Antiwar.com Blog

Via Sibel Edmonds, re: Judge Walton

For Immediate Release- March 22, 2006

Contact for Commentary: Professor William Weaver, wweaver@nswbc.org , (915.525.0483(M); 505.216.9853(H))

Federal Judge in Libby Trial Deliberately Hides Financial Background

Possible Violation of Federal Law Charged by FBI Whistleblower

Today, Sibel Edmonds, Former FBI Language Specialist and a whistleblower, filed a motion in D.C. Federal Court asking for recusal of Judge Reggie Walton from her pending case filed under the Federal Tort Claim Act. Walton is also currently hearing the perjury case involving I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, who is suspected of leaking the name of former CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame Wilson to the media.

Edmonds motion for recusal is based on Judge Walton’s pursuit of secrecy in his required yearly financial disclosure by redacting his entire disclosure statement, his deference to secrecy in his rulings on Edmonds’ previous claims where he was the presiding judge, and the unusual operations of the case assignment system concerning Edmonds’ cases. For the recusal motion filed by Edmonds Click Here [.pdf].

The redaction of Judge Reggie Walton’s entire Financial Disclosure Statement appears to be in violation of the Ethics in Government Act. The Ethics in Government Act requires that Federal Judges file a yearly financial disclosure statement with the U.S. Judicial Conference as a check on conflicts of interest. A disclosure may be redacted only to the extent necessary to protect the individual who filed the report and for as long as the danger to such individual exists. The Financial Disclosure Statement filed by Judge Reggie Walton in 2003 redacts all information except for the date of the filing and Walton’s name. This is highly unusual. According to a recent GAO Report, less than one percent of judges on average request complete redaction of their financial disclosure each year. For Judge Reggie Walton’s 2003 Financial Disclosure, Click Here [.pdf]. For the request letter sent to the U.S. Judicial Conference on March 6, 2006, asking for the release of Judge Walton’s unredacted financial disclosure statement Click Here [.pdf].

In July 2004, Judge Reggie Walton disposed of Edmonds’ First Amendment case on the basis of the government’s assertion of State Secrets Privilege. On the same day as the decision, Judge Walton quashed a subpoena for Edmonds’ deposition by attorneys representing over 1,000 family members who lost love ones during the terrorist attacks on 9/11. In limiting the deposition in the case, Burnett et al. v. Al Baraka Investment & Development Corp., Judge Walton prevented the 9/11 attorneys from asking a majority of the proposed questions related to the attacks. These included even the most mundane questions, such as:

• When & where were you born?

• Where did you go to school?

• What languages do you speak?

• What did you focus your studies on in school?

• In what capacity have you been employed by the United States Government?

The convoluted route the Edmonds’ case has taken to Judge Reggie Walton’s courtroom appears suspicious and creates the perception that the system has been manipulated. Edmonds’ First Amendment case, filed in July 2002, was assigned to Judge James Robertson who recently resigned from the FISA Court in protest of warrantless NSA eavesdropping. In February 2003, Edmonds’ case was removed from Judge Robertson and reassigned to Judge Walton with no explanation provided. Edmonds filed a motion to request the case to be transferred from Judge Walton, and be assigned to Judge Ellen Huvelle who had been presiding over Edmonds’ related FOIA case since July 2002. The court granted Edmonds’ request and transferred her case to Judge Huvelle. However, two days later, Edmonds’ case was removed from Judge Huvelle and reassigned to Judge Walton with no further information or reason provided. On July 6, 2004, Judge Walton granted the government’s motion to dismiss based on the assertion of the State Secrets Privilege.

In March 2005, Edmonds filed in D.C. Federal Court a separate claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and the case was randomly assigned to Judge James Robertson. However, five days later, Edmonds’ claim was removed from Judge Robertson and reassigned to Judge Reggie Walton. This set of facts reveals apparent violations of local rules governing the assignment of cases.

Sibel Edmonds worked as a language specialist for the FBI’s Washington Field Office. During her work with the bureau, she discovered and reported serious acts of security breaches, cover-ups, and intentional blocking of intelligence that had national security implications. After she reported these acts to FBI management, she was retaliated against by the FBI and ultimately fired in March 2002. Since that time, court proceedings on her issues have been blocked by the assertion of “State Secret Privilege” and the Congress of the United States has been gagged and prevented from any discussion of her case through retroactive re-classification by the Department of Justice.

In January 2005, the Justice Department’s Inspector General vindicated Edmonds’ claims when it declared that many of her charges “were supported by other witnesses and documents, and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the FBI’s decision to terminate her services.”

Judge Reggie Walton was nominated to his position as a United States District Court of Columbia Judge in October 2001 by President George W. Bush. He served as President George H. W. Bush’s Associate Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in the Executive Office of the President and as President Bush’s Senior White House advisor for Crime.

Update: Oops, I forgot the link to Sibel’s petition

I am so tired of this phony debate. The employees of the US government don’t have the right to kill one more person, commit one more kidnapping or act of torture against the people of Iraq – or to spend one more taxed dollar doing so either. No right. Is that not simple enough?

Brad Blog has the video (about 1/3 into it) of some of the atrocities of last November, which was, at least, more peaceful than the November before that.

Think about this: you are a female Member of Parliament, you are extremely popular for speaking out against violence, duress, and religion oppression. You face ongoing threats, demonstrations, and heckling – just recently four assassination attempts have been made on your life; during a live TV call-in show a viewer has threatened to kill you, and so on. Yet your government and its supporting Ally withdraw money for your security. Sound like a set-up job for aiding and abetting would-be assassins? This is the situation Malalai Joya, Afghani MP faces when she returns to Afghanistan at the start of April from a month-long tour of the US. While "the world’s premier rent-a-cop business," DynCorp, covers Hamid Karzai’s back on behalf of the US, the one person publicly speaking out against the war lords is being stripped bare of protection. Outrageous? I sure think so. However, if you want to DO something concrete about this you can write a letter to any or all of the following:

Office of the President Mr. Hamid Karzai
Rafiullah.mojaddedi@afghanistangov.org

United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)
Peace Street, Kabul
Fax: (+39-0831) 24 6069 AND (+1-212) 963 2669
spokesman-unama@un.org

ISAF (International Security Assistance Force)
Army Club, opposite Ministry of Civil Aviation, Kabul
pressoffice@isaf-hq.nato.int

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Malak Azghar Road, Kabul
Fax: +1-866-890-9988 and +1-801-459-2967
contact@afghanistan-mfa.net

Even more immediately and usefully, you can personally do what various Nations are failing to do and make a credit card donation or send a check, either will be used for Joya’s security. I just did and it felt great to be able to thumb my nose at the duplicity, chicanery and double-dealing of Government. (Checks should be made out to “International Humanities Center,” and write “Malalai Joya” in the memo. Mail checks to International Humanities Center, P.O. Box 923, Malibu, CA 90265.)

 

How many times did you hear some idiot say this in the waning months of 2002 and beginning of 2003?

How many of you believe that 25% support for a war in our great “democracy” ought to indicate that the end of it is near?

It’s not.

Of course, the word has been out on the 14 “enduring bases” for two years, but there is a lot of conflicting information around, like this story from last week where Bush said the mission would be “turned over” to the Iraqis by the end of the year.

Now he’s being a bit more honest. Asked today (Tues. 3/21/06) whether there will ever be a time when there are no American troops in Iraq, the President said,

“That, of course, is an objective. And that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq.”

Three years into this disaster, and there are, at the very least, three more to go.

Let’s go get Ahmadinejad and get out!

Why is it up to Russ Feingold to call for censure of the President (which really just amounts to an unconstitutional bill of attainder with no penalty) for using the military to tap our phones? Why is he all alone?

The entire Senate ought to be voting for a resolution calling for the House to hurry and pass up some articles of impeachment for them to convict and remove on. These folks are supposedly our representatives up there, and what do we get? A bunch of nothing. According to Craig Gilbert at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,

“In dismissing the notion of censure, some senators argue not that the wiretapping is necessarily legal, but that the question is unanswerable for now, either because too little is known about the program or because the courts haven’t put the big constitutional issues to rest. Chief among them: whether a 1978 law against warrantless domestic wiretapping is trumped by the president’s inherent constitutional powers as commander in chief.”

Now, Michael “I never recommended war to anyone” Ledeen may have read over at the Powerline blog that using the military to tap Americans’ phones without warrants is just as legal as can be, but the plain and simple language of the fourth amendment leaves no room for error: the executive may not search us without the consent of an independent judge, and then based only upon sworn testimony describing the probable cause to believe evidence of a crime will be found:

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

The unconstitutional FISA law which gutted this amendment in the name of protecting it back in 1978 says that they can just go ahead and eavesdrop on you, as long as they let the judges know (rather than asking) within three days:

“(f) Emergency orders

Notwithstanding any other provision of this subchapter, when the Attorney General reasonably determines that—

(1) an emergency situation exists with respect to the employment of electronic surveillance to obtain foreign intelligence information before an order authorizing such surveillance can with due diligence be obtained; and

(2) the factual basis for issuance of an order under this subchapter to approve such surveillance exists;

he may authorize the emergency employment of electronic surveillance if a judge having jurisdiction under section 1803 of this title is informed by the Attorney General or his designee at the time of such authorization that the decision has been made to employ emergency electronic surveillance and if an application in accordance with this subchapter is made to that judge as soon as practicable, but not more than 72 hours after the Attorney General authorizes such surveillance.”

There, you see, FISA is already unconstitutional on its face, but at least it makes going beyond it a serious offense.

Prohibited activities

A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally—

(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute; or

(2) discloses or uses information obtained under color of law by electronic surveillance, knowing or having reason to know that the information was obtained through electronic surveillance not authorized by statute. …

Penalties

An offense described in this section is punishable by a fine of not more than $10,000 or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.

So when George Bush gets up there in front of the microphone in defense of this spying and claims,

“As president and commander in chief, I have the constitutional responsibility and the constitutional authority to protect our country. Article 2 of the constitution gives me that responsibility and the authority necessary to fulfil it.”

He is doing nothing more than confess to multiple counts of a serious felony. His argument is as preposterous as the Federalist Society goofballs who told him to go out there to say it.

Nowhere in the Constitution is the president charged with “protecting the country.” Read Article Two. It’s not long. The President is the boss of departments created by congress. That’s it. His job is to enforce the laws they pass, and carry out the policies they create, not do anything he imagines might “protect” people.

Besides that, the amendments to the Constitution were just that: amendments: “Declaratory and Restrictive Clauses,” by the people, against the new government, “to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers.” This plainly means that the fourth amendment trumps all of Articles I-VII, no matter what they say.

And if the whole thing is okay the way it is, why does Senator Roberts want to change the law to make it legal?

Because it’s not.

Then again, if John “enemy combatant” Roberts and his pals on the Supreme Court disagree, then I guess the constitution just says whatever they say it does.

The old rule of law, which purportedly bound the powers of this government, is being crushed by the force of unlimited budgets, technology and secrecy – during “wartime.” Despite all this, largely due to overwhelming political illiteracy and gerrymandered districts, it seems likely that more than 90% of the House and Senators up for reelection this year are safe in their seats as America’s careening slide into tyranny continues.

Update: Make that 98, Harkin has signed on too. Thanks S.F.

Update II: Okay, Boxer has signed on too, but I still can’t stand her.

This comes from Antiwar.com columnist Aaron Glantz:

Dear Friends,

I’m proud to report that my book, How America Lost Iraq, is now available in paperback!

How America Lost Iraq a first person account of an unembedded journalist that shows how the United States went from being seen as liberators when we first got rid of Saddam to brutal occupiers just a year later. The book was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller when it came out in hardback last year. The Seattle Times review called the book “an important first-person document historians will look to in the future as they draw a more complete picture of America’s catastrophic victory in Iraq.”

How America Lost Iraq is the story of how the Bush Administration turned victory into defeat in Iraq. More than that, though, it is a book about what it’s like to be a regular Iraqi person under U.S. occupation. The story isn’t pretty and, unfortunately, it remains as current as ever.

Peace,
Aaron Glantz