  • Scott Jennings
  • Barry Jackson
  • Ken Mehlman
  • Susan Ralston

Rove, Taylor, Mehlman, and Ralston are gone, and Jackson is rumored to be leaving. Add in Monica Goodling, who only admitted to her massive Hatch Act violations after she resigned. So how are you going to hold the White House responsible for its massive Hatch Act violations, if the people involved have already mooted the only punishment available?

Read more →

Kill Game: The Path Of Destruction From The Amerithrax Investigation

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"Have you no sense of decency, … at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?" These prophetic words were spoken on June 9, 1954 by Joseph Welch, attorney for the United States Army, at the nadir of the shameful McCarthy hearings. It was a time of scurrilous persecution of all numbers and types of fellow humans, based mostly on sheer rumor, innuendo and manufactured evidence. The acts of a United States Government drenched in it’s own fears, drunk of it’s own hubris and looking for political scapegoats.

The result was an everlasting shame carried by a generation of Americans. To this day, the methods and tactics of the red baiting McCarthy investigators, and the hell they wrought on the ostracized and disavantaged targets, not to mention the devastation to their families, is taught to our children as a seminal lesson of the dark, malignant growth that can consume the American ethos when fear, ambition, unitary power and political malevolence intersect unchecked and unbalanced in the halls of power in Washington DC. It is a tragic intersection that seeks a target of convenience and finds it.

And so we advance fifty years to find our dark history repeating itself in the Amerithrax case. Once again we find a unified and unchecked power in the government fueled by, and fueling, fear and trolling for a target of convenience to scapegoat. This is now incontrovertible.

Sunday’s New York Times has an extended article, by William Broad and Scott Shane, on the hell that our Government hath wrought upon it’s citizenry in the Amerithrax investigation. It is chilling.

But along the way, scores of [individuals] — terrorists, foreigners, academic researchers, biowarfare specialists and an elite group of Army scientists working behind high fences and barbed wire — drew the interest of the investigators. For some of them the cost was high: lost jobs, canceled visas, broken marriages, frayed friendships.
…
The bureau began looking at biodefense insiders like Mr. Mikesell, an anthrax specialist who had worked in the 1980s and 1990s with Dr. Ivins at the Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, in Frederick. He had then joined Battelle, a military contractor in Columbus, Ohio, that became deeply involved in secret federal research on biological weapons.

In 2002, Mr. Mikesell came under F.B.I. scrutiny, officials familiar with the case said. He began drinking heavily — a fifth of hard liquor a day toward the end, a family member said.

“It was a shock that all of a sudden he’s a raging alcoholic,” recalled the relative, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of family sensitivities.

By late October 2002, Mr. Mikesell, 54, was dead, his short obituary in The Columbus Dispatch making no mention of his work with anthrax or the investigation.
…
Another casualty was Kenneth M. Berry, an emergency room physician with a strong interest in bioterrorism threats. In August 2004, agents raided his colonial-style home and his former apartment in Wellsville, a village in western New York, as well as his parents’ beach house on the Jersey Shore.

In scenes replayed for days on local television stations, the authorities cordoned off streets as agents in protective suits emerged from the dwellings with computers and bags of papers, mail and books.

“He was devastated,” Dr. Berry’s lawyer at the time, Clifford E. Lazzaro, said in an interview. “They destroyed his marriage and destroyed him professionally for a time.”

The government has unequivocally admitted that it wrongfully targeted an individual, Steven Hatfill, for a period of six years with little to no basis in fact or evidence to do so. The result of that "most complex criminal case in bureau [FBI] history", and dedicated certainty by the Bush Department of Justice for six years, has been a lawsuit brought by Hatfill, a settlement with Hatfill, humiliation of the DOJ and, finally, a complete exoneration of Hatfill.

It is pretty clear that Hatfill would, in spite of all the evidence, still be the target of this persecution had he not fought back doggedly with every ounce of his being. The government relentlessly tried to get his civil case dismissed and to hide the ball. As with another infamous case of Bush Administration subterfuge, if not for the honesty and spine for justice on the part of Judge Reggie Walton, Hatfill would still be Read more →