-Caveat Lector- http://indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=191632&group=webcast
On June 20, Bush Administration officials quietly informed a New York judge of their intention to commence legal actions...to control access to all evidence and documents related to all private litigation...regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- citing grave national security concerns as their motivation. Justice Department To Attempt Shut Down of 9/11 Evidence Friday by Tom Flocco July 11th, 2002 On June 20, Bush Administration officials quietly informed a New York judge of their intention to commence legal actions likely to be far- reaching in their constitutional, political, and individual rights implications pertaining to current lawsuits and government secrecy related to the attacks on September 11, 2001. The moves were revealed in a letter obtained from a confidential source, with two other sources corroborating its existence, adding additional information. U.S. Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division Robert D. McCallum, Jr. and United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York James B. Comey advised U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, also of the Southern District of New York, that the Department of Justice (DOJ) will intervene to control access to all evidence and documents related to all private litigation before Hellerstein’s court regarding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- citing grave national security concerns as their motivation. The McCallum and Comey correspondence advised Judge Hellerstein of their intention to seek [court] entry of a global discovery order [effectively controlling evidence obtained from any country], requiring that 1) Transportation Security Administration (TSA) be served with [have prior access to] all requests for party and non-party discovery, 2 defendants and non-parties submit all proposed discovery responses that may contain ‘sensitive security information’ (SSI) to the TSA prior to releasing such material to plaintiffs, and 3) TSA have the necessary opportunity to review such material and to withhold ‘sensitive security information’ [from victim-family attorneys]. One victim family plaintiff -- speaking off the record -- told Scoop Media that family members and their attorneys have not yet sought internal memos, electronic mail, facsimiles, and documents which would shed public light upon what had to be extraordinary legal maneuverings. However, added high stakes related to the publicly undisclosed contents of the controversial August 6, 2001 Presidential intelligence briefing prior to the attacks, and a secret July, 2001 FBI memo -- said to be "50 times more significant than the August 6 briefing," by a Congressional investigator (New York Times, 5-18-2002), will only serve to heighten the importance of the June 20 letter. Will We Ever Know What Really Happened? The victim family source complained to Scoop Media that "now the White House is trying to control or block the evidence we need to prove our negligence cases in court." The source then added that offices of United Airlines defense firm Mayer-Brown and lead attorney Michael Feagley, TSA, Bush Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Justice Department, Judge Hellerstein’s District Court, and the White House Counsel’s office were all likely involved in the legal machinations. The resumes of TSA Director, John McGaw, and his personnel security chief, David Holmes, are already controversial enough to draw probing questions on many fronts; but plaintiff attorneys for the victim families may find the Administration's TSA appointee attempts to exert government control over their clients' private cases to be the proverbial last straw. The DOJ letter to Judge Hellerstein reveals that Bush Administration officials at TSA have also been contacting witnesses already subpoenaed by attorneys for the plaintiff families, telling them that they should send all Plaintiff-subpoenaed evidence and documents to the TSA for initial inspection, prior to directly cooperating with family plaintiff attorneys and Judge Hellerstein's Court in New York. Thus, constitutional questions arise as to why the New York District Court is permitting Bush Administration bureaucratic appointees to tamper with witnesses and evidence in the private civil actions of American citizens. Some 33 families have already chosen to forego financial awards from the congressionally authorized victim compensation fund in favor of seeking justice and accountability. Their lawsuits are attempting to recover damages for negligence, ticket contract safeguards, and failure to prevent the attacks, even as more evidence regarding prior knowledge of the terrorism recently leaked out from Capitol Hill -- from congressmen and senators themselves. The letter also disclosed that Ashcroft’s Office will push for the appointment of lead counsel, effectively exerting a consolidated supervisory role over all victim family attorneys, while seeking adoption of uniform [similarly controlled] discovery requests to streamline litigation, reduce costs for all parties and conserve judicial resources. Informed sources close to the case told Scoop Media that actions brought by the Justice Department will dilute and trivialize the more clear-cut and important cases which seek answers to many of the questions related to security, negligence, and prior knowledge of the attacks. Moreover, the legal moves will be seen by some to help Bush attorneys shut down and cut off victim family access to important government documents which would likely lead to the accountability and justice their attorneys have sought through litigation. This, while other victim families watch -- deciding whether or not to introduce their own civil actions against airline companies or other government entities. RESPONSIBLE ACTIVISM Some of the unknowing victim family members soon to be affected by imminent but discreet Justice Department legal action [which literally assumes total control over evidence gathering, depositions, testimony, and government reports] were at the Capitol just last month on June 10 and 11 to attend events related to calls for open September 11 probes. Some family members attended a Monday National Press Club media conference sponsored by the 9/11 investigative organization UnansweredQuestions.org, an independent, non-partisan online community of concerned citizens, researchers, independent investigators, and journalists asking and exploring the unanswered questions of September 11. Believing in transparency, the group’s panel members told gathered TV, radio, and print media attendees that good questions lead to answers and solutions. On Tuesday, busloads of 9/11 victim families descended on Capitol Hill to voice their concerns at a rally also attended by more media and some congressmen and senators. The families were pleading for open, aggressive, and complete investigations in Congress, but also for a truly independent, non-partisan investigative commission with lawyers and serious researchers totally in concert with the families’ goals of justice and accountability. Meanwhile, Bush attorneys were moving to take control over needed evidence for their civil actions against the airlines. BUSH LAWYERS THREATEN VICTIM PLAINTIFFS Curious indications of additional Administration political machinations linked to Special Master Kenneth Feinberg and the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund were also revealed in Justice’s letter to Hellerstein’s court: The Government has been advised that the Court is developing a procedure by which all Plaintiffs in the September 11 Tort Litigation must formally acknowledge the ramifications of pursuing a lawsuit rather than filing a claim with [the Fund]. This action will permit Feinberg to force families to listen to his attempts to convince them to give up their lawsuits -- accepting his reduced financial offers, instead of taking their chances for fair compensation in court, but also for justice and accountability. However, Feinberg might be losing his battle, as only 10 families out of 3,200 have thus far completed applications permitting him to determine their financial futures, rather than a judge and jury, according to wide press reports. DOJ lawyers McCallum and Comey further advised Judge Hellerstein that In making their election, plaintiffs should be fully informed of the risks that accompany litigation. However, the Administration added that the TSA’s vigorous enforcement of the rules governing non-disclosure of sensitive security information may present significant litigation consequences for all plaintiffs, and the Government respectfully requests that the Court include a statement to this effect in any finalized protocol,-- clearly the letter’s most controversial statement. Some might consider the Administration’s statement a veiled threat, warning that any victim family continuing with or thinking about suing either the airlines, security firms, or other government entities would likely lose any civil action because the Government is going to take complete control of their access to the very evidence needed to prove their cases in court. Moreover, these and other statements in the Justice Department’s correspondence to Hellerstein could well test the legal ire of many of the families -- given the staggering individual, legal, and constitutional implications. CONSOLIDATING THE CONTROL Constitutional separation of powers notwithstanding, the Executive Branch is also attempting additional circumnavigation of treacherous legal waters that some might consider blatant usurpation of judicial branch authority in order to control access to evidence in legitimate private lawsuits. The Assistant Attorney General and U.S. Attorney advised that the Government will seek to intervene in these cases, and will move to implement a consolidated litigation plan that would enable TSA to enforce both statutory and regulatory aviation safety measures effectively and efficiently. On the heels of its strict enforcement intentions, Ashcroft’s Office requested that the Court -- on its own motion [acting by itself] -- stay [suspend] all discovery in the September 11 Tort Litigation pending the July conference. McCallum and Comey then asked the Judge to permit the Government to address these and other issues at the upcoming July status conference, -- taking the unprecedented action of halting legal evidence discovery in all September 11 tort litigation. The undisclosed victim litigant told Scoop Media that the conference will be held on Friday. DOJ USING SSI TO CLOAK TSA AND FAA NEGLIGENCE IN USA Bush Administration lawyers at Attorney General Ashcroft’s Department of Justice (DOJ) may be employing legerdemain in their efforts to suppress useful court evidence, adding that Congress charged TSA with prohibiting the disclosure of SSI, an entire category of information relating to transportation security. They also said that [the Under Secretary of Transportation for Security] shall prescribe regulations prohibiting disclosure of information obtained or developed in carrying out security or research and development activities the release of which would be detrimental to the safety of passengers in transportation. Justice lawyers then said that SSI includes, but is not limited to, any approved, accepted, or standard security program; Security Directives and Information Circulars; any selection criteria used in any security screening process; and any security contingency plan. Brian Sullivan, former Special Agent for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New England Region, pointed out to Scoop Media in an interview that the purpose of protecting information should be in the interests of defending national security. SSI should not be used as a shield to hide FAA and TSA negligence and incompetence. Sullivan added that the intent of the SSI designation was not to hide the ineptitude of the failed FAA civil aviation security apparatus; nor was it intended to preclude legitimate legal inquiry, as government lawyers carry out White House orders to cloak bureaucratic incompetence in a blanket of ‘sensitive security.’ THE PRESIDENT'S PROTECTORS OF AIRPORT INSECURITY Victim families will be relieved to know that the recent Bush-appointed protector of the nation’s airport security, TSA Director John McGaw, is a 26-year Secret Service veteran. What the families won’t want to know is that wide reports cite McGaw as spearheading the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) investigations into the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, the 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800, the bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and the national church-arson task force -- packing enough controversy into a couple years to last a couple lifetimes. McGaw was also criticized by Senator Arlen Specter at a recent Senate Commerce Committee confirmation hearing for defending the actions of BATF agents at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, where the government paid Randy Weaver $3.5 million because the agents killed his wife and son in the altercation. And notwithstanding Bush appointee McGaw’s controversial and questionable new power to prescribe regulations prohibiting disclosure of information [controlling evidence] and security or research and development activities at the nation’s airports, his newly-recruited TSA personnel security chief David Holmes may be America’s worst security nightmare. Former Commerce Department colleagues charge that, as favors for politicians and friends, David Holmes signed off on Commerce applicants with criminal or other derogatory information in their background files. One felon even got Top Secret clearance, according to WorldNetDaily.com. (4-24-2002) WorldNetDaily added that a senior Commerce official said TSA is under enormous pressure to meet that Nov.19 deadline [for hiring 30,000 new baggage screeners]. He then added: And then you have a guy, who’s already predisposed to looking the other way, making critical decisions on the people who are essentially our last line of defense against armed hijackers. You do the math. SEE YOU IN NOVEMBER At this point, not knowing whether to laugh or cry over such bumbling incompetence -- or worse, victim families and their attorneys will now watch Bush Administration lawyers madly shuffling legal paperwork over to the Southern District of New York, using every desperate and unprecedented creative legal theory available in an attempt to steal their constitutionally-given right to a fair civil trial in front of a jury of American citizens. The Ashcroft lawyers will try to pull it off by smothering access to critical evidence required to win victim family cases, even as some are forced to listen to their Special Master Kenneth Feinberg reiterate the Justice Department’s coming threats to their previously filed litigation. The letter Americans were not supposed to know about tells it all. And implications for the U.S. rule of law will be seen by many as truly astonishing. However, Fall elections will reveal whether Americans will tolerate what one 9/11 victim plaintiff told Scoop Media is nothing more than slick government shenanigans." Grieving families, on the whole, are still emotionally unable to demand that Judge Hellerstein allow their attorneys the right of legitimate legal inquiry and discovery of evidence. It will likely take righteous outrage and responsible citizen activism to halt taxpayer-funded DOJ lawyers attempting to innovatively cloak what many will describe as inside-the- beltway negligence, ineptitude, and abuse of power by Bush Administration appointees at TSA. Moreover, the anguished victim litigants, their first-rate attorneys, and other potential 9/11 plaintiff families closely watching the lawsuits already filed, may now have to rethink their strategy: It just might take a coterie of constitutional attorneys to prevent the Administration’s impending assaults upon the Constitution’s separation of powers. This, while having waited nine months for sequestered congressional hearings to commence behind closed doors in a sound-proof room at the Capitol -- to all intents and purposes, placing a 9/11 evidence blackout via a) the Legislative Branch’s secret, soft, and un-aggressive hearings, and b) the Executive Branch’s legal lapdogs snapping at the heels of justice, fairness, and God-given rights. How sad for the country that such are the leaders placed in power by the citizenry -- corrupt and unresponsive. But Americans get to vote again in November. ********* * - Tom Flocco is an independent American investigative journalist, having previously written for Scoop.co.nz, AmericanFreePress.net. WorldNetDaily.com, FromTheWilderness.com, NewsMax.com, NarcoNews.com, and JudicialWatch.org. Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED] - sent to you by [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Week of July 10 - 16, 2002 Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway Nitwit Scion Turns Avenger George Bush, Failed Corporate Crook resident George Bush says he's outraged at the scams that have sent big-name companies crashing, and he's not going to take it anymore. Feeding the polls, Bush tells the nation he wants new laws to bring criminal charges against dirty-dealing CEOs who fake company books and destroy not only the public's trust but its savings as well. In common parlance, what these execs are doing is called fraud, and common knowledge says Bush already has the power to do something about it. Yet again, the president is ducking a tough issue in favor of a PR operation. The problem for Bush is how to seem to be attacking corporate scoundrels while keeping their campaign contributions coming. This is, after all, an election year, and the GOP badly wants to recapture control of the Senate and widen its margin in the House. If Bush really wanted to address the situation, all he'd have to do is to pick up the phone, call Attorney General John Ashcroft, and ask him to launch an investigation of any one of these CEOs for fraud, conspiracy, theft, obstruction of justice, or perjury. The president could also turn to the Securities and Exchange Commission, which can refer a civil case for criminal prosecution. Bush doesn't need additional legislation to do this. All he has to do is call. He refused to do that in the Enron case, even though his administration knew about the scandal months before the company went public with its bankruptcy. And he hasn't done it with any of the subsequent double-dealings. Perhaps Bush's inaction stems from his own history of stumbling in the corporate back alleys. Last week, the media revived a case from the early '90s, where it looks like Bush was involved in insider trading with the stock of an oil company of which he was an official. He dumped the shares shortly before the firm tanked, then failed to report his activity to the Securities and Exchange Commission for months. The ensuing investigation, handled by an agency whose director was a Bush appointee and whose general counsel was Bush the younger's own former attorney, was dropped. Though Bush has shown he can play the game, too, he's not quite ready for the majors. The big difference between him and a guy like Kenneth Lay is that Lay at least was successful. Before he left the world of commerce for a life in politics, Bush lost money time and again. "It was dreadful," one investor told The Wall Street Journal. "I think we got [back] maybe 20 cents on the dollar," said another. The hapless Shrub took shelter under his family tree. Nowhere is this blue-blood network more evident than in the feeble activities of the president before he became governor of Texas. Consider this chronology, put together largely from research done by the Center for Public Integrity in Washington for its book The Buying of the President 2000. 1979-83: Fifty Bush family investors and friends, led by uncle Jonathan, a New York Republican Party official and an investment manager, fork over $4.7 million to set up young Bush in a company called Arbusto. It's a flop, and in 1982 gets a new name: Bush Exploration. 1984: Spectrum 7 Corporation, an Ohio oil exploration outfit owned by Dubya's Yalie pal William DeWitt Jr., buys out Bush Exploration, setting up young Bush as CEO at $75,000 a year and giving him 1.1 million shares of the firm's stock. Another flop. The company's fortunes soon sink, with $400,000 in losses and a debt of $3 million. 1986: In the nick of time, Bush and partners merge the failing Spectrum with Harken Oil, a Dallas exploration company, with a $2 million stock purchase. Bush puts up about $500,000 and gets a $120,000 annual consulting fee along with $131,250 in stock options. Harken is a small outfit, looking for oil opportunities within the U.S. Then out of the blue comes Harvard Management Corporation, an investment adviser for Harvard University's endowment portfolio. It pumps millions into the venture. 1990: Although Harken has no international expertise, it gets the attention of the Bahrain National Oil Company, which unexpectedly appears on the scene and bypasses big oil's Amoco and Chevron to sign a production agreement with the little Texas concern. The contract grants Harken exclusive rights to what seems to be a promising offshore area squeezed between two productive tracts owned by Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The Wall Street Journal speculates Bahrain was trying to cozy up to Daddy Bush, who was plotting an assault on Iraq after Saddam Hussein seized Kuwait. Bass Enterprises Production Company finances the Bahrain drilling with $25 million, and Harvard Management raises its investment. A couple of members of the Fort Worth Bass family have places on Team 100, an elite business group contributing to the Republican National Committee. In June, Harken drills two dry holes in Bahrain. The future looks bleak. Dubya dumps two-thirds of his Harken holdings (212,140 shares), for $848,560. He uses some of this money to buy into the Texas Rangers baseball club. This is a lot of stock to dump on the market all at once, and brokers say it was purchased by an unnamed institutional investor. That August, Harken posts a loss of $23 million. January 1991: Daddy Bush attacks Iraq. February 1991: Dubya, as the official in charge at Harken, reports his big stock sale to the SEC—eight months late. April 1991: The SEC begins an investigation into Harken dealings. Chairman Richard Breeden, who had been appointed by the senior Bush and served him as an economic policy adviser, hails from Baker & Botts, a big Texas oil law firm where he was a partner. Inside the SEC, James Doty, general counsel and the official in charge of any litigation that might come out of the Harken investigation, is another alumnus of Baker & Botts. And as a private attorney, before joining the government, Doty represented the younger Bush in matters related to Dubya's ownership of the Rangers. 1993: The SEC ends its Harken investigation following perfunctory interviews. The good people of Baker & Botts continued looking out for Shrub. Since 1993, Breeden, Doty, and other lawyers there have given him $182,050 for his various political campaigns, making the firm one of his biggest supporters. That's how the network functioned in the Harken affair. Dubya also has historic mentors among his kin. During the Second World War, for example, the government investigated his grandfather, Prescott Bush, and his maternal great-grandfather, Bert Walker. Under the Trading With the Enemy Act, officials seized Bush stockholdings, charging that "huge sections of Prescott Bush's empire had been operated on behalf of Nazi Germany and had greatly assisted the German war effort." When it comes to business, the contemporary Bush men have been equally good role models for Dubya. Think about it: Dubya brother Neil Bush made the news during the late 1980s because he was a director of Silverado Savings & Loan, which went broke and ended up costing taxpayers about $1 billion. In the Silverado case, federal investigators accused Neil of conflicts of interest, but he was never prosecuted. The Resolution Trust Company, set up to bail out bankrupt S&Ls, brought a civil suit against Bush and other Silverado officers. The case was eventually settled for $26.5 million. Prescott Bush Jr., a brother of Bush Senior, was reported in 1989 to have arranged investments in two U.S. firms by an alleged front company for the Japanese mob, a task for which he was allegedly paid $500,000. Prescott denied any knowledge of mob involvement. In 1991, Jonathan Bush, the Daddy Bush brother who spearheaded the family effort to get Dubya set up in business, was himself fined $30,000 in Massachusetts and several thousand in Connecticut for violating registration laws governing securities sales. He was barred from securities brokerage with the general public in Massachusetts for one year. Then there's George W.'s other brother, Jeb, currently standing for re- election as governor of Florida, who defaulted on a $4.5 million S&L loan in 1988, plunging the thrift over the edge. Jeb and his partners paid but 10 percent back. With his own personal landscape a minefield of weird business dealings, Bush the younger has to watch his step. For him, leaving a few stones unturned might be a wise choice. Thus does he find himself at once making a show of righteous anger and shielding his wealthy friends. "You need to know that by far the vast majority, by far, of corporate America are above-board," he said, "and doing their job just the way you'd expect them to do." Additional reporting: Cassandra Lewis <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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