Legal Issues

Extra! Dog Bites Man! Read All About It!

dlindorff — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 16:23:00 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

In the category of yawn-inducing stories that we knew all about
before they happened, comes word that the jury of senior uniformed
officers sitting in judgement of Osama Bin Laden’s chauffeur in the
first Bush-league military tribunal to actually go to a hearing at
Guantanamo Naval Station found the prisoner, Salim Hamdan…

Drum roll please…

Guilty of supporting terrorism.

I pause here for gasps of astonishment.

It’s awfully silent…

Really, did anyone expect anything else? The officers, who all have
careers to think about that would surely be severely crimped if they
went off script and found the man innocent of the charges, heard
evidence that was obtained through torture. They heard reports of
confessions from a man who himself was subjected to torture, by the
admission of the military itself, and who was never afforded an
attorney during those interrogations.

Okay. So now we need to ask, do we all feel safer, knowing that a
car driver whose claim to fame is that he used to drive the Evil One
from house to house and wife to wife is going to be locked up for life?

Wait a minute. He is already being locked up for life. At least, he
was captured in November 2001, and shipped to Guantanamo in May 2002,
and he’s been held there ever since—for over six years—awaiting this
trial, er, I mean tribunal. There certainly was no prospect of his ever
being let go before the tribunal, so I’m not sure what the point of
this exercise was really.

So now we can move on to the next tribunal—this one involving Ahmed
Khadr, a Canadian boy picked up in Afghanistan at the age of 15, who’s
been held now for six years on the base. His “crime” is that he was
bombed by the US Air Force, and then shot up (in the back) by US
Special Forces, but he somehow managed, at least allegedly, to toss a
grenade at his attackers, killing one (actually there is some testimony
that he didn’t actually toss the grenade, but then, why quibble about
details, right?).

Does anyone want to guess about the outcome of his “trial”?

Back in journalism school, I remember being told that the classic
definition of a news story was “Man Bites Dog!” The notion was that if
something totally predictable happens, like a dog biting a man, it
ain’t really news. Only if it is unexpected does it have any real news
value. By that standard, Hamdan’s conviction should be relegated to a
one-sentence notice in the news briefs section, but I’m guessing it’ll
be page one tomorrow all over America: Terrorist Convicted!

What we really need to be asking is why taxpayer dollars are being
spent on this shameful farce, which makes a joke of American “justice”
around the world.

Salim Hamdan is one of three things:

* a vile terrorist, in which case he should be tried in a regular
court of law by a jury of citizens, with all the rights available under
our Constitution

* a prisoner of war, in which case he should be sent back to
Afghanistan, since that war is now technically over (he is not a member
of the Taliban).

* an innocent schmuck who was working for a living driving a rich
bearded guy around the Hindu Kush, and who got picked up instead of his
boss, who’s still plotting ways to blow us all up while the US
government wastes its time and its personnel prosecuting his driver.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Then again, maybe it is news after all: “US Attacked By Terrorist Gang, Mastermind’s Driver Gets Life Seven Years Later”
__________________

DAVE LINDORFF is a journalist and columnist based in
Philadelphia. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St.
Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work
can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net

America has a Double Standard When It Comes to Kids. Victims if Prostitutes, Terrorists if They Are Caught Fighting the US

dlindorff — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 10:44:41 -0400

By Dave Lindorff

Double standards when it comes to children are pretty
appalling—especially when it comes to “our” kids vs. “their” kids, but
here in America they aren’t limited to just right-wingers.

Take reaction to the US Supreme Court’s latest ruling that you
cannot execute rapists—even those who rape children—on the theory that
only killing someone justifies execution.

Politicians who make their careers by promoting state sponsored
murder have been quick to condemn this latest “liberal outrage” by
calling for more laws that would make execution the punishment for
raping a child (admittedly a monstrous crime).

"Anybody in the country who cares about children should be outraged
that we have a Supreme Court that would issue a decision like this,"
says Republican Alabama Attorney General Troy King, who said the
court’s 5-4 decision makes America “a less safe place to grow up.”

Even Barack Obama has weighed in, along with John McCain, in
condemning the court’s decision, saying that states should be free to
pass death statutes for child rape.

Texas Republican Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, supporting death for
“repeat child molesters, says, “Our top priority remains protecting our
most precious resource — our children." (Huh? I thought in Texas it was
oil.)

Then there’s the FBI’s latest sweeping busts of child prostitution
rings, which rescued 21 juveniles from sex-selling rings. In announcing
the arrests of some 300 people, FBI Director Robert Mueller said, "Our
top priority in these cases has always been to identify children
victims and move swiftly to remove them from these dangerous
environments.”

"These kids are victims,” said Ernie Allen, president of the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “They lack the
ability to walk away. This is the 21st-century slavery."

The question is, where are Mueller and Allen and these allegedly
concerned politicians when it comes to children who are forced or lured
into fighting against the US, whether in Afghanistan or Iraq? Where are
they when those children are captured by US military forces and
incarcerated with adult captives in hell-holes like Bagram Airbase in
Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, or Guantanamo, where there was
a special children’s section called Camp Iguana? I certainly haven’t
heard a word from either Obama or that famous POW McCain in defense of
America’s child war prisoners.

Take Omar Khadr, shot and then captured and tortured by US forces
at the tender age of 15 in 2002 in Afghanistan and held for six years
in Guantanamo. Last week, I reported on his story
and on plans to try him by military tribunal as a terrorist because he
had dared, allegedly, to toss a grenade at US Special Forces troops who
had called in an air strike on him and several adult fighters, killing
one US soldier (at least one witness to the incident, a US soldier,
says it was not Khadr who three the grenade). Nobody’s saying that
Khadr was a victim. Nobody’s saying that he “lacked the ability to walk
away” from the Taliban forces that his father and older brothers had
him join at the age of 14 a year before. Nobody’s saying he should be
“identified” and “removed from these dangerous environments.”

Nobody in government or in child protection organizations is even
investigating to see if Khadr, as a 15-year-old captive, was tortured!
Indeed, the US has been blocking both Khadr’s military defense attorney
and his Canadian lawyer (Khadr is a Canadian citizen) from getting
military records giving the details of his capture and subsequent
treatment.

Canadian journalist Chris Cook reports that the Canadian government
actually argued in Canadian court against releasing the US reports in
its possession claiming doing so might “upset relations” between Canadian and
the United States. (The Canadian Supreme Court in May rejected that
pathetically subservient claim by a 9-0 vote, ordering full disclosure.)

The thing is, Khadr is just one of at least 2500 children who have
been captured and held as “enemy combatants” by the US in the
Bush/Cheney so-called “War” on Terror.

Like child prostitutes, these captives, if they were even actually
involved in operations against the US (who would know, since they’ve
never been given hearings in court, and since in many cases the
evidence, such as it is, against them is the result of torture, either
of the children themselves, or of others), are at worst child soldiers,
who cannot be held responsible for their actions. Indeed, under the UN
Charter and the Geneva Convention, as amended by a protocol signed by
the US in 2002, any of them who, at the time of their capture, were
under 18, as was Khadr, are to be considered not POWs or “enemy
combatants,” but rather victims, who need care and treatment.

Aside from Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who has filed an article of
impeachment against President Bush, charging him with a war crime for
holding these children, and for authorizing rules of engagement that
have encouraged the killing of children as young as 14, who are
“presumed” to be combatants, and for the six other members of the
House who have co-signed his impeachment bill (Rep. Robert Wexler,
D-FL, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-CA, Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-CA, Rep. Tammy
Baldwin, D-WI, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-NY, and Rep. Sam Farr, D-CA), no
members of Congress have called for the protection of children captured
or held by US military forces.

Their, and the American public’s “concern” for the welfare of
children is narrowly limited to those who are lured or forced into
prostitution. That’s it.

Of course, we should not be surprised at this double standard. Most
of these same politicians are also quick to support laws that take
young children from poor (and usually minority) urban backgrounds who
commit violent crimes and have them tried, and punished, as adults.
Again, these children are as much victims as the kids who become child
prostitutes, but there’s no love lost on them by these “child welfare”
charlatans.
__________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and
now in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

Heather Ryan Stands With Us on FISA Compromise

RDillon — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:35:54 -0400

It seems we are always complaining. No matter how hard we work, and how many we get elected, it seems that our ideals are always the ones that are being compromised. One need only look at the FISA compromise to feel that grassroots Democrats are just running around in circles. We need Democrats in Congress who will fight for us, even if it means breaking with conventional wisdom, and party leadership.

Enter Heather Ryan, Democrat for Kentucky's First Congressional District. In response to inquiries from potential constitutents, including myself, Heather has spoken up on the FISA compromise. From her email to my question on this issue:

Later this week, the Senate will be considering passage of the compromise on the FISA Bill. Since many voters in the First Congressional District of Kentucky have contacted me wondering what my stance on this legislation is, I felt compelled to speak on this issue.

While I was in Washington on that terrible day of Sept. 11, 2001 when planes crashed into the World Trade Center and in Western Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon, I can understand the passion that has fueled this bill. Having said that, I must urge the Senate to reject this FISA compromise as proposed and passed by the House of Representatives with H.R. 6304.

There are several reasons why I feel this bill is unnecessary. First, I think that we have lost focus on the fact that a competent Administration could have actually gone a long way in preventing this tragedy. The Bush Administration was warned in advance of 9-11 and did nothing at the time to prevent it. I believe if the Bush Administration would have acted on the intelligence provided them, then the 9-11 tragedy could have been avoided through the laws that existed at the time.

I also believe this law is an extension of the Bush Administration's attempts to politicize the Justice Department. Prosecuting entities are provided by the Constitution with checks and balances on which to operate. They already have very broad powers and if they found a credible threat would have no problem getting a warrant in a timely fashion.

Finally, I believe that FISA and this compromise are an abomination to the Constitution because it seeks to circumvent the checks and balances provided all of us by that sacred document. I strongly oppose giving the Telecom Corporations immunity when they knew they were breaking the law, when the Bush Administration asked them to break the law.

I saw where my opponent in this race, "Exxon Ed" Whitfield voted for this Legislation. I think it is pretty ironic when the very Republicans who lecture us regarding limiting the roll of the Federal Government propose, and push through, the House of Representatives a bill that vastly broadens the powers of the Federal Government. This is one issue on which Progressives, Moderates and Conservatives should all be able to agree. There are certain things on which none of us should ever compromise, and the Constitution is one thing on which I will never compromise as Representative of Kentucky's First District.

Heather Ryan
Democratic Candidate
KY-01

I personally could not agree with Heather more. Reading these words made me proud to support Heather, a Democrat with courage that will represent us if elected.

We need new, and better Democrats. Democrats who will fight for us, and who believe what we believe. On both counts, we need Heather Ryan in the Congress. Support our values here:

http://www.actblue.com/page/americansforryan

Best wishes Democrats!!

Move on to impeachment

richardmathews — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:49:16 -0400

MoveOn is finally moving on to talk about the possibility of impeachment proceedings!

Sign their petition:
http://pol.moveon.org/subpoena/

It states:

"Congress must force Vice President Cheney to respond to its subpoenas. If he continues to obstruct justice and disregard the rule of law, Congress has no choice but to begin impeachment proceedings against him."

Richard M. Mathews

Replacement for Sen. Thomas does not have to be Republican

richardmathews — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 14:59:35 -0400

Is Governor Freudenthal (D-WY) actually required to pick a Republican to replace Sen. Craig Thomas (R-WY)?

State law says so, but it may violate the U.S. Constitution. So says University of California law professor Vikram Amar writing for findlaw.com. Professor Amar is also a former clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun.

See the arguments, vote in a poll, and participate in the discussion at
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/6/6/71141/06254

You will also find a sample letter there to send to Governor Freudenthal to ask him to consider all of his options.

Libby IS Bush’s Legacy

Tom Ball — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:25:55 -0400

As record high fuel prices, category 5 hurricanes, and drowning polar bears have helped slap some sense into the reluctant minds of many science-denying troglodytes, so to must the record hubris, category 5 incompetence, and drowning integrity of this administration slap some sense into the reluctant minds of the remaining reality-denying Bush supporters.

Oddly enough, you'd think that pardoning a traitor would be the last straw -- even for these people. You'd be wrong. In fact, acting as savior for the American betrayer known as I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby might be the only thing that can salvage Bush's remaining barrel-scum protectorate. That is what they find important. So too must he.

And so, this single act of apologist, vicarious treason will be the defining moment in Bush's presidency -- encompassing within it all the lies, bullying and incomprehensible ineptitude that was the hallmark of this administration. This will be Bush's legacy.

He has no choice... and essentially nothing to lose.

That's the way it is. The chorus of prideless conservatives -- also known as Bush's remaining base -- are relentlessly pressuring Bush to Pardon Libby with nary a moment of time served. Heck, even Paris served a couple days.

They dismiss the irony that "the judge that gave Libby the 2 ½ year sentence was "one of the first appointments that Bush made to the federal bench" and fail to note that Libby's judge was known as a 'Tough Guy'. "That's Why Bush Appointed Him."

The Los Angeles Times notes, "That Walton would put the Bush administration in an uncomfortable position of having to consider a politically charged pardon for Libby is highly ironic."

Yes, being held accountable for your trespasses to humanity is always an 'uncomfortable' activity. And a Bush appointee respecting the rule of law is truly 'ironic'. Still, I can't help but feel that President Bush should be suffering far more discomfort than his widely televised, smirky, smirk-faced smirk suggests he is.

Seems 'discomfort' is something for which Bush and his beloved 29% must have little time. According to the New York Times, "a conservative with close ties to the administration" said, "Letting Scooter go to jail would be a politically irrational symbol to the last chunk of the 29 percent upon which he stands."

Irrational indeed. Bush has pandered to the AEI 29% with untouchable integrity over the last 7 years. Thus the royal screwing administered to the other 71% of us.

Maybe that's because Bush's 29% are an influential bunch -- people like potential future convict Tom Delay. Tom recently noted, "The President should pardon Scooter Libby. I mean, what -- what's he worried about? Is it his ratings? I mean, his approval ratings? ... This -- this is a travesty of justice."

Yes, like the 'travesty of justice' that will no doubt bare its ugly face if Mr. Delay fails to garner a Bush pardon when he's sized for an orange jumpsuit.

And then there are blind loyalists like former Justice Department official Victoria Toensing who offered a spin sure to be embraced by conservative traitor-lovers across the nation, "Patrick Fitzgerald abused his prosecutorial powers when he indicted Scooter Libby for a faulty memory. The only remedy is a presidential pardon."

"Faulty memory"? "Only remedy"? "Abused his prosecutorial powers"?

No matter. It's the 'conservative movement' that matters now. The New York Times opines, "a decision not to pardon Mr. Libby would further alienate members of Mr. Bush's traditional base of support in the conservative movement, a group already angry about his proposed immigration policy, his administration's spending and his approach to Iran."

Tim Russert concurs, "A lot of conservatives are saying to the President, you are antagonizing the base about immigration. This is the way to reach out to your base."

Reach the base, eh? Hmmmm. Who else is trying to reach this magic 29%?

The Libby pardon issue "has thrown a twist into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, forcing candidates to make an awkward choice between loyalty to a party stalwart and reverence for the rule of law."

Ohhhhhh. So that's it. Well, we all know which choice will be made here.

And that, my friends, will establish the legacy for the next generation of the conservative movement.

Mini-Monicagate - Torturer General Gonzales' Lawyer to Take the Fifth

CactusPat — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:18:21 -0400

Oh, how the high and mighty are falling. A mini-Monicagate in the making! Gonazales' lawyer takin' the fifth... What next? A midnight flight to Bushco's new Paraguayan ranchero....

Gonzales Aide Won't Answer Senate Queries
WASHINGTON, March 26, 2007 (CBS/AP) Monica Goodling, a key Justice Department official involved in the firings of U.S. prosecutors, will invoke a constitutional privilege against self-incrimination and refuse to answer questions at upcoming congressional hearings, her lawyer said Monday. "The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real," said her lawyer, John Dowd... (more)

He said that members of the House of Representatives and Senate Judiciary committees seem already to have made up their minds that wrongdoing has occurred in the firings and objected to the political overtones of the congressional investigation.

Goodling, who was senior counsel to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the top U.S. law enforcement official, and White House liaison until she took a leave of absence earlier this month, was subpoenaed by the Senate Judiciary Committee along with several of the attorney general's other top aides.

The White House won't budge from its initial offer of making top aides available for interviews, but not in a public hearing, and not under oath, CBS News' Susan Roberts reports.

"If the Congress wants to choose confrontation over a resolution, that is their choice," said Dana Perino, a White House deputy spokesperson.

There have been questions about whether Goodling and others misinformed Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty about the firings just before he testified before the Senate committee in February.

Dowd said that a senior Justice Department official had told a member of the Senate committee that he was misled by Goodling and others before testifying.

Hovering over the matter is the specter of I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff convicted of lying to a grand jury about the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. The potential for taking a fall over the department's bungled response "is very real," Dowd said.

"One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby," the lawyer said.

The White House stood by Alberto Gonzales on Monday, even as support for the embattled attorney general erodes on Capitol Hill amid new questions about his honesty.

But as one Republican senator puts it, Gonzales is on the "do-not-resuscitate" list, reports CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod. It's only Mr. Bush who's keeping him on life support.

Three key Republican senators sharply questioned his truthfulness over the firings last fall of eight federal prosecutors. Two more Democrats on Sunday joined the list of lawmakers calling for Gonzales' ouster.

Lawmakers want to know whether Gonzales actually changed his story about the dismissals and whether he allowed his aides to say the prosecutors were fired for performance reasons, if in fact the reasons were purely political, Roberts reports.

At issue is Gonzales' March 13 denial that he participated in discussions or saw any documents about the firings, despite documents that show he attended a Nov. 27 meeting with senior aides on the topic, where he approved a detailed plan to carry out the dismissals.

Perino said Gonzales "might be accused of being imprecise in what he was saying," but maintained that the attorney general was not closely involved in the firings.

"I understand the concern. I understand that people might think that there are inconsistencies," Perino said. "But as I read it, I think that he has been consistent."

The White House is placing the onus on Gonzales to explain his action to lawmakers, but he is not scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee until April 17 — three weeks away.

"I grant you, I think that that seems like a long time," Perino said. "But I don't think I would read into that that the Justice Department isn't having ongoing discussions with members of the Judiciary Committee on both the House and the Senate side, and other members who have expressed interest."

President Bush did not speak to Gonzales over the weekend.

Gonzales faces the toughest test of his two-year tenure at the Justice Department with the release of documents suggesting he was more involved with the firings than he indicated earlier.

Democrats have accused the Justice Department and the White House of purging the prosecutors for political reasons. The Bush administration maintains the firings were not improper because U.S. attorneys are political appointees.

Speaking to reporters in Orlando, Fla., Sen. Bill Nelson said whether or not Gonzales was fully engaged, "he has lost all credibility with me." Nelson, D-Fla., joined the ranks Sunday of lawmakers in both parties calling for Gonzales to resign.

"Unless he has a good explanation for not only what he knew and when he knew it but also for the ineptitude of the department ... he is a goner," Nelson said of Gonzales. "I think there might be enough Republicans who are calling for his resignation, even before he takes the witness stand."

Stopping short of demanding Gonzales' resignation, Sen. Arlen Specter cited a Nov. 27 calendar entry placing the attorney general at a Justice Department meeting to discuss the dismissals. Those documents "appear to contradict" Gonzales' earlier statements that he never participated in such conversations, said Specter, top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee that oversees the Justice Department.

"We have to have an attorney general who is candid, truthful. And if we find out he has not been candid and truthful, that's a very compelling reason for him not to stay on," said Specter, R-Pa.

Specter said he would wait until Gonzales' testimony before deciding whether he could continue to support the attorney general.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Gonzales has been "wounded" by the firings. "He has said some things that just don't add up," said Graham, who also is on the Senate Judiciary panel. And Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., said the Justice Department has continually changed its story about the dismissals.

"You cannot have the nation's chief law enforcement officer with a cloud hanging over his credibility," Hagel said.

More discussion here...

Anybody know if there's a line in Vegas on when Gonzales goes down?

Beyond Impeachment: The Case for Pursuing Justice

Syndi — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:24:36 -0400

Beyond Impeachment: The Case for Pursuing Justice
By Syndi Holmes,
Co-founder of the Piedmont Centre for Peace, Justice and Cultural Exchange, Winston-Salem, NC
18 March 2007

Even if impeachment were politically possible, it is getting far too late into the year to begin the process. It will not occur because the now Speaker took the option off the table before this past November’s election.
The stark reality is that impeachment will not occur because there is no political will by either party to seek justice because politics has no morals, it thrives only on expediency. Hence, the 2008 Presidential race was deliberately started early as a distraction for the populace with the blessings of both parties to obscure any lingering thoughts of such an action.
Focusing our energies on a futile cause is a best case scenario for the Bush Administration because they all know this action is simply busy work that will keep their opponents occupied while they continue on with their nefarious activities. The Administration patronises us by allowing us to march on the streets of D.C. because they know we are of no threat to them. The Administration knows we are attempting to lobby an ineffectual Congress that cannot even pass a resolution to consider another resolution so what do they truly have to be concerned with?
What we, as the opposition, need to vigorously focus on developing a legal process that will bring this administration to justice as soon as they step outside the White House in January 2009. We need to be prepared to meet them at the door with arrest warrants for crimes against peace and crimes against humanity and a plane waiting to take them all to The Hague for arraignment and trial.
We need to seek every avenue for obtaining justice by developing viable legal strategies for filing law suits in every civil and/or criminal court in the country so that our words are backed up with concrete action.
We also need to hold Congress accountable in the same manner for their gross derelictions of Constitutional duty.
We, as members of the human race and as believers in the rule of law need to do this for absolution of our country’s soul for the crimes and actions we allowed to occur through our neglect of our duties as citizens. To regain our freedoms and Constitution for our children and to show the world that no one anywhere in the world is above the law we must need to commit ourselves to bringing to justice our leaders who have placed themselves outside the law by defying the rules of law and human decency.

A Fraud Worse than Enron

Chip — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 02:23:22 -0500

A Fraud Worse than Enron
By Elizabeth de la Vega

Elizabeth de la Vega, appearing on behalf of the United States. That is a phrase I've uttered hundreds of times in twenty years as a federal prosecutor. I retired two years ago. So, obviously, I do not now speak for any U.S. Attorney's Office, nor do I represent the federal government. This should be apparent from the fact that I am proposing a hypothetical indictment of the President and his senior advisers -- not a smart move for any federal employee who wishes to remain employed. Lest anyone miss the import of this paragraph, let me emphasize that it is a DISCLAIMER: I am writing as a private citizen.

Obviously, as a private citizen, I cannot simply draft and file an indictment. Nor can I convene a grand jury. Instead, in the following pages I intend to present a hypothetical indictment to a hypothetical grand jury. The defendants are President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. The crime is tricking the nation into war--in legal terms, conspiracy to defraud the United States. And all of you are invited to join the grand jury.

We will meet for seven days. On day one, I'll present the indictment in the morning and in the afternoon I will explain the applicable law. On days two through seven, we'll have witness testimony, presented in transcript form, with exhibits.

As is the practice in most grand jury presentations, the evidence will be presented in summary form, by federal agents -- except that these agents are hypothetical. (Any relationship to actual federal agents, living or deceased, is purely coincidental.)

On day seven, when the testimony is complete, I'll leave the room to allow the grand jury to vote.

If the indictment and grand jury are hypothetical, the evidence is not. I've prepared for this case, just as I would have done for any other case in my years as a prosecutor, by reviewing all of the available relevant information. In this case, such information consists of witness accounts, the defendants' speeches, public remarks, White House press briefings, interviews, congressional testimony, official documents, all public intelligence reports, and various summaries of intelligence, such as in the reports of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and the 9/11 Commission. I've discarded any evidence, however compelling, that is uncorroborated.

Then, using a sophisticated system of documents piled on every surface in my dining room, I've organized and analyzed the reliable information chronologically, by topic, and by defendant. I've compared what the President and his advisers have said publicly to what they knew and said behind the scenes. Finally, I've presented the case through testimony that will, I hope, make sense and keep everybody awake.

After analyzing this evidence in light of the applicable law, I've determined that we already have more than enough information to allow a reasonable person to conclude that the President conducted a wide-ranging effort to deceive the American people and Congress into supporting a war against Iraq. In other words, in legal terms, there is probable cause to believe that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and Powell violated Title 18, United States Code, Section 371, which prohibits conspiracies to defraud the United States. Probable cause is the standard of proof required for a grand jury to return an indictment. Consequently, we have more than sufficient evidence to warrant indictment of the President and his advisers.

Do I expect someone to promptly indict the President and his aides? No. I am aware of the political impediments and constitutional issues relating to the indictment of a sitting president. Do those impediments make this merely an empty exercise? Absolutely not.

I believe this presentation adds a singular perspective to the debate about the President's use of prewar intelligence: that of an experienced federal prosecutor. Certainly, scholars and experts such as Barbara Olshansky, David Lindorff, Michael Ratner, John Dean, and Elizabeth Holtzman have written brilliantly about the legal grounds for impeachment that arise from the President's misrepresentations about the grounds for an unprovoked invasion of Iraq. But for most Americans, the debate about White House officials' responsibility for false preinvasion statements remains fixed on, and polarized around, the wrong question: Did the President and his team lie about the grounds for war? For many, the suggestion that the President lied is heresy, more shocking than a Baptist minister announcing during vespers that he's a cross-dresser. For many others -- indeed, now the majority of Americans -- that the President lied to get his war is a given, although no less shocking.

So my goals are threefold. First, I want to explain that under the law that governs charges of conspiracy to defraud, the legal question is not whether the President lied. The question is not whether the President subjectively believed there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The legal question that must be answered is far more comprehensive: Did the President and his team defraud the country? After swearing to uphold the law of the land, did our highest government officials employ the universal techniques of fraudsters -- deliberate concealment, misrepresentations, false pretenses, half-truths -- to deceive Congress and the American people?

My second goal is to supplement the scholarly analyses already written, by moving beyond exposition, beyond theory, to the inside of the courtroom, or more precisely, the grand jury room. By presenting the President's conspiracy to defraud just as a prosecutor would present any fraud conspiracy, I hope to enable readers to consider the case in an uncharged atmosphere, applying criminal law to the evidence that they believe has been proved to the standard of probable cause, just as grand jurors would in any other case.

Why is it important to do this? Because whether the President and his senior officials conspired to defraud the United States about the grounds for war is, at least on one level, a legal question, but, without a shift in political will, there will never be any reasoned consideration of it as such. The President will not be held accountable for misrepresenting the prewar intelligence unless and until Congress conducts hearings similar to the Watergate hearings. As yet, however, we seem painfully incapable of reaching that point. We are like inept tennis partners, collectively letting the ball slip by in the no-man's-land between the service line and the baseline, or in this case, between the legal and the political.

Perhaps more important, however, is that, although the evidence of wrongdoing is overwhelming, the facts are so complicated -- far more so than those that prompted the Watergate hearings--that it's impossible to have a productive debate about them in the political sphere. Indeed, modern-day spin has vanquished substance so thoroughly that even the most well-grounded charge of deliberate deception is often considered more despicable than the deception itself.

One forum where that's not true is the courtroom. The court system is far from perfect, but there we at least expect that people will not substitute personal attacks for argument. We expect a reasoned exploration of fact versus fiction, honest mistake versus deliberate fraud. We also expect, and the law requires, that people hear all the evidence before deciding, thereby avoiding the rapid volley of sound bites that so regularly masquerades for debate on television. Hence, this hypothetical grand jury presentation: it is a vehicle to deliver a message.

My third goal is to send the message home -- to whomever will listen. And this is it:

The President has committed fraud.

It is a crime in the legal, not merely the colloquial, sense.

It is far worse than Enron.

It is not a victimless crime.

We cannot shrug our shoulders and walk away.

Why? Because We Are All Kitty Genovese's Neighbors

As an Assistant U. S. Attorney in Minneapolis, a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force in San Jose, and Chief of the San Jose Branch U.S. Attorney's Office, I prosecuted all manner of criminal cases. There were bank embezzlements, government frauds, violent takeover robberies, piloting a commercial passenger flight while under the influence--the pilot had had twenty rum and (diet) Cokes and four hours' sleep before takeoff--and investment frauds, to name a few. Most were interesting; some downright loopy. One hapless fellow, for example, stole a truck filled with frozen turkeys and drove it across state lines to Wisconsin, thereby landing himself in federal prison rather than in county jail. For good measure, the following week -- before he'd been apprehended for the frozen-turkey heist -- he stole a truck filled with packaged frozen broccoli and drove it to Iowa.

Unquestionably, though, the most compelling cases were those that involved victims -- of violent crimes, robberies, or fraud. So I was not surprised to hear the lead Enron prosecutor's comment after the jury convicted former Enron CEOs Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling: "What inspired me," John Hueston said, "was just that, that I had spoken to so many employees, so many victims who lost their savings, people who pleaded with me and the other prosecutors to see justice done."

Thanks to Hueston and his team, the victims of the Enron fraud -- a $68 billion dollar crime that left 20,000 people without jobs, pensions, and life's savings -- have obtained some measure of justice. They will never be made whole, but at least the CEOs who orchestrated the fraud have been held accountable. In the case of the largest corporate fraud ever prosecuted in the United States, the system has worked, albeit imperfectly.

Thus far, however, in the case of the vastly broader and more devastating Iraq war fraud orchestrated by the CEO of the United States and his management team, the system has failed. And we are all victims of this fraud. George W. Bush exploited the vulnerability of an entire populace reeling from the September 11, 2001, attacks to manipulate them into supporting a war based on false pretenses. If the financial cost of the President's fraud is astronomical -- $340 billion in direct war costs alone as of August 2006 -- the human cost is incalculable, and far more profound: over 2,500 American soldiers killed and 19,000 wounded; possibly many more than 50,000 Iraqis killed; untold numbers of grieving Iraqi and American family members; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis homeless; and a million soldiers who have been sent to this war and will never be the same.

While we are all victims of the President's crime, we are also all bystanders. The crime is ongoing, happening right before our eyes, and we are all onlookers; we are all, in a sense, Kitty Genovese's neighbors.

As Malcolm Gladwell recounts in his book The Tipping Point, Kitty Genovese was viciously assaulted, stabbed three times, and finally killed, on the way to her Queens, New York, home one night in 1964. Thirty-eight neighbors heard or watched her ordeal, but no one called the police until the attack was essentially over. The murder was universally seen as a horrifying example of modern-day indifference to the plight of others. But, Gladwell explains, psychologists Bibb Latane and John Darley conducted experiments that led to a far different explanation: "When people are in a group . . . responsibility for acting is diffused. They assume that someone else will make the call, or they assume that because no one else is acting, the apparent problem . . . is not really a problem." Ironically, then, it was not that no one called to help Kitty Genovese "despite the fact that thirty-eight people heard her scream; it's that no one called because thirty-eight people heard her scream."

For over a year now, polls have shown that the majority of Americans believe President Bush deliberately misrepresented prewar intelligence. Executive branch officials who deliberately mislead Congress and the public intending to influence congressional action have committed a federal crime. That means that roughly 100 million Americans believe Bush has committed a crime, yet most, like Kitty Genovese's neighbors, are just passive bystanders--although not, I believe, due to indifference.

Indeed, many of us are just watching it happen because we feel powerless to stop it. Hundreds of thousands of people have, in effect, called 911, but not even Democrats in Congress have been willing to answer the phone. It is not that they don't have enough information; it is, our Democratic representatives say, because it is not good political strategy.

The proposition that it is not good political strategy to insist that government officials obey the law is highly debatable. More important, strategizing in the face of an ongoing crime is wrong. Ask any legislator whether he would strategize about possible political fallout before intervening to stop a crime that was occurring in front of his eyes and the response would be, "Of course not." But that is exactly what's happening right now.

So, consider this my 911 call. I'm calling on Democrats and Republicans to do the right thing. And I'm calling on everyone else to do whatever you can to convince Congress to do the right thing. I am not talking about bringing people to justice in the vengeful sense that President Bush employs. I am talking about effecting justice. I am talking, finally, about holding our highest government officials accountable for a complex and calculated program of false pretense, misleading statements, and material omissions -- a criminal betrayal of trust that is strikingly similar to, yet far worse than, the fraud committed by Enron's top officials.

Enron: Misleading Statements and Material Omissions

In July of 2002, President Bush stood before a snappy blue-and-white banner marked "Corporate Responsibility" and announced that he was opposed to fraud. With the enactment of the new Corporate Corruption Act, the President declared, there would "not be a different ethical standard for corporate America than the standard that applies to everyone else. The honesty you expect in your small businesses, or in your workplace . . . will be expected and enforced in every corporate suite in this country." CEOs would now have to personally vouch for the truth of their public statements.

Bush's speech announcing a higher standard for CEOs was itself misleading. Hearing it, one might easily conclude that if the President hadn't pushed for this new law, corporate officers would be legally entitled to lie, cheat, and steal. Not true, of course. The new law, also called the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, did not suddenly, for the first time in United States history, require corporate officials to be truthful, forthright, and fair with the public. Such obligations have been inherent in criminal fraud and other statutes for years.

Indeed, the Enron prosecution did not involve the Sarbanes-Oxley Act at all. The main charge was conspiracy to defraud: that is, conspiring to deceive investors by manipulating financial data, making false and misleading statements, and deliberately omitting important facts, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.

Manipulation of data, false and misleading statements, and material omissions -- sound familiar?

At trial, former Enron CEOs Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling claimed they were not responsible for the deception because they had no idea what their underlings were doing. As the jury was instructed, however, anyone who makes representations intending that the public will rely on them, has an affirmative obligation to make sure that they are true and accurate. Representations made with reckless indifference to their truth are as false as outright lies.

After four months of complex testimony, the jury reached a simple conclusion: Lay and Skilling were responsible for what went on in their company. As school principal Freddie Delgado put it: "I can't say that I don't know what my teachers were doing in the classroom. I am still responsible if a child gets lost."

In other words, the Enron jurors concluded that, legally, the desks of CEOs Lay and Skilling were the final repositories of the proverbial buck. Those jurors were average Americans -- office workers, educators, engineers, a nurse -- and they knew, even without the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, that CEOs should be held to the same standards of honesty and accountability that they would apply to themselves in their own lives. Faced with evidence that Lay and Skilling had repeatedly made public statements that were seriously undermined, if not flatly contradicted, by information and warnings they had received behind the scenes, the jury refused to allow them to avoid responsibility by blaming their subordinates.

Iraq: Misleading Statements and Material Omissions

The techniques of deception used by George W. Bush and his aides are identical to those used by Lay and Skilling. In his July 2002 speech announcing the signing of the Corporate Corruption Bill, the President said, "The only fair risks are [those] based on honest information." The President and his top advisers were acutely aware of the solemn risks posed by an invasion of Iraq, but instead of debating those risks honestly, they developed slogans, including the familiar "risks of inaction are greater than the risks of action" that simultaneously usurped and deflected counterarguments while providing no information whatsoever, honest or otherwise.

Such propaganda, cynical and craven as it is, might not qualify as criminal fraud, but the propaganda alone was insufficient to convince Congress and the American people to invest in the plan for war. To remedy this deficiency and close the deal, the President and his top aides made hundreds of representations, both general and specific, that were carefully crafted to manipulate public opinion. As we now know, many of those assertions were false and misleading. More important, we also now know that President Bush and his advisers had notice and direct knowledge that their representations were seriously undermined and in some key instances, disproved by information that was available to them. Consistently, the President and his aides knowingly conveyed false impressions, concealed important information, made deliberate misrepresentations, and professed certainty about facts that were speculative at best. Such is the definition of criminal fraud -- whether committed by the President of the United States or the CEO of a major corporation.

The only difference between the fraud committed by the Enron officers and the fraud committed by the President is that the latter was far more comprehensive and far more calculated. Even as President Bush stood center stage endorsing honesty that July four years ago, he and his company were setting the stage for another show. If the "only fair risks" speech was a perky Frank Capra clip, the White House's next production would be twenty-first-century H.G. Wells.

As of July 30, 2002, Bush had directed the creation of the White House Iraq Group, a public-relations operation whose sole purpose was to market the war. This team, collectively called WHIG, was co-chaired by the President's closest aides and long-term political consultants, Senior Adviser Karl Rove -- whom Bush has described as "the architect" of his 2004 reelection campaign--and former Counselor to the President Karen Hughes.

By July 30, 2002, the White House Iraq Group had already begun fabricating an ominous scenario that blurred together the September 11 tragedy, mushroom clouds rising over American cities, and terrorists releasing strains of smallpox, interspersed with the shadowy face of a mad Iraqi dictator spring-loaded to attack the United States. They were collecting props--anthrax vials and undated photos showing centrifuge components and unidentifiable buildings where something ominous might be happening, but we can't afford to wait to find out. They were writing the script: power phrases like "Grave and gathering danger" and "We can't afford to let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud," designed less to inform than to inflame. And, finally, Rove, Hughes, and company were scheduling appearances for the President's War Council members that would begin just a month later, in early September 2002.

It was to be a bravura performance by the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, the National Security Adviser, and many supporting cast members. The production was so well done, in fact, that, like the radio audience terrified into hysteria by the infamous "War of the Worlds" broadcast of 1938, most of us were fooled. Admittedly, we resisted buying the duct tape and plastic sheeting; we may not have wrapped our heads in wet towels to ward off Martian gas like the 1938 radio audience. What happened, however, was much worse: because of Bush's fiction, we agreed to bomb people 8,000 miles away whose only "crime" was that they were oppressed by a violent and cruel dictator.

Undoubtedly, Americans were panicked by H. G. Wells's radio play in part because they were exhausted and nervous in those tough Depression years. But Orson Welles' breathless report of a Martian invasion was never intended to cause panic, nor was it ultimately harmful.

The President's elaborate production was, and still remains, an entirely different story. It was a deliberate effort to create a permanent state of fear in America. And to say it was harmful is like saying that it hurts to get hit by a Mack truck.

Federal sentencing guidelines recognize that one who defrauds a vulnerable victim, such as a salesman who falsely represents the curative benefits of an elixir to a cancer patient, has committed an even more serious crime than one who defrauds a person who is not so "particularly susceptible." The President knew that Americans were "particularly susceptible" in 2002. We were exhausted, and justifiably terrified, not only because of September 11 but also because of the anthrax murders and the random Washington, DC, sniper killings that coincided with the Bush-Cheney administration's push for war.

President Bush and his White House Iraq Group did not merely exploit this fear; they magnified it. Worse yet, the President was the very person upon whom the public relied to protect it from danger and, one would hope, from omnipresent fear itself. Having used the authority of the Oval Office to make people more afraid, having created an even darker backdrop of fear, our highest officials exploited that reliance and the trust they enjoyed by virtue of their positions to sell something they knew the American public would not otherwise have bought. It was as if the cancer victim's trusted personal physician had convinced him that his disease was more advanced than it really was, and then used the same fraudulently heightened fear to manipulate him into buying a bogus cure-all.

In the language of criminal law, the President and his senior advisers have abused a position of trust to defraud the most vulnerable of victims. How would such a case be presented for prosecution? I invite you into the grand jury room to observe:

Ladies and Gentlemen, tomorrow begins our presentation in the case of United States v. George W. Bush et al. Please remember that you must decide the case based solely on the evidence that's presented and the applicable law, without regard to prejudice or sympathy. In other words, your politics, and any personal feelings you have toward the defendants -- positive or negative -- should have no bearing on your deliberations.

I will begin by passing out the indictment, so don't forget your reading glasses . . .

[Coming Wednesday: Part 2 of United States v. George W. Bush at Tomdispatch.com -- the indictment of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and Colin Powell.]

Elizabeth de la Vega is a former federal prosecutor with more than 20 years of experience. During her tenure, she was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Chief of the San Jose Branch of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California. Her pieces have appeared in the Nation Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Salon. She writes regularly for Tomdispatch. This is the introduction to her new book, United States v. George W. Bush et al. She may be contacted at ElizabethdelaVega@Verizon.net.

Excerpted from United States v. George W. Bush et al.
by Elizabeth de la Vega.
Published December 1, 2006 by Seven Stories Press and www.Tomdispatch.com.

Rice: Euro Nations Knew About Renditions, Secret Prisons

Chip — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:35:44 -0500

Reuters reports that a draft European Parliament report shows that at least some European nations knew about the secret off-shore US jails and obstructed investigations into the prisoners' transport, called "renditions" (the practice of extradicting prisoners to third countries to avoid breaking US law and subjecting prisoners to constitutional protections) and the illegal detentions at so-called "black sites."

The head of the Italian intelligence service, SIMSI, "concealed the truth" when he told the European Parliament that Italian intelligence agents weren't involved in the CIA kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric.

The report also shows that records from a confidential source involved in a European Union and NATO meeting with Condoleezza Rice confirmed "member states had knowledge of the (U.S.) program of extraordinary rendition and secret prisons."

The European detention facilities allowed the administration to circumvent American law. The facilities' existence has been known for a year, though the administration insisted that it was not bound by international restrictions on treatment of detainees. Rice denied that prisoners are moved for the purpose of torture and insisted that the US doesn't transport them to any country where the US thinks they might be tortured. The distinction may not have much meaning. According to a US Congressional Research Service report, "While the Bush Administration has not disputed charges that persons have been rendered to foreign States believed to practice torture, officials have denied rendering persons to States for the purpose of torture."

After 18 months of investigation and study, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights issued a report calling on the US to release or try all prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. According to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan “one cannot detain individuals in perpetuity and…charges have to be brought against them and be given a chance to explain themselves, and be prosecuted, charged or released.”