Prosecuting Bush Cheney, etal.

Submitted by davidswanson on Sun, 2008-08-03 19:49.

• Criminal Prosecution

By David Swanson

Last week two judges encouraged me to look to courts to help us recover from the damage done by an outlaw executive and a spineless corrupt legislature. The first was Bush-appointed federal Judge John Bates who ruled that people must comply with Congressional subpoenas even if they used to work for the president, and this because - you know - the law requires it. The second was Judge William Price in Iowa who was hearing the case of citizens arrested for trying to make a citizens' arrest of Karl Rove. When told what they had been trying to do, the judge said "Well, it's about time!"

Sort of makes you want to go out and arrest a war criminal or two, doesn't it? Here's how:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/citizenarrest

Next month, on September 13th and 14th in Andover, Massachusetts, a major conference will be held to discuss the possibilities for prosecuting high-level American war criminals, including Bush and Cheney. The agenda and information on how to attend can be found at http://war-crimes.info

A somewhat similar conference was held in Paris, France, in September 2005, organized by the Association for the Defence of International Humanitarian Law, France (ADIF) and the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) ( http://www.fidh.org ). The remarks of a long list of outstanding expert speakers have been updated, translated, and just published as "International Justice and Impunity: The Case of the United States," from Clarity Press.

It would be enlightening to many Americans to read this book, which documents the discussion of top proponents of human rights from around the world, including the United States -- a discussion focusing on the single biggest impediment to establishing the international rule of law, to eliminating war as an instrument of policy, and to defending human rights around the world, namely the fierce opposition of the U.S. government to all of the above.

Of course, the United States played a key role in creating the United Nations, in convening the tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo, in developing and promoting the ideas of human rights and international law. And, of course, the United States favors, to this day, the concept of international law as applied to the crimes of any nation other than the United States. But this two-tiered system in which the United States operates with a set of rules completely unlike those for everyone else is eroding support for the entire idea of law as something applicable to the actions of nations, rulers, and militaries.

As one example of the intense attack the Bush-Cheney White House has launched against international law, we can look at the case of Belgium, where the national government was developing the laws and practice needed to prosecute crimes against humanity whether or not related in any way to Belgium. But in May 2003 an attorney lodged a complaint on behalf of a number of Iraqi and Jordanian victims against U.S. General Tommy Franks and some members of his staff for war crimes in Iraq. The crimes included the bombing of civilian targets, the use of cluster bombs, and the targeting of the Palestine Hotel, which was known to house only journalists. The U.S. Congress quickly passed a law allowing the U.S. president to attack anyone (including Belgium) who would detain members of the U.S. military. The White House also told Belgium to drop the case and change the law that permitted it ever to be brought, or the headquarters of NATO would be moved to another country taking thousands of jobs with it. The law was changed and the case dropped before the US media ever mentioned it.

To learn much else that the US media doesn't tell you, read this book and go to http://convictbushcheney.org At that site we are organizing ongoing activities and reporting on the possibilities for prosecuting members of Cheney-Bush Inc., through the International Criminal Court, through the courts of foreign countries, through the U.S. Department of Justice, and through state and local district attorneys. The purpose, of course, is not vengeance but deterrence, not retribution but justice for the sake of peace. The aim is not to disguise the complicity of so many thousands in the government and the military or to excuse the apathy of the public, but to begin a healing process by holding accountable the chief instigators of the worst crimes against the human race that we have seen in recent years. If we do not do so, all will fade into silence within the fragile bubble stretching from Atlantic to Pacific, while a raging storm of anger and resentment gathers into a global hurricane.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

What Happened To The Anthrax Investigation?

Wondering about those anthrax attacks, which go unmentioned, even during the days when 9/11 fell from George Bush's tongue every 15 minutes? The anthrax attacks, as we have mentioned before, in other posts about the bio-attacks, which killed five people and made others sick, probably frightened more ordinary Americans, not to mention the Democrats in Congress and certain news anchors, than the events of 9/11. Bioweapons, flying through the mail system, could, and did, get just about anyone.

So, where is the outrage that nothing is being done about the attempted assassination of the Democratic leadership in Congress and the deaths of 5 Americans?

When we find the people behind the anthrax attacks, we will also find the people who are complicit in 9/11

Why don't we all call the FBI and ask them?

Even Fort Detrick Scientists Themselves Think the Killer Anthrax Came from their Facility

GeorgeWashington's blog

http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/05/new-development-in-anthrax...

Even experts at the U.S. bioweapons facility at Fort Detrick think that the anthrax which was used in the 2001 attacks came from their facility:

"In an e-mail obtained by FOX News, scientists at Fort Detrick openly discussed how the anthrax powder they were asked to analyze after the attacks was nearly identical to that made by one of their colleagues.

"Then he said he had to look at a lot of samples that the FBI had prepared ... to duplicate the letter material," the e-mail reads. "Then the bombshell. He said that the best duplication of the material was the stuff made by [name redacted]. He said that it was almost exactly the same … his knees got shaky and he sputtered, 'But I told the General we didn't make spore powder!'"

Indeed, 3 of the 4 suspects the FBI is investigating are employees of Fort Detrick, which is run by the Army. (Read; Pentagon)

This new information verifies that the anthrax came from the Fort Detrick military base (confirmed here).

Some people are pretending that someone unconnected with the army bioweapons facility at Fort Detrick stole the anthrax. However, as the above-quoted article states:

"Fort Detrick is run by the United States Army. It's the most secure biological warfare research center in the United States," a bioterrorism expert told FOX News."

It is not very likely that someone could steal anthrax from the most secure facility in the U.S., run by the Army.

Indeed, the FBI apparently knew in 2002 who mailed the anthrax letters. See this, this, and this.

And yet government investigators and prosecutors have covered up and refused to disclose who did it for 6 years. Initially, the FBI tried to frame an innocent man for the attacks.

More importantly, "The FBI has completely shut Congress out of its now five-year investigation into anthrax attacks on Capitol Hill and around the nation". In other words, Congress -- which legally has every right to know what really happened, and which was the main victim of the attack -- is being kept in the dark. If the FBI really didn't know who did it, and was really conducting an honest investigation, why would it stonewall Congress?

There is strong evidence that the anthrax attacks were a false flag attack. Indeed, the bioweapons expert who actually drafted the current bioweapons law (the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989) while working for President George H.W. Bush has said that he is convinced the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act. See also this.

At the very least, the FBI and the White House are actively covering up for the person who really did it.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

W.H.: Devil made him do it!

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Does anyone listen to the White House anymore, I mean other than for entertainment purposes?

Annals of forensic psychology: The "this is not the Scott McClellan we knew" line of defense."

May 29, 2008 - 10:04am

By Hal Brown

Defenders of George W. Bush have settled upon the most outlandish "best defense is a good offense" approach in response to former press secretary Scott McClellan's damning insider look at the propaganda machine he was a part of. Their responses , as a defense of the administration, are an exercise in distraction. However, it may not change the fact that exploiting the gullibility of a large portion of the American public always worked for them before.

They always do.

In "Rove Hits Back At McClellan: 'Sounds Like A Left-Wing Blogger'; Perino, Bartlett, Fleischer Pile On" Jason Linkins (Huffington Post HERE) is updating his column with quotes from the Bush minions dismissing the damning descriptions in McClellan's book and attacking the author. These attacks boil down to a suggestion that, a bit like the quiet serial killer who lived next door, he had a dark side nobody knew about because he seemed so ordinary and nice. Only in Scott's case it wasn't a compulsion to maim and dismember, it was disloyalty.

Loyalty is not a virtue. I wish people would stop thinking that it is. The Nazis were loyal, too.

We, the gullible public, are expected to ignore Scott's book because he broke the loyalty code?

There's also the unspoken implication that the Scott they know no longer exists because his mind has been either taken over by an alien being, he's been brainwashed by left wing bloggers, or perhaps he has had a late adult life onset delusional psychosis. One, Ron Christie (on MSNBC), a former Cheney deputy, even used the words "it's very crazy" and suggests he stayed in the administration so he could later peddle a book.

So McClellan is either mentally ill or greedy, or both.

Perhaps he has been taken over by the body snatchers

That all of this is the public relations equivalent of a military aircraft throwing out chaff to confuse enemy missiles. Air Force One presumably has this capacity.

Now with the American people as the jury judging the Bush administration, let's just see if they'll buy this "the Devil made him do it" defense.

---

Hal Brown has been a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist since 1971. He often brings a psychological perspective to his columns.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)


The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

DOJ Blocked Investigation of N.H. Phone Jamming Election Fraud Case

Investigation points to White House involvement.

September 17, 2007

Editorial

The New Hampshire Phone Scam

On Election Day in 2002, when New Hampshire voters were going to the polls in a hotly contested Senate race, the phone lines in Democratic get-out-the-vote offices were jammed. The executive director of the New Hampshire Republican Party pleaded guilty to phone harassment charges, but there has never been an adequate investigation of reports that the White House may have been involved.

Paul Hodes, a New Hampshire congressman, is asking the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to investigate. It should conduct the searching inquiry that the Justice Department has not.

The Bush administration has spent a lot of time talking about mythical cases of voter fraud and election improprieties, but the New Hampshire phone jamming case was the real thing. Republican operatives hired an Idaho telemarketing firm to jam the lines to prevent people who needed help in voting from getting through. The scheme was a direct attack on American democracy.

After the guilty plea from its executive director, the New Hampshire Republican Party paid to settle a civil lawsuit filed by the state’s Democrats. There is reason to believe, however, that the phone jamming ploy may have been coordinated out of the White House. Democrats say there were 22 phone calls between New Hampshire Republican officials and the White House Office of Political Affairs on election night and early the next morning.

Mr. Hodes says that rather than trying to learn the truth, the Justice Department has engaged in unlawful interference to block the investigation. He reports that according to one of the defense lawyers, the attorney general personally had to sign off on all actions in the case, an extraordinary rule that would slow things down considerably. According to Mr. Hodes, the only F.B.I. agent assigned to the case was told that she could not pursue leads to Washington.

It is shocking to think that anyone in the White House was involved in a dirty trick designed to prevent Americans from exercising their democratic rights. Unfortunately, after this year’s revelations about the firing of United States attorneys for partisan political reasons, the possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand.

Henry Waxman, the chairman of the House oversight committee, has a lot to investigate these days, but he should find time for the serious inquiry into the New Hampshire phone jamming case to which American voters are entitled.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Waxman "Threatens" Subpoenas?

Threatens?

WTF?

Issue the damn things! We don't have forever!

Waxman Reveals Numerous New Security Violations, Threatens Subpoenas

House oversight chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) has revealed new evidence “that both the White House and the Office of the Vice President have flaunted multiple requirements for protecting classified information,” beyond the violation of the executive order reported earlier this week.

Last Friday, White House spokesperson Dana Perino stated that the “president and the vice president are complying with all the rules and regulations regarding the handling of classified material.” This is false. As Waxman makes clear in today’s letter to White House Counsel Fred Fielding, the Bush administration has repeatedly broken its own guidelines for securing classified information:

White House security officers blocked from inspecting the West Wing. The National Archives is not the only agency ensuring that White House officials comply with the requirements for protecting classified information. The White House Security Office (WHSO) also shares this responsibility. Waxman reports today that WHSO employees “have been blocked from conducting inspections in the West Wing of the White House, where most of the President’s most senior advisors work.”

Karl Rove has had his security clearance renewed. Karl Rove has admitted that he publicly disclosed Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA officer. Under guidelines issued by President Bush in 2005, the “deliberate or negligent disclosure” of classified information can be a “disqualifying” condition to receive security clearance. Yet Waxman reports that Rove has had his security clearance renewed “and not altered in any respect.”

White House ignored security breaches, condoned mismanagement. Management at White House Security Office has been unwilling to “take actions that could embarrass White House officials,” a practice “condoned” by the White House, Waxman writes. For example, the office repeatedly ignored security breaches that were reported by the Secret Service or CIA agents, such as when a “White House official left classified materials unattended in a hotel room.” As a result, there was “plummeting morale among White House security officers,” half of whom quit last year.

Since April, Waxman has tried unsuccessfully to arrange interviews with White House officials overseeing security matters. Unless those interviews are granted, Waxman says, he will bring a motion to subpoena the officials on June 28.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)

The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Goodling Weeps About Her Career: Political Storm Is Going To Errupt

Goodling Shed Tears Before Revelations About Firings
By James Rowley
Bloomberg
Friday 04 May 2007


A former U.S. Justice Department official and central figure in the firing of eight U.S. attorneys tearfully told a colleague two months ago her government career probably was over as the matter was about to erupt into a political storm, according to closed-door congressional testimony.

Monica Goodling, at the time an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, sobbed for 45 mi'utes in the office of career Justice Department official David Margolis on March 8 as she related her fears that she would have to quit, according to congressional aides briefed on Margolis's private testimony to House and Senate investigators. The aides spoke on condition of anonymity.

Margolis's description of the emotional scene in his office sheds new light on divisions that were developing in the Justice Department's Washington headquarters as the Democratic-controlled Congress was demanding documents that might show White House involvement in the dismissals.

Goodling, 33, who was Gonzales's White House liaison, resigned April 6 and has invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination to refuse to answer lawmakers' questions about her role in the firings. Her lawyers cited accusations by Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty that Goodling and others had misled him about the firings as a basis for refusing to testify.


Compelled Testimony

The House Judiciary Committee has voted to compel her testimony by granting limited immunity from prosecution. Goodling may have signaled in a letter yesterday - sent by her lawyers to the Justice Department - that she is eager to tell Congress her side of the story.

The letter noted that the Justice Department, which is conducting its own inquiry into whether Goodling improperly considered the political affiliation of applicants to be prosecutors, is powerless to block the congressional grant of immunity.

D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzales's chief of staff, resigned March 12, the day before documents disclosing that the White House initiated the dismissals were turned over to Congress. The revelation intensified calls among lawmakers for Gonzales to resign. The attorney general held a March 13 press conference to acknowledge "mistakes" for failure to supervise Sampson's handling of the firings.

Gonzales blamed Sampson for not keeping him informed. Democrats accused Gonzales of trying to make Sampson a scapegoat. On March 29, Sampson contradicted his former boss in testimony to Congress, saying the attorney general was wrong in minimizing his own role in the firings.


Consoling Goodling

Margolis testified in private that he tried to console Goodling and listened to her discuss her personal life, a congressional aide said. He recalled telling a colleague that he was concerned about Goodling's emotional state, the aide said.

Jeffrey King, one of Goodling's lawyers, declined to comment on the episode.

Three hours before Goodling visited his fourth-floor office, Margolis told House and Senate investigators that Sampson dropped by to say he had information Margolis needed to know, one congressional aide said.

Margolis recounted that Sampson read his e-mail exchanges with White House aides that showed the decisions on firing the prosecutors were closely coordinated with members of the president's staff, the aide said.


Stunned Reaction

Margolis recalled that he was stunned to learn the extent of White House involvement in the dismissals, congressional aides said. Margolis testified that preparation for McNulty's Senate testimony - which took place more than a month before his meetings with Goodling and Sampson - was based on the assumption that the White House only became involved at the end of the firing process, the aide said.

McNulty told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 6 that the White House's only involvement was that presidential aides were informed of the decision before the U.S. attorneys were told. Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat leading the Senate investigation into the dismissals, has since said that he believes McNulty may have been misled by Sampson.

Margolis testified that Sampson didn't explain why he hadn't disclosed the consultations with White House Counsel Harriet Miers and other White House aides nor did Margolis ask him, the aide said.

Margolis testified that he believed Sampson informed him of the e-mails because the two had enjoyed a cordial relationship, the aide said. Margolis told investigators he believed Sampson felt a need to inform McNulty and Gonzales because the two had endured criticism for the firings, the aide said.

After Sampson left his office, Margolis testified that he went toward McNulty's office to inform his boss and stopped because Sampson had already gone into the room carrying the binder filled with White House e-mails, the aide said.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. I.U. has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is I.U endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
The Nazis, Fascists and Communists were political parties before they became enemies of liberty and mass murderers.

Did Rove and Company Throw the 2006 Election?

Who the hell knows? It's possible.

As we have seen, anything is possible, when it comes to the Imperial White House of today and their enablers, co-conspirators or whatever name one wants to call them.

I fashoined my tin-foil hat into a Revolutionary War, Admiral's hat, (or was that Commandant, back then?), quite a few months back; right about the time I recognized the political and spiritual season in which we currently find ourselves.

Some interesting statements by our pals over the Lantern: http://lanternbrigade.blogspot.com


Bush and Rove Blew the Election on Purpose? Asks Will Bunch of The Philadelphia Daily News, while admitting it's a "tin-foil hat" conspiracy theory.

But after a few drinks, you may start to wonder about it. How else to explain, for example, not firing Rumsfeld sooner? By Greg Mitchell (November 12, 2006) -- He might have been kidding, but the more you read and think about it, the more it provides a plausible explanation for the wholesale White House bungling in the closing weeks of this year’s campaign: Bush and Rove blew the midterms on purpose. How else to accept that the normally hapless Democrats not only won, but as the president put it, “thumped”?Okay, even reporter/blogger Will Bunch of The Philadelphia Daily News, who concocted the idea -- likening it to “The Producers” plot to engineer a flop -- revealed that he had to put on his tin-foil hat first. I admit, I still don’t believe it one bit.
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But the alternative view is just as chilling: that many, if not most, of our Washington-based pundits are even more out of it than we’d guessed. How else to explain their embrace of Karl Rove-as-tactical-genius for all these years? Either they were embarrassingly wrong or ... as Bunch hints ... maybe all too correct?Why blow the election? Go to Bunch’s blog for the full explanation, but it largely boils down to Iraq -- and the opportunity to make this a bipartisan problem as the catastrophe worsens in the months ahead. That desire, at least, is not farfetched, even if the conspiracy theory itself is a joke. I'm reminded of a Mike Peters editorial cartoon this week that offered a new twist on Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn" principle: It showed a broken pot, labeled Iraq, with Bush pointing to a Democratic donkey and saying, "I broke it ... you own it."

Anyway, throw down a couple of tequila shots, and then, for fun and a little head-spinning, consider Bunch’s evidence for his provocative conspiracy scenario.

He even asks: Why were the exit polls correct this time? Surely that proves ... something. --

Why didn’t Bush fire Rumsfeld sooner (as members of his own party are now howling)? And, just as bad, endorse him on the eve of the election, a move certain to cost his party many seats in the House?--

Why did he allow Cheney, again on the eve of the election, to say that not only was it still stay-the-course in Iraq, it was, in fact, "full speed ahead?"-- Why was there no true October or November surprise? Was the conspiracy to lose the election the true "surprise?" -- Given Bush's unpopularity, why was he sent to campaign in places where he did more harm than good and, as Bunch asks, “why did the White House suddenly make the president more visible by having more press conferences -- and thus taking more hostile questions on Iraq and other unpleasant subjects -- than at any other time in his six-year presidency?”--

Why, surprisingly, did incumbents Conrad Burns and George Allen fail to ask for recounts when they lost narrow races -- throwing the Senate to the Democrats without a whimper?--

Why did Rove toss resources into hopeless Senate races in such blue states as New Jersey and Pennsylvania while allowing Montana and Virginia to slip away?--

Why did Bush’s Justice Dept. go after vulnerable Rep. Curt Weldon in the final weeks -- and how is it that a Republican source first leaked the Rep. Mark Foley scandal? The GOP lost both seats, of course. I would add two more suspicious occurences:

Why did so many conservative commentators, such as Joe Scarborough, say near the end that the Republicans “deserved” to lose power? And what happened to the Diebold vote-counting fears? Maybe Rove did “fix” the election -- but in the Democrats’ direction, so that’s why they have stopped complaining about Diebold.

As Ann Coulter put it, "History was made this week! For the first time in four election cycles, Democrats are not attacking the Diebold Corp. the day after the election." Maybe the smoking gun in this conspiracy will be a memo from Rove to George Allen suggesting that he utter the word "macaca" whenever some dark-skinned ethnic ticks him off. Or a Ken Mehlman note to Tony Snow urging that he refer to the Mark Foley scandal as nothing but a bunch of "naughty e-mails."

Will Bunch concludes his blog post today: “Is Karl Rove not the evil genius we all thought he was, or is he brilliant beyond the reckoning power of us mere mortals? Whatever the strategery, the more we look at it, the more we think that Bush's difficult next two years may work out slightly better for him with a Democratic Congress.”Preposterous, I know. I'm still not buying it. The more likely explanation: Even evil “geniuses” screw up -- if they were "geniuses" to start with. And, as I've been saying for three years, the public hates the war far more than the pundits and newspaper editorialists admit. Americans want out. And no one should need a tin hat to see that.

Americans never wanted in, until they were coaxed with lies, terrorized with visions of mushroom clouds rising over American cities and whipped up to a fever pitch of false-patriotism and vengence-seeking by the Liars-in-chief, who insisted, against all evidence and common sense to the contrary, that Saddam and Osama were partners in the attempted castration of America, or so it would seem, and maybe tennis partners at the Tehran country club.

Is anything as it appears anymore? Just wondering......