Antiwar.com Blog

Dear Sir,

I am writing you today because I think you and your investigative reporter, David Shuster, are two of the only men on TV news who might have the guts to step up and cover a very important story that is currently suffering from a near-total media blackout.

That blackout is deep enough that it’s likely you haven’t even heard that 2 new FBI whistleblowers have come forward – one named, the other still anonymous – vouching for the veracity of the claims of former FBI contract linguist-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, who is once again pushing – this time backed by more than thirty public interest groups – for public congressional hearings into her case.

One of these new whistleblowers, a 20-year veteran agent named Gilbert Graham, has revealed in a leaked letter [.pdf] to the Justice Department Inspector General’s office that the intercepts she was involved in translating as part of official FBI investigations into high-profile criminal activity in 2001 and 2002 were themselves illegal wiretaps on some very influential people – begun under authority from Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrants when they should have been using the old-fashioned 4th Amendment kind.

I think that makes this story an official double-whammy.

Perhaps this lawbreaking by the investigators is part of why the Justice Department has waged such a battle against this courageous woman’s right of free speech and right to seek redress in court by using (abusing) the “States Secrets Privilege” to prevent her from saying what she learned during her part in the investigation.

Many current and former federal police and intelligence officials, Senators and Congressmen, and the Inspector General himself have vouched for Edmonds’s credibility. No one of significance has challenged her facts, only her right to tell us what they are.

Edmonds told me Wednesday, March 7th, in a joint interview with renowned intelligence reporter James Bamford,

“[I]f Congress moves forward and holds this public hearing, I can guarantee you that you are going to be seeing some major criminal indictments here because we are not talking about light-level stuff – we are talking about very serious criminal activities.”

From what I understand, this may be an understatement.

Why not invite her on your show?

I am certain she will be an energetic and informative guest, and there’s no doubt that your TV cameras will like her too.

Her gag order is severe, but she can say enough to set your man Shuster on the path to the story of a lifetime.

This link is to the .pdf file of the unclassified version of Graham’s letter to the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s office.

Thanks very much for your time.

Best,
Scott Horton (from Antiwar.com, not the world-renowned anti-torture lawyer)

Former veteran CIA analyst Ray McGovern discusses his piece, “Why Cheney Lost It When Joe Wilson Spoke Out.”

Also: Senator Pat Roberts’ obstruction of the FBI and Senate investigations of the Cheney Cabal, Senator John D. Rockefeller IV’s cowardice and reasons why he thinks the chances Bush/Cheney will bomb Iran are now less than 50/50.

MP3 here. (20:24)

Ray McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years – from the John F. Kennedy administration to that of George H. W. Bush. He is a co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

Former FBI contract linguist-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds and investigative reporter James Bamford discuss the Department of Justice’s abuse of the “State’s Secrets Privilege” to keep Edmonds from telling all she knows about high-level corruption in the Turkish Lobby, the State and Defense Departments and the Congress, a new petition by over 30 organizations demanding hearings into her case and a new FBI whistle-blower, who’s letter the the Department of Justice’s Inspector General [.pdf] reveals that all those wiretaps Edmonds was transcribing were illegal – begun on warrants under the much easier to satisfy-Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in cases of public corruption.

MP3 here. (30:44)

For background, listen to my February 28, 2007 interview with Sibel Edmonds expert Luke Ryland here.

Sibel Edmonds began working for the FBI shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. Until the spring of 2002 she worked in the FBI’s Washington field office translating top-secret documents pertaining to suspected terrorists. She first gained wide public attention in October of that year when she appeared on ’60 Minutes’ on CBS and charged that the FBI, State Department, and Pentagon had been infiltrated by agents of a Turkish intelligence officer suspected of ties to terrorism. She also accused members of the FBI’s translation services of sabotage, intimidation, corruption and incompetence. On October 18, 2002, at the request of FBI Director Robert Mueller, Attorney General Ashcroft imposed a gag order on Ms. Edmonds, citing possible damage to diplomatic relations or national security.

James Bamford is the author of The Puzzle Palace: A Report on NSA, America’s Most Secret Agency. Published in 1982, it was the first book ever written about the National Security Agency and it became an immediate bestseller. He spent nearly a decade as the Washington Investigative Producer for ABC’s World News Tonight with Peter Jennings where he won a number of journalism awards for his coverage national security issues. In 1997, as the media profession began turning away from international news coverage and focusing almost exclusively on Monica Lewinsky and other domestic political scandals, Bamford left ABC to work on Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency. Initially published in April 2001 to rave reviews, it also became a national bestseller. His book A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq and the Abuse of America’s Intelligence Agencies remains one of the best resources on how the Cheney/Neocon cabal lied this country to war in Iraq. Bamford’s articles have appeared in dozens of publications, including cover stories for the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and the Los Angeles Times Magazine.

James Marcinkowski, a former CIA officer and classmate of Valerie Plame discusses the conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the necessity of Congress stepping up to investigate the OVP/OSP crew, Plame’s “non-official cover,” status, Brewster-Jennings and Accociates, etc.

MP3 here. (18:02)

James Marcinkowski is a former CIA case officer and former administrative staff attorney in the Oakland County Michigan Prosecutor’s Office.

Michael Klare, defense correspondent for the Nation, discusses his TomDispatch article “Bush’s Future Iran War Speech, Three Charges in the Case for War.”

MP3 here. (15:53)

Michael T. Klare is the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies (a joint appointment at Amherst College, Hampshire College, Mount Holyoke College, Smith College, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst), and Director of the Five College Program in Peace and World Security Studies (PAWSS), a position he has held since 1985. Before assuming his present post, he served as Director of the Program on Militarism and Disarmament at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. (1977-84).

Michael Klare serves on the board of directors of the Arms Control Association, the National Council of the Federation of American Scientists, and the advisory board of the Arms Division of Human Rights Watch; he is also a member of the Committee on International Security Studies of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

As long as you get your ignorant flock to back unlimited Israeli aggression (and unlimited American aid to cover the costs), you can say whatever you want. Like how you hope the U.S. will be nuked after Israel provokes a war with Russia.