Gonzales and Bush Haven’t Spoken
It has been pretty apparent, given Alberto Gonzales’ utter failure to stumble on any wingnut welfare since resigning, that the Bush camp hasn’t been helping him out much.
But an interview in the NYT shows just how much relations between Gonzales and Bush have chilled.
Do you still talk to President Bush?
I have not spoken with the president since he left office.Have you ever been tempted to pick up the phone and say hi to him?
I do, of course, think about our time together, and there are times when I think about doing that. But listen, I know that he has his life to live. I’ve got challenges and my life to live as well.
This of course means Gonzales has not been invited to Bush’s legacy planning meetings (not surprisingly). But it also means Gonzales hasn’t even bumped into Bush in over six months. That would be hard to do, if Gonzales were traveling normal Texas Republican circles.
I’m particularly interested in Gonzales’ representation of the timing of this: he says nothing about whether he spoke to Bush before he left office. I wonder whether something happened at the end to make Gonzales clam up? Did Gonzales, for example, ask for a little Bushie pre-emptive pardon, just like Cap Weinberger got?
Add in Gonzales’ whining about his legal bills–and the suggestion that Bush and Cheney have not been forthcoming to help with them–and it all seems to reinforce the notion that Bush has sacrificed Gonzales to legal problems he has at least partly because of larger Bush Administration actions.
Have you asked Bush or Cheney to help defray your legal bills?
I have not asked them personally.I think you should ask them. They got you into this pickle. Shouldn’t they help get you out?
Listen, I have a group of supporters that are helping me fund-raise. They’re making decisions about how to do this successfully.What are your legal bills like?
Substantial. I’ll say that obviously it’s been a burden. We did establish a legal-defense fund, and we have raised and are in the process of raising additional monies to pay for the lawyers.
But then, Gonzales has been whining about his bills for some time, to no avail.
Given the news that Nora Dannehy is seriously considering charges, I do wonder whether Gonzales might consider saving himself in exchange for exposing those who (to some degree) got him into this position?
Maybe Gonzo to Bush and just doesn’t remember that he did. After all, he is pretty forgetful.
The famed Bush loyality has always been like this. His “loyalty” ends the moment your usefulness to him ends. Gonzales is the latest, and in many ways, the most spectacular example. I am sure that Bush hasn’t spoken to him since he resigned as AG.
Gonzo has supporters who are helping him raise money?
How’d he manage to find any?
Translation: They won’t take my calls and said no to my friends when they asked.
Exactly.
It would be wonderful if Gonzales spills. Hard to believe he’ll be stuck in this hell and NOT spill.
I thought we were picking up his legal bills, though.?
I think he’s too stupid to know he’s sitting on a gold mine.
Either that, or his “loyalty” is keeping his lips sealed. Perhaps he’s starting to get a little better picture of that “loyalty” thing, though.
Alive and silent, or dead.
We can hope and pray
The thing that’s ridiculous about all this is that Gonzo still doesn’t have a publisher. Where is the rich publisher offering him $5 million to burn Bush?
Maybe we should take up a collection?
Hey, you know, if the Texas Tech gig doesn’t work out for Gonzo (they got 70 professors to sign an official protest during the summer break when profs are scattered all over the place? That is seriously harsh), I hear Mark Sanford needs a roomate now.
So, the obvious question, why is it in Bush/Cheney’s interest to leave Gonzales out in the cold? Why do they seem to have such absolute certainty that he won’t go into the Witness Protection Program, to the point where they don’t even have to throw him a few bones?
They don’t even respect the worm enough to be worried about him or fear him. It is pretty telling isn’t it? Just brutal.
That seems to be their attitude. Khrushchev used to boast to foreign diplomats that if Gromyko, the foreign minister, were asked to sit on a block of ice with his pants down, he would do so unquestioningly until ordered to leave it. I could certainly see Gonzales doing the same while Bush was in office, but everyone has their limits.
I think Gonzales is scared. If they turn on him, all the money in the world won’t help. That business about mishandling classified documents was just a warning shot. He is legally responsible for many of their crimes. They could and would hand him over to a prosecuter on a silver platter. He can only implicate them in what would be a very iffy case.
I dunno about that, I think he could piss upwards pretty easily. And nobody is going to believe this stuff was all his idea. So I think they have some issues if it got down to that. I reckon they just are so sure he is in the bag they just don’t even think about him. Heck, who knows, but that is my take.
who’s to say they won’t disappear him?
Though he would be a, perhaps the, key witness tying Bush into the Iglesias firing.
That would be something interesting to get into, since statutorily the decision is the President’s and only the President’s and they can’t hide behind advice of counsel there – althought the deliberative priviliege is going to have to have a lot of evidence of criminality to overcome, esp with Obama fighting against. And they seem to have tried to both mollify Iglesias and reduce criticism from “the left” with his GITMO appointment
Based on his history, I’d say it’s because he’s the ultimate Bush underling. It’s said that W used to ask his people if they’d throw themselves on a grenade in order to save the Boss (i.e., Himself). That was the price of admission to the Inner Circle. Now, I don’t believe for one second that Marcy’s old friend Karl would do such a thing–though no doubt he claimed that he would–but I have reason to think that Fraido meant it.
As counsel to Governor George W. Bush, this man listened by telephone to literally dozens of executions at the state prison at Huntsville. There is something missing in his soul.
They–Bush, Rove, Cheney, Addington–knew, they KNEW, what they were getting when they made him A.G.
I was thinking the same ishmael, the very same
bush/cheney really better think twice about leaving abu torture out there haning
‘wheel: hope you caught the haggis article in the New York Times.
“Yes, we have salmon and porridge, and one or two other dishes, but Escoffier would surely have been very unfulfilled had he been born Scottish.” Not necessarily…. Funny that my food historian hackles went up with this sentence! For there is at least a two century tradition of Scots going abroad and apprenticing themselves in French restaurants, then adapting themselves as chefs-for-hire in aristocratic English estates. Up until WWII, it was a mark of prestige to have a Scottish chef working in an English household—Scottish chefs had, in fact, a certain mystique about them.
I got this straight from an English aristocrat (later a foodie) who was born in the 1930s and still remembered the era. I later confirmed it. We used to wonder if Scots fled the country because of the food. Doesn’t everybody know about Scottish chefs?
Heh. My Scots hackles were about to go up when I read the excerpt in your post, but then I saw that that column is Alexander McCall Smith writing with tongue firmly in cheek, so … don’t believe more than every other word — I’m sure he doesn’t.
Scotland is actually brimming over with wonderful fish and game and the best beef in the world, although there as here too many people don’t get to eat the good stuff, alas. I’ve always heard that haggis was originally French, actually — Escoffier would certainly have recognized it as a basic steamed savoury pudding and would probably have liked it as much as I do. Smith is right that it is good with mashed neeps and tatties; I like a bit of mango chutney on the side too, although a good haggis should be very peppery to start with.
I didn’t know about the tradition of Scottish chefs, although I knew of the traditional ties between Scotland and France (anything to annoy the dreaded Sassenachs).
And Smith left out one of the warring nations on the mainland — the Cornish are a separate Celtic nation as well (like Scotland, Wales, Ireland, the Isle of Man, and Brittany).
You betcha. I’m about 1/8th Cornish (from CORNWALL in England), and I remember in childhood visiting the house of a great aunt from that branch of the family who kept a Cornish-English dictionary in the “secretary” in the hallway. They were sturdy folk. Their heritage lives on in the form of Cornish pasties. Sturdy food for sturdy folk.
Bob in HI
Underlings don’t really “run in the same circles”. I can’t help but think BushW is hiding too, as a recluse he can’t been seen with others…in fact, wouldn’t he like us to forget he was president. “Been there, did that…too much work.”
Other than having a reputation for bad memory, I see no reason Gonzales could not provide very damaging testimony about the creation and design of the torture and wiretapping programs. He could go a long way in undercutting their “good faith” BS. I think he could be a real problem if he turned.
I think he could be a real problem if he turned too and I can see it in some of the less serious charges, or in walking cats back to Cheney instead of Bush, but given his status as first WH counsel, then AG, and Obamaco controlling Exec privilege assertions, and the fact that he was the guy giving the good faith cover with his status (my lawyer said …) I think it would be harder to go through him and on up chain than to end things at his door, or his and Addington’s door. Be nice to think someone would try, and it must annoy the hell out of him to see Rove – who did actually out a CIA agent to the guy who printed the info and has all that info in the public domain, and who was pushing harder on and a bigger architect of the USA firings, etc. – to see Rove smirking away on Fox and collecting his checks while Gonzales is toe dragging.
Gonzo WILL turn if there’s prison time involved. He could be reasonably confident that someone would pay his fines to keep him quiet, but the prison time would be all his.
Perhaps the calculation is that Obama would pardon Gonzo to avoid having his squealing interfere with The Plan. Gonzo leads right to Bush, he knows where the bodies are buried including some we don’t know about yet.
I’m shocked he’s held out this long. I hope that means he’s deep in bargain talks with the prosecutor, but I won’t hold my breath.
Boxturtle (Browns fans always have hope, until the moment it is unquestionably crushed)
So if money and/or pardons don’t keep people like Libby and Gonzalez quiet…what does?
Xe
Fear of getting into worse trouble than they’re already in?
Bob in HI
To the extent that there really are any investigations that might actually have serious lawyers working on them (and I doubt that) then any halfway decent lawyer wouldn’t be letting Bush get chit chatty with Gonzales right now. I think the Bushie “tone” on Gonzales came out pretty clearly in the article not to long ago, where one of the sources was basically kissing up, down and all around on Fielding and pretty much saying that poor Bush hadn’t had a decent lawyer to rely on until Fielding rode up on his white horse.
I feel a little for Gonzales on some of it. Sure, he was supposedly one of the architects of the NSA program, he’s the guy who could look at the Yoo and Taft memos and input and somehow think that Yoo had the better work product (mind meet boggle); he made the little oops of telling Bush in writing in 2002 that the main reason to choose the “illegal enemy combatant” ploy Yoo proposed was because it would help him when the War Crimes Act charges came around; he’s the guy who publically admitted that they didn’t go to Congress for authorization of their unconstitutional domestic *Fourth Amendment to the negative* program bc they didn’t think Congress would authorize it; he’s the guy who got the CIA info and Bellinger’s pleas on GITMO being overrun with innocent people we had bought for our experiments in depravity and covered it all up; etc.
But let’s face it, all the guys who are taking shots at him have their own resume builders that reek of criminal conspiracy and ethical violations. It’s just easy for the tall white ivy guys to join ranks and adopt the pretense that they weren’t equally involved and to blame – just the short, latino, dimmer bulb. Ashcroft good – Gonzales bad. Yeah, right.
But that’s the course they’ve all laid for a long time now. Comey’s *worry* that the poor, wonderful, brave, President, dripping with integrity and glowing with valor – heckfire, he just didn’t get no good advice. The anonymous sourcing shots at Fielding having to clean up after Gonzales. Republican members of Congress denigrating him, but not abandoning Ashcroft.
They’re all blech, but if he didn’t have so much blood on his hands and dead childrens’ bodies to stack at his door I’d almost feel a bit sorry for Gonzales. Almost. If.
Eh, who am I kidding.
Valiant, if failed, attempt at empathy.
It’s the rookie in me.
It is a little interesting to compare and contrast the reactions to Yoo and Gonzales (in press and DOJ etc.) to Bradbury, Ashcroft, Haynes etc.
A number of Nixon’s men — notably Mitchell, Haldeman, and Erlichman, but others too — remained silent at the time and took the fall. I remember Mitchell in particular, and the drama with Martha, who threatened to tell things she knew. But he seemed content with his decision not to defend himself. I knew the details so much better in those days than I recall now — not sure there was anyone in exactly Gonzales’s position among that group.
Sibel blowing a whistle
http://www.bradblog.com/
This is the most over-hyped pile of baloney I have seen in some time. Bruce Fein versus the “Sibel Edmunds is Deep Throat” Posse is a mismatch of severe proportions. I don’t care a lick for Jean Schmidt, but my money is on Bruce Fein making the mockery of this it deserves..
hope they can link the video clips. From what I have heard out of Bruce Fein seems like he could mop up any floor with his skills and intellect.
Wonder if he will end up anywhere on the Obama team. He is so pissed off about crimes committed the last eight years
What I don’t get with what you claim is why would Sibel and Palast keep trying to bring attention to this issue..if Sibel did not have any substantive information. Does she want to be a star that bad?
I totatally agree with Bmaz on this one. I think Brad got sucked into this one. The Dod a no-show? Are you kidding me? It’s probably was not worth their time. Brad gets a little reactive and alarmist over things sometimes. Dkos smacked him for his “the GOP are gonna steal election 2008″ stories too. (Although they did steal 2000 and 2004) Brad even got Greg Palast and Kennedy to send out warnings to voters. It scared me to death . I thought for sure McCain was gonna steal this last election too. But then I figured out that too many red state voters were going against McCain. But other than that6 Brad is good. I like him. I love his environmental articles. Very informative.
OT but interesting about spilling the beans,re Sibel Edmonds.
SHE IS TESTIFYING TODAY:
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7347
latest update:
8:40am PT (11:40am ET): During a break, Edmonds and the attorneys stepped outside.
DoJ still a no-show, so the questioning has proceeded, and Edmonds has been able to say “everything that she hasn’t been able to say so far, implicating many members of Congress in a criminal conspiracy,” according to interviews with Fein and others.
Edmonds’ attorney, Michael Kohn said: “The Justice Department decided not to show. Therefore, the deposition has gone much more smoothly than we had anticipated.”
Edmonds told me in a brief phone conversation during the break: “Bruce Fein is raising objections to everything”, though that’s to be expected. She said she’s been asked, and has answered, questions on Dan Burton (R-IN), Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Stephen Solarz (D-NY), and other questions on those high-ranking officials and lobbyists in her “State Secrets Gallery”.
She added that “somebody said the FBI was given the wrong time, for 11:30 instead of 10:30″, though she didn’t see how that could be, given that the time for the start of the deposition has been well publicized. In any case, it’s now 11:45am ET, so we’ll see if they showed up during this break. They have now gone back into session…
The DoJ is not (so far) present or evoking the State Secrets Act
She is answering all questions
Many thanks for the update!……have been meaning to ask if anyone had heard further news since the kick-off time.
Obama to Iran: Why bother with a mass trial when you can just detain those insurgents in “humane” detention forever?
Kinda, sorta snark. I guess.
Gonzales was Bush’s and Cheney’s personal Renfield. “Yesss Master! You want a legal memo authorizing what? The torture of children? Absolutely, no problem!”
Now that they’re no longer in office, they have no use for him. Especially since anything discussed or revealed in a conversation (phone, email, in-person) could be subpoenaed.
Knew I had read something in the Dayton Daily News a while back about who Bush was throwing some money at.
“WASHINGTON — It seems that all that’s missing in Republican Rob Portman’s donor list is a couple of Reagans.
But then again, it’s early in the campaign.
After all, both Bush administrations are represented in Portman’s most recent report with the Federal Elections Commission: Former President George H.W. Bush, former first lady Barbara Bush, and former vice president Dan Quayle from the elder Bush’s administration have given money to Portman’s Senate bid. So have White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card and vice president Dick Cheney’s daughter Mary from President George W. Bush’s administration.
There are plenty of big Republican fundraisers on the list too. President George W. Bush during his two presidential campaigns solicited volunteers he called Pioneers, who vowed to raise at least $100,000 for his campaign; and Rangers, who vowed to raise at least $200,000. Portman, a former Bush trade representative and budget director, was a Pioneer. At least 13 other Pioneers and Rangers have given to his U.S. Senate campaign so far.”
http://www.daytondailynews.com…..21775.html
@38
.
MUCH has been written about the chicanery involving Ken Blackwell in previous elections there,the use of Tennesse splitters to reroute votes,and of course, the untimely death of the GOP wunderkind of IT,Mike Connell.
But what caught my attention was the Ohio connection to Holder.
Ohio is the home state of Carl Lindner of Chiquita Banana fame,whom Holder defended many years ago.
Also, Lindener,convicted of funding Colombian death squads last year,was a BIG backer of John McCain.
Curiously enough,Pastor Rod Parsley ,McCain’s spritual advisor,is from Ohio and was instrumental in getting out the vote for Ken Blackwell via Parsley’s Patriot Pastors network.
McCain Still Receives Big $$$s from Keating S&L Figure Linked to BCCI and Organized Crime
Posted by leveymg in General Discussion
Thu Aug 21st 2008, 06:18 PM
A lot of people are familiar with S&L crook Charles Keating’s illegal contributions to John McCain in the 1980s. What most don’t know, however, was that Keating was implicated in the BCCI takeover of a number of S&Ls, including his own. With me, so far?
Carl Lindner, an Ohio billionaire with CIA and underworld connections who owned Chiquita Bananas, was Charles Keating’s original partner, banker, and mentor. Lindner got Keating wrapped up with schemes involving the usual cast of BCCI characters, shady Saudi bankers, the Bush family, and Iran-Contra money laundering. Keating was always a sort of pass-through guy, without any real money of his own. Lindner who was recently convicted of financing Right-wing death squads in Colombia, is still giving big, dirty campaign checks to McCain. Now, that’s a story that the American people need to hear.
leveymg’s Journal –
McCain Backer’s Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia …Jul 2, 2008 … Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/07/02/m… – 146k –
I don’t know where you are getting this from; but nothing of the sort happened. Nothing whatsoever happened to Lindner, not even a civil penalty; instead because of an agreement made between Eric Holder on behalf of Chiquita (in what was almost certainly an unethical maneuver by Holder in protecting the individuals instead of his client in fact, Chiquita) the Chiquita company paid a penalty/fine in the amount of $25 million in return for a non-prosecution. And Keating himself does not still give money to McCain, he is effectively penniless and living off of and with family.
Alberto Palfrey?
think Progress
on the NYT’s article
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/…..les-angry/
lots of comments
Here’s Krikorian, directly quoted. Hang on to your seats…
“From my opinion, if I’m some of the current members of Congress, I’d be very very worried about the information that’s going to come out of this. There are current members of Congress that she has implicated in bribery, espionage. It’s not good. It’s crazy, it’s absolutely crazy. For people in power situations in the United States, who know about this information, if they don’t take action against it, in my opinion, it’s negligence.
[Which current members have been implicated?]
[Dan] Burton (R-IN), described as basically accepting bribes and involved in espionage for the Turkish government…she could not discuss the extremely illegal activities that Mr. Burton committed against U.S. interests, as she put it.
Also, a current female Democratic [ed note: I misheard, he later said he didn’t know if she was Dem or Rep] member of Congress who has been blackmailed by the Turkish Government…called a ‘hooking exercise’…she’s apparently bi-sexual and they bugged her apartment, she’s married with children, and they set up a relationship with another female who went in and had sexual relationships with her. And they had all the episodes bugged within this current Representatives home and they blackmailed her. … She wouldn’t give her name, but her photograph [is the one with the question mark on it in the “Sibel Edmonds Rogue Gallery” ] .
The context of the discussion was that this particular Representative was amenable to passage of the Armenian Genocide Resolution. And then based on this ‘hooking’ operation, changed her position. She was reluctant to put this person’s name on record.
[Other people implicated included] Livingston (R-TX), Hastert (R-IL), Dick Gephardt (D-MO), other non-Congressional members, people like Brent Scowcroft, other appointed members of the U.S. government.
Did not have very flattering things to say about former U.S. House Speaker Dennis Hastert. … Actually, I stopped taking notes because I was o fascinated by what she was saying. … She talked about the Rand Corp., Brewster-Jennings, nuclear secrets…
(From Brad Blog,link upthread)
Really? Why not? I thought the big bad DOJ didn’t show, so Mata Hari Edmunds was able to finally spill all her beans. What happened to that? Would she have to kill us if she told us? Did they teach her that at the Jethro Bodine Double Naught Secret Agent School?
I made quite clear what my sources are.
Dan Kovalik: Lawyer for Chiquita in Colombia Death Squad Case May …Nov 6, 2008 … Lindner was recently convicted of financing Right-wing death squads in Colombia. Now, that’s a story that the American people need to hear. …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/……..41919.html – Cached – Similar
Exclusive: Bush US Attorney cut lenient plea deal with company …5 posts – 2 authors – Last post: Jul 21
Chiquita Brands accused of funding death squads – Democratic . … Murder and payoffs taint business in Colombia – Democratic … Lindner who was recently convicted of financing Right-wing death squads in Colombia, …
http://www.democraticunderground.com/…..all… – Cached – Similar
Democratic Underground – Chiquita Banana Death Squad – Democratic …Lindner who was recently convicted of financing Right-wing death squads in … McCain Backer’s Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia . …
http://www.democraticunderground.com/…..hp?… – Cached – Similar
TPM Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Worst Yet? McCain …Lindner who was recently convicted of financing Right-wing death squads in … McCain Backer’s Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia . …
tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/…/worst_yet_mccain_campaign_robo.php – Cached – Similar
Daily Kos: McCain Still Receives Big $$$s from Keating S&L Figure …Aug 22, 2008 … Lindner who was recently convicted of financing Right-wing death squads in … McCain Backer’s Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia . …. Death Squad Financier Tied To McCain Campaign! (4+ / 0-) …
http://www.dailykos.com/…/-McCa…..ized-Crime – Cached – Similar
Chiquita in Latin America1 post – 1 author – Last post: Jul 18
Chiquita was the first company in U.S. history to be convicted of financial … Lindner had been a big donor to the GOP but switched sides and began to … for an interview with 60 Minutes dealing with Colombian death squads. … CASE STUDY: Funding terrorists at AIG, ===> ***USA TORTURE WARCRIMES …
forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=119519.0 – Cached – Similar
Take your pick.
Right. Exactly. Carl Lindner was never charged with, and certainly was never convicted of, a crime in the case. Chiquita paid a fine of $25 million.
Read them again.
I don’t need to read them again, I remember the case quite well. It is just flat out wrong to say that the inviduals, and Lindner in particular, was convicted of anything. He was not. Here is the indictment, he was not even charged. And I have pretty good personal knowledge of McCain, Ketaing and the interaction of the two. Charlie did not contribute to his campaign (nor anybody else’s).
…
Nico Pitney pitney@huffingtonpost.com
|McCain Backer’s Firm Pleaded Guilty To Funding Terrorist Group In Colombia
First Posted: 07- 2-08 03:07 AM | Updated: 07- 9-08 05:12 AM
The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company’s board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University’s National Security Archive as an “illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country’s most notorious civilian massacres.”
Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita’s payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.
According to the Justice Department, the payments “were reviewed and approved by senior executives” of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 “that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization.”
Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain’s Ohio Victory Team.
While Lindner was CEO of Chiquita, the company began sending money to the AUC through its shipping subsidiary Banadex. A report by the Organization of American States states that Banadex also engaged in arms trafficking, helping to deliver 3,000 Nicaraguan AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to the AUC in 2001. According to federal prosecutors, when company officials realized the arrangement was illegal, they switched to making the payments in cash.
Chiquita’s funding of violent paramilitaries does not end with the right-wing AUC. The fruit giant “had been making similar payments to the leftist FARC and ELN guerrillas” since 1989, also on Lindner’s watch. Those payments ended in 1997 as “control of the company’s banana-growing area shifted” to the AUC, according to the Associated Press.
(Excerpt,HuffPo)
Exactly right, the company paid a fine without implications to individuals. The story was covered heavily here. I appear to have misunderstood you, if you are saying Lindner contributed heavily to McCain, you are right he did. I thought what you posted was implying that Keating himself was still contributing, but looking at it again maybe that was not the point. Lindner did contribute, as I believe did Keating’s old law firm, that he left decades ago, as well; but Charlie himself is very much out of sight and under radar.
WTF ? !
Edmonds is implying that the dismantling of Brewster Jennings had nothing to do with Plame
Second, I asked about the the “real” story on Brewster Jennings, as opposed to the “crap…from the media” as she mentioned at the venue.
“Basically,” she said, “I told them how [third-ranking State Dept. official in the Bush Admin and former Ambassador to Turkey] Marc Grossman disclosed” that Brewster Jennings was a CIA front company] to the target of an FBI investigation. “And it was under oath and that some some lives may have been lost.”
“Novak has nothing to do with it. Wilson has nothing to do with it. Valerie Plame has nothing to do with it. The whole operation has to do with something totally different and it had to do with the American Turkish Council and the Turkish clients who were about to hire Brewster Jennings as an analyst … and Grossman found out about it, and tipped off his diplomatic contact who was a target of the FBI counter-intelligence, and that person notified the ISI [Pakistani intelligence agency], etc.”
She says that Brewster Jenning was then “dismantled as soon as the FBI notified the CIA” after which “FBI requested CIA to do a damage assessment, to see if lives would be lost.”
All of this, she re-iterated was “long before, three years before” Novak outed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative in his newspaper column.
Brewster Jennings was “absolutely” dismantled in August of 2001.
“Grossman and [Richard] Armitage, they are the only two people involved. Later on Cheney and his people may have used it, but it had nothing to do with those other things, [Brewster Jennings] was completely destroyed and gone by the summer of 2001.”
Interesting, if true. But that would have made Plame more expendable at the agency- here operation was down. Plus, if she tried to find out the reasons that led to the shut down, out of personal loyalty to her informants and agents, then Grossman and Armitage would have very tangible reasons for “outing Plame”.
The prior “shut down” of Brewster-Jennings might also explain why subsidiary charges could be raised against Novak or others. One can’t be liable for exposing an operation that has already been shut down (except that it is probably classified still, but what was leaked didn’t reveal, to the public at least, what the operations were*)- and if agents/informants died during that process, then the “leak” didn’t cause it.
*although I can guarantee that the countries involved with B-J would learn….thus compromising agents/informants beyond Turkey.
There are some interesting parallels in the careers of Plame and Grossman which make me wonder if he would have been privy to, not only the activities of Brewster-Jennings, but Plame herself.
Here’s what we know about the “public” whereabouts of Grossman.
Like Wilson he is a native of Los Angeles, California, and furthermore, like Wilson, graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara. I suspect that their attendance there overlapped. Both Wilson and Grossman entered the foreign service in the late 1970’s; Wilson serving in Niger, while Grossman was posted to Pakistan (1976 to 1983).
At some point, like Plame, Grossman obtained an advanced degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science..
Grossman was the U.S. Embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission in Ankara from 1989 to 1992.
From 1994 to 1997 he was elevated to U.S. Ambassador to Turkey. In Turkey, he promoted U.S.-Turkish security linkages and a vigorous and expanded economic ties. Thus he might have been a conduit to commercial work in the energy field that Brewster-Jennings was seeking. Recall as well that Plame met Wilson at a Party held at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C. around 1997.
From 1997 to 2000 Grossman served as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. Grossman supervised the activities of over 4,000 State Department employees in 50 localities abroad. He played a lead role in orchestrating NATO’s 50th anniversary Summit in Washington in 1999 and helped direct U.S. participation in NATO’s military campaign in Kosovo that same year. Plame’s last foreign station (as opposed to foreign travel on operations) was in Brussels, which serves as NATO headquarters. About this time Wilson was also working with the State Department as Special Ambassador to Sub-Saharan Africa, part of the time spent in Brussels where he dated Plame and they eventually became engaged.
In 1999 or 2000 Plame told her superiors in covert operations, who were having problems in following up reports in West Africa , that her husband might be well-suited to making inquiries in Niger regarding reports that the IRANIANS were attempting to acquire yellowcake uranium. This might suggest that she was still involved in operations covering the Pakistan-Iran-Iraq-Turkey region. After a trip under the guise of a business and leisure trip to his old postings in Africa, Wilson confirms the IRANIAN efforts but also notes they were both rebuffed and that the likelihood of smuggling any substantial amount of ore was miniscule*.
* This was the reason that Wilson was sent out again to Niger in 2001 to investigate the phony Italian reports of Nigerien-Iraqi smuggling in yellowcake. He had previously been successful.
The connection to Grossman is covered quite openly in Joe Wilson’s book.
During the first Clinton Administration, Joe Wilson was ambassador to NATO, and posted in Belgium, and Grossman was Professional Foreign Service Ambassador in Turkey. One of the things Joe Wilson had to deal with constantly was concerns on the part of Turkey about the uses of their airbases by NATO, a time when the USAF was flying CAP over Northern Iraq as part of the outcome of the first Iraqi War in 1990-91, a CAP that allowed the Kurds to organize politically on their own Iraqi territory, and against Saddam, in ways that Turkey distrusted, because of their ongoing problems with their own Kurdish populations. Wilson says in his book that virtually every other day he dealt with Grossman on the phone, given problems the Turkish Government raised with him about the overflight activity, as Ambassador to Turkey (Grossman) passed these on to the US Ambassador to NATO, (Joe Wilson).
At this time, Joe was still married to someone else, but he was dating and becoming very serious about Valerie Plame, who was stationed in Europe, and visiting Joe whenever they had free time, either in Brussels or in Paris. Joe says that Grossman was one of the only persons in the Foreign Service establishment who knew that Joe and Valerie were an item, or becoming one, and that on trips to Europe Grossman socialized with them, as they both knew him.
I don’t think this is all that complicated, and since Wilson put it all in his book, it is not exactly secret.
not sure where i come down on the SE events, but it would explain how they thought they could claim Plame was not a covert agent if they knew B-J had been dismantled years prior…
Well, except for that the whole bogus line of thought about Plame and Brewster-Jennings not still being covert and protected was shot to hell by the declaration and avowals to the court, on the record, of Patrick Fitzgerald, on official and uncontradicted behalf of the government, that Plame was covert and the operation protected.
more proof that Karma exists
what comes around goes around
at some point, the bell tolls for you
have a nice life, abu gonzo
@51
Krikorian went on to say that he expects to release the video of the deposition, which, along with the transcript, is the property of his legal team.
He says “There will be…This could be a 10 part YouTube video segment, that we’ll put out there.”—————————-BradBlog
The Keating $50,000
Published by Massie Ritsch on September 3, 2008 10:52 AM
Individuals at a law firm founded by Charles H. Keating, Jr., who symbolized how political influence contributed to the collapse of savings and loans in the 1980s, have bundled at least $50,000 to John McCain’s presidential campaign since June, the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics has calculated, making the Cincinnati-based firm McCain’s sixth-largest contributor during that period.
McCain was among “The Keating Five,” a group of senators who benefited from more than $1 million in campaign contributions connected to Keating and personally intervened with government regulators to allow his S&L to make risky investments that ultimately defrauded thousands of investors and cost taxpayers $3.4 billion.
In amounts ranging from $200 to $2,300, about 30 partners and employees of the legal firm Keating, Muething and Klekamp, as well as their family members, have contributed $50,200 to McCain’s 2008 campaign. All but two of the contributions came in July, and all but three of those July donations were logged on July 31, suggesting they were delivered at the same time
One of the firm’s longtime clients, Cincinnati billionaire Carl Lindner Jr., is listed as a McCain bundler who has delivered $50,000 to $100,000 to the campaign, and his son, Carl Lindner III, has bundled $250,000 to $500,000. The Lindners and employees of Keating, Muething and Klekamp had been mostly Mitt Romney supporters during the Republican primary. The law firm’s attorneys contributed more than $40,000 to Romney’s campaign in March 2007.
Charles Keating, who went to prison for defrauding investors, is now 84, according to reports, and appears to be uninvolved in the law firm he helped found more than 50 years ago. The only Keating in the recent bundle of contributions to McCain’s campaign is $1,000 contributor William J. Keating, Jr., who is listed as a partner in the firm and appears to be Charles Keating’s nephew. William J. Keating, Sr., Charles Keating’s brother, was a Republican congressman from Ohio—————-Open Secrets
@59
Several days ago I posted some links on a different thread here that suggests the same thing-that the Plame “affair” had a far different motivation than what it would have superficailly,initially appeared.
Here is a copy of my post and the links:
Gitcheegumee August 5th, 2009 at 7:00 am 80
#79
Here is an excerpt of an article that may be of interest to you:
****
Read entry |
This all ties in with the Plame and MZM-Cunningham cases
Posted by leveymg in General Discussion
Sun May 27th 2007, 10:54 AM
RESPONSE TO POST: Head Of CIA’s WMD Division-Told Underlings To GIVE BUSH -The Intelligence To ALLOW Him To Go To War http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu… ;forum=389&topic_id=980204&mesg_id=980204
The October 2002 Iraq WMD NIE and the eventual outing of Valerie Plame have a tie-in with the MZM scandal. They present strong circumstantial evidence that the reason that Valerie Plame was “outed” by WHIG was to shut down CIA-Counter Proliferation Division (CPD), where Plame worked, in favor of CIA WINPAC, which had been tamed and harnessed by the neocons.As this tale makes clear WINPAC was delivering the goods, falsified Iraq WMD reports, in large part because of the leadership of Mr. Foley, and also because WINPAC had outsourced much of its analysis work to private contractor MZM, which was stovepiping bad intel through the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center (NGIC) at Ft. Belvoir. See, http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exe…
If I was in Gonzo’s shoes, knowing what he knows especially about the characters and their proven far reaching power and influence I think I would lay low for a considerable length of time allowing my silence about certain matters to be rewarded. Meanwhile I’d be praying that some accident would not transpire to shorten my life expectancy. I would have paid particular attention to that plane accident that took the life of that computer operative. I would not have missed the fact that even Obama and Company are not struggling to bring justice to people that started an illegal war killing thousands, that killed and maimed many during illegal torture, that illegally wiretapped possibly the whole damn nation, bent the constitution all outa shape to suit their evil ways, and on and on. Rove is not in jail. Scootter has some issues but he is free. Naw I think I would wait until someone else showed some balls and serious prosecutions showed signs of getting the Bush and Cheney Cabal. And then maybe I would pile on and get my slice of the action.
Seriously folks, I believe Obama is going to walk through this term trying to keep his head above water, then he is going to bail and hand it over to Hillary and Slick Willy.
Hope he likes hanging out on the discard pile with Katharine Harris.
I think if he had any friends who were not imaginary his bills would be paid a Texas GOPer in an oil rich state who worked for a Texas Oilman can’t get his legal bills paid quietly working for Bush?
Either he is that radioactive no Bushy even twice removed can help him. Or Bush has sent out the word to cut him off completely.
But why?
Lets assume Gonzo is scared. Lets assume he is scared of Bush. Until Bush is put away he won’t talk. But after that happens I think he will talk.
desperate men do desperate things, if he’s keeping silent in this desperation it does seem likely he’s been threatened
OTOH, being AbuG, he knows well how many phone calls it would take (1) to end any shot he has of getting a check from anyone. He is ill-prepared to take even the minimal Scotty McClelland route. And he knows his enemies far better than Scotty did.
Perris! How the hell are you? Long time no see….
The Bush crime family will be held accountable as soon as the criminals of Iran-Contra are brought to justice.
I have simple adavice for gonzales
he needs to cleanse his soaul, I tell you, if he even hints to bush/cheney that he is “going public with his guilt to cleanse his soul”
bing, he says he’s going to do that and there is no question what so ever he gets wing ut
welfwarewelfareif someone has contact with a student at his new job, get them to suggest this..time for gonzo to repent, or make believe he’s going to repent
oops, I jumped to comment before I finished the post, i SEE this has already been suggested;
no disrespect Marcy, but “big surprise!!! NOT!”.
It was a matter of time and patience to see which one of these thugs would throw who under the bus first.
What I wonder is if Bu$h sees Gonzo as the sleeeze WE see his as.
Does W really see what a greazzzy assho he so totally supported all that time and wonder how he got so “tainted” or whatever.
THAT’S what I wonder.
As for Gonzo, I hope he wonders in the fires forever. It’s a better option I guess than if Justice was actually served in this situation and BOTH OF THEM were in jail now, awaiting a ruling from The Hague.
*sigh*
fuck em BOTH!
Leen, did you see that Bill Clinton will kick off Netroots Nation?
thank you thank you thank you. Have been around Big Bill several times. Once in Columbus when he first ran. My youngest was six was in my arms as Bill, Al, Tipper and Hillary passed by shaking hands. A gentlemen next to me kept screaming “I want to marry my boyfriend Steve, I want to marry my boyfriend Steve” just after Bill passed. Tipper seemed flustered by the statement, Al ignored the young man. Hillary stopped right next to me, took the guys hand
, looked into his eyes and said. “please listen to what we are saying, we are trying hard to address this, please listen” Hillary cut through all the bull with laser like precision.
If only she had not vote for that 2002 war resolution and keep repeating unsubstantiated claims about Iran.
Bill and Hillary have come to Athens quite a few times. The most impressive last fall was Chelsea. I thought she was the most impressive person during the whole campaign period
Lost Asset: The True Cost of the White House CIA Leak
Posted July 18th, 2005
Brewster Jennings & Associates was the cover organization to which CIA spy Valerie Plame Wilson was assigned. Its mission was deadly serious: tracking human intelligence on black market transfers of weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear materials.
There is no way to know the depth and the seriousness of what was lost when senior White House operatives chose to reveal the secret mission of Brewster Jennings and Associates in order to punish a political enemy.
One likely scenario is that the revelation tipped black marketers in nuclear materials that they were being monitored, thus helping them to escape scrutiny.
So remember, when you hear the GOP trying to change the topic of this scandal to Joe Wilson, what they don’t want you to think about is the fact that by uncovering Brewster Jennings & Associates, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, Scooter Libbey or others aided and abetted the very terrorists the Bush Administration says it is fighting in its bogus “war”on terror.
CONTINUED…
http://www.pensitoreview.com/2…..he-… /
Gonzo was hung out to dry by Bush like any other chattel that had outlived its usefulness. Had Gonzo been paying attention over more than a dozen years in working closely with Shrub, he would have seen that pattern.
What level of angst, what debt burden, what legal or family jeopardy might get Gonzo to turn state’s evidence? What extra-legal pressure might Cheney and Bush bring to bear to keep Gonzo from telling all or to retaliate against him or his family if he does?
If Gonzo were skilled at protecting himself, like Libby, Addington or Cheney, he wouldn’t be Gonzo. He has bought into the role of sacrificial retainer, whose job is to protect his “betters”. So the added question is who in his network might persuade him that that role is bogus. It is not worth going bankrupt and being threatened and treated like a goat during years of protracted prosecutions and appeals, watching his family suffer social, financial and professional humiliation?
There is the matter that much of what he learned is subject to attorney client or executive privilege. But there is likely room to get round those when the subject is serial criminal conspiracies. Conceivably, he might find religion, tell all anyway, accepting the costs as preferable and as less than the alternatives open to him.
Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees expected
Source: Los Angeles Times
Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees expected
Insiders say Atty. Gen. Eric Holder is close to naming a prosecutor to look into reports of excessive waterboarding and other unauthorized methods. Convictions could be hard to get.
By Greg Miller and Josh Meyer
5:17 PM PDT, August 8, 2009
Reporting from Washington — U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. is poised to appoint a criminal prosecutor to investigate alleged CIA abuses committed during the interrogation of terrorism suspects, current and former U.S. government officials said.
A senior Justice Department official said that Holder envisioned a probe that would be “narrow” in scope, focusing on “whether people went beyond the techniques that were authorized” in Bush administration memos that liberally interpreted anti-torture laws.
Current and former CIA and Justice Department officials who have firsthand knowledge of the interrogation files contend that criminal convictions will be difficult to obtain because the quality of evidence is poor and the legal underpinnings have never been tested.
Some cases have not previously been disclosed, including an instance in which a CIA operative brought a gun into the interrogation booth to force a detainee to talk.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/na…..-ci…
O/T (Old/Topic), the bailout. We have been used so badly.
The secret history of TARP: How Goldman bailed out Goldman…
BY DANIEL TENCER Published: August 8, 2009 Updated 1 hour ago
“Former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson wasn’t on Goldman Sachs’ payroll when the US government bailed out his former employer, but he may as well have been.
“That’s the implication in a New York Times article, published Saturday, that shows President George W. Bush’s last treasury secretary, a former CEO of investment bank Goldman Sachs, had frequent conversations with the current CEO of Goldman during the week of Sept. 16, when the US government handed over $85 billion to
rescue the troubled insurance giant AIG.
“AIG’s outstanding debts to Goldman Sachs meant that $13 billion of the money handed over to AIG went directly to Goldman Sachs.”
More.
Is Obama Punking Us?
By FRANK RICH
Published: August 8, 2009
“But this mood isn’t just about the banks, Public Enemy No. 1. What the Great Recession has crystallized is a larger syndrome that Obama tapped into during the campaign. It’s the sinking sensation that the American game is rigged — that, as the president typically put it a month after his inauguration, the system is in hock to “the interests of powerful lobbyists or the wealthiest few” who have “run Washington far too long.” He promised to smite them.
“No president can do that alone, let alone in six months. To make Obama’s goal more quixotic, the ailment that he diagnosed is far bigger than Washington and often beyond politics’ domain. What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand, from commercial transactions as trivial as the sales of prime concert tickets to cultural forces as pervasive as the news media.”
And much more.
Britain warned on torture complicity
Sat Aug 8, 7:05 pm ET
LONDON (AFP) – “The government was warned Sunday by a body of lawmakers that regularly using information gained through torture could be legally construed as complicity.
“It was “imperative” that the government fulfilled its legal obligations to prevent torture and probe alleged incidents, the Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC) scrutiny body said in its annual human rights report.
The report comes as intelligence agencies face allegations of involvement in the questioning of terror suspects in countries such as Pakistan, including supplying questions for interrogators.”
More.
Wilson graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1972. Grossman in 1973.
The London School of Economics tie is more remote. Grossman received his M.Sc. in 1974, Plame two decades later. So it’s unlikely that it would have been more than a conversation point between them.
More likely this is part of the Bush image rehabilitation scheme. Gonzalez is even more toxic than Bush if that’s even possible, so manufacturing this “rift” between Bush and Gonzo, as well as Bush and Cheney, is frankly in Georgie’s best interests.
Take the case of Jan Dickerson, a Turkish translator who worked with Sibel Edmonds. The FBI has admitted that when Dickerson was hired last November, the bureau didn’t know that she had worked for a Turkish organization being investigated by the FBI’s own counterintelligence unit, and they didn’t know…
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) …she’d had a relationship with a Turkish intelligence officer stationed in Washington who was the target of that investigation. According to Sibel Edmonds, Jan Dickerson tried to recruit her into that organization, and insisted that Dickerson be the only one to translate the FBI’s wiretaps of that Turkish official.
What was her reaction when you didn’t go along with–with her plan?
Ms. EDMONDS: She got very angry, and later she threatened me and my family’s life.
BRADLEY: Threatened you?
Ms. EDMONDS: Correct.
BRADLEY: Did–did you ta~e her threat seriously?
Ms. EDMONDS: Oh, yes. She said, Why would you want to place your life and your family’s life in danger translating these tapes?’
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Edmonds says that when she reviewed Dickerson’s translations of those tapes, she found that Dickerson had left out information crucial to the FBI’s investigation; information that Edmonds says would have revealed that the Turkish intelligence officer had spies working for him inside the US State Department and at the Pentagon. Ms. EDMONDS: We came across at least 17, 18 translations. communications that were extremely important for–for the ongoing investigations of these indivi–individuals.
BRADLEY: And she had not translated these–these–this information?
Ms. EDMONDS: No, she had marked it as ‘not important to be translated.’
BRADLEY: Specifically, what kind of information did she leave out of her translation?
Ms. EDMONDS: Activities to obtain the United States military and intelligence secrets.
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Edmonds says she complained repeatedly to her bosses about what she’d found on the wiretaps and about Jan Dickerson’s conduct, but that nobody at the FBI wanted to hear about it. She says not even the assistant special agent in charge.
Ms. EDMONDS: He said, Do you realize what you are saying here in your allegations? Are you telling me that our security people are not doing their jobs? Is that what you’re telling me? If you insist on this investigation, I’ll make sure in no time it will turn around and become an investigation about you.’ These were his exact words.
BRADLEY: (Voiceover) Sibel Edmonds was fired this past March. The FBI offered no explanation, saying in the letter only that her contract was terminated completely for the government’s convenience.
But three months later, the FBI conceded that on at least two occasions, Jan Dickerson had, in fact, left out significant information from her translations.=====================CBS,60 minutes interview excerpt,link to follow
Special ReportTake the case of Jan Dickerson, a Turkish translator who worked with Sibel Edmonds. The FBI has admitted that when Dickerson was hired last November, …
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/0311/attachment1.htm – Cached – Similar
Wait, I thought Fredo meant *everything* to Bush.
@91
And you thought “My Pet Goat” was the title of a children’s book…..*g*
When I read about the indignites and sexual torture of suspected terrorist detainees, I remember the Texas Youth Commission pedophile sex ring a few years back.
(I always wondered if some of those guards didn’t contract out for similar services to Iraq war contractors.)
This is a state run school,but Gonzales,Johnny Sutton and Governor Perry pretty much gave the pedophile predators(actually guards)a get out of jail free card.
The members of Texas Tech are very correct in their negative response to Gonzales.
There are MANY documented details of the Texas Youth Commission investigation on the net.
Interestingly enough,Cheney and Gonzales were both indicted last November in South Texas for issues relating to privately owned prisons,although I am not aware of anything coming of it.
And Johhny Sutton was involved in the Ramos and Campion case of the two border patrol agents who were sent to prison for shooting a KNOWN drug smuggler in the leg-as he tried to escape.Sutton sent the Border patrol guys to prison-not the drug smuggler.
One final thought re:Texas Tech .
Kent Hance was appointed Chancellor there ,not long ago.
I would HIGHLY recommend reading this linked info about Mr. Hance.
(The part about Hance representing the Indian Casinos in the Abramoff affair is pretty interesting,too.)
TPJ.org
Then-Democratic State Senator Kent Hance defeated Bush in 1978 after haranguing him for having nothing to run on but “his daddy’s coattails. …
tpj.org/docs/pioneers/pioneers_view.jsp?id=597 – Cached – Similar
Ramos and Campion were charged with illegally (without proper justification) shooting a man in the back and then giving false statements to federal officials and obstructing justice. There is no question whatsoever but that they gave false statements and obstructed justice. The question of whether they were justified in the shooting was put to a properly formed and legally empaneled “jury of peers” which found beyond a reasonable doubt that there was” no credible” evidence that the agent’s lives were in danger to justify the use of force. A jury found that the smuggler victim was shot in the back (buttocks) and had no weapon to warrant the use of deadly force. Further, additional agents on the scene have testified under oath that they did not believe there was a threat that warranted drawing their pistols. I fail to see anything improper about that. Prosecutors give immunity to witnesses/victims in cases like this all the time. There was nothing out of the ordinary about this other than people wigged out because the victim was an illegal alien allegedly involved in a non-violent crime.
I do not care a lick for Johnny Sutton, but he acted completely within his prosecutorial discretion to prosecute Ramos and Campion. They shot an unarmed man in the back and fucking lied about it, they should be sent to prison, and they ought to still be in prison. Thank to another of George Bushes commutations to criminals, they are now free to be heroes to conspiracy nimrods and Lou Dobbs and Glen Beck acolytes everywhere.
Bush Commutes Sentences for Two Former Border Patrol Agents
President Bush commutes the sentences of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean, convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.
FOXNews.com
Monday, January 19, 2009
Jan. 17, 2007: Former U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos (left) and Jose Alonso Compean (right) turn themselves in to federal authorities.
On his last full day in office, President Bush commuted the controversial sentences of two former Border Patrol agents convicted of shooting a Mexican drug runner in 2005.
The imprisonment of Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean had sparked outcry from critics who said the men were just doing their jobs and were punished too harshly. They had been sentenced to 11- and 12-year sentences, respectively.
Their sentences will now expire on March 20 of this year.
Ramos and Compean were sentenced in connection with the shooting of Osvaldo Aldrete Davila, who was shot in the buttocks while trying to flee along the Texas border. He admitted smuggling several hundred pounds of marijuana on the day he was shot and pleaded guilty last year to drug charges related to two other smuggling attempts.
The pair’s case ignited debate across the country, as a chorus of organizations and members of Congress — many of them Republican — argued that the men were just doing their jobs. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., was particularly outspoken on the issue, at one time describing Ramos and Compean as “unjustly convicted men who never should have been prosecuted in the first place.”
Nearly the entire congressional delegation from Texas and other lawmakers from both sides of the political aisle pleaded with Bush to grant them clemency. Conservatives hailed Bush’s decision Monday.
“The whole thing was ridiculous from beginning to end, and two years was way too long for them to serve,” said radio talk show host Laura Ingraham. “Conservatives are very happy across the country.”
——————————————————————————–
——————————————————————————–
INVASION USA
Arrest prompts call for release of Ramos, Compean
Congressmen want probe of prosecutor after smuggler indicted for ‘2nd load’
——————————————————————————–
Aldrete-Davila was arrested yesterday at the El Paso border crossing on charges he smuggled a second 750-pound load of marijuana into the U.S. after he was given immunity by U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton.
It was the first smuggling attempt by Aldrete-Davila, in February 2005, that led to the 11- and 12-year prison sentences of Ramos and Compean. The two agents were convicted by a jury of violating federal gun laws and covering up the shooting of the smuggler as he fled back to Mexico after driving across the border with 742 pounds of marijuana. Sutton’s office gave Aldrete-Davila immunity to serve as the government’s star witness and testify against the border agents
Poe agreed with Rohrabacher, suggesting a special prosecutor might be needed to review the entire case.
“Sutton’s office always claimed that Davila was just a mule bringing one load of drugs across to the United States, to get some money to help his sick mother in Mexico,” Poe noted to WND. “The prosecutors presented this scenario to the jury in the Ramos and Compean trial. We now know that this is not true. Davila is a professional drug smuggler.”
At the time of the trial, Poe pointed out, “the jury should have known, as did the U.S. Attorney’s office, that while Davila had been given immunity and was running loose waiting to testify, he brought in a second load of drugs to the United States.”
A statement by Sutton published on the Department of Justice website confirms Aldrete-Davila was arrested yesterday by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Department of Homeland Security at the Ysleta Port of Entry in El Paso, Texas. A sealed indictment charged him with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana and with possession of marijuana with intent to distribute in September and October 2005.
Both dates are prior to the Ramos and Compean trial.
The October 2005 date coincides with previous reports that Aldrete-Davila’s attempted a second load Oct. 23, 2005, while under immunity from Sutton’s office and possessed a border pass card issued by the Department of Homeland Security. The indictment’s mention of a September date suggests Davila was involved in multiple drug smuggling incidents after the Feb. 17, 2005, event with Ramos and Compean and before the trial began Oct. 12, 2006.
Commenting on the statement published by Sutton today, Rohrabacher said: “Sutton has not only confirmed Davila’s infamous October drug run but has now revealed evidence of several other smuggling incidents all of which took place while drug smuggler Davila was under full protection of the U.S. government.”
Poe also believes Sutton’s office withheld information from the jury to protect his case against the Border Patrol agents.
“The U.S. attorney relentlessly kept from the jury this information about Davila’s subsequent drug events,” Poe emphasized, “even convincing the judge at the Ramos and Compean trial to seal the information, because the information would hurt Davila’s credibility as a witness.”
(Link to follow)
Arrest prompts call for release of Ramos, CompeanNov 16, 2007 … Sutton, said Rohrabacher in a statement, ”is now confirming what members of Congress and the public already figured out about Osvaldo Davila …
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58735 – Cached – Similar
I do not want to get tied up in another off topic long winded distraction, and hope you will stop as well. Links work fine, especially when off topic, you do not always need to take up vertical feet of comment space. But, in response to your point, those are evidentiary rulings well within the purview of the trial court. You may take issue, but they were legally legitimate rulings.
@99
Are you one of the mods here?
You could say that, yes.