 Terri Patraw Blog #1 |
|
|
Education: Harvard College, A.B., cum laude, 1963. Magdalen College, Oxford University, 1963 - 1964. Harvard Law School, J.D., 1967. Bar Admission: New York, 1967. Experience: Partner with firm since 1980. Publisher, President and Co-founder, Firehouse Magazine, 1977 - 1980; Director, New York Magazine, The Village Voice and New West Magazine, 1976 - 1980; President and/or Publisher, The Village Voice, 1971 - 1976; Associate, Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, 1967 - 1970. Other Professional and Community Activities: Author of: Safari - A Chronicle of Adventure, The White Rhino Hotel, A Cafe on the Nile, The Devil's Oasis. |
MORE ABOUT CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY BARTLE BULL AT...
* * *
AND MUCH, MUCH MORE ABOUT DOJ WHISTLEBLOWERS AT...
http://sites.google.com/site/thesilenceofthewhistleblowers/home/us-justice-dept
~ o ~
Former Justice Department Lawyer Accuses Holder
of Dropping New Black Panther Case for Racial Reasons
June 30, 2010
FoxNews.com
Attorney General Eric Holder speaks, Friday, June 11, 2010, at the Richard B. Russell Federal Courthouse in Atlanta. (AP)
A former Justice Department attorney who quit his job to protest the Obama administration's handling of the New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case is accusing Attorney General Eric Holder of dropping the charges for racially motivated reasons.
J. Christian Adams, now an attorney in Virginia and a conservative blogger for Pajamas Media, says he and the other Justice Department lawyers working on the case were ordered to dismiss it.
"I mean we were told, 'Drop the charges against the New Black Panther Party,'" Adams told Fox News, adding that political appointees Loretta King, acting head of the civil rights division, and Steve Rosenbaum, an attorney with the division since 2003, ordered the dismissal.
Asked about the Justice Department's claim that they are career attorneys, not political appointees, Adams said "obviously, that's false."
"Under the vacancy reform act, they were serving in a political capacity," he said. "This is one of the examples of Congress not being told the truth, the American people not being told the truth about this case. It's one of the other examples in this case where the truth simply is becoming another victim of the process."
Adams claimed an unnamed political appointee said if somebody wants to bring these kinds of cases, "that' not going to de done out of the civil rights division."
Adams also accused Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez of lying under oath to a federal commission about the circumstances surrounding the decision to drop the probe.
The Justice Department has defended its move to drop the case, saying it obtained an injunction against one member to keep him away from polling stations while dismissing charges against the others "based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."
But Adams told Fox News that politics and race was at play in the dismissal.
"There is a pervasive hostility within the civil rights division at the Justice Department toward these sorts of cases," Adams told Fox News' Megyn Kelly.
Adams says the dismissal is a symptom of the Obama administration's reverse racism and that the Justice Department will not pursue voting rights cases against white victims.
"In voting, that will be the case over the next few years, there's no doubt about it," he said.
In an opinion article published in the Washington Times last week, Adams said the dismissal "raises serious questions about the department's enforcement neutrality in upcoming midterm elections and the subsequent 2012 presidential election."
Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler dismissed Adams' accusations as a "good faith disagreement" with ulterior motives.
"It is not uncommon for attorneys within the department to have good faith disagreements about the appropriate course of action in a particular case, although it is regrettable when a former department attorney distorts the facts and makes baseless allegations to promote his or her agenda," she said in a written statement.
In the final days of the Bush administration, three Black Panthers -- Minister King Samir Shabazz, Malik Zulu Shabazz and Jerry Jackson -- were charged in a civil complaint with violating the Voter Rights Act in November 2008 by using coercion, threats and intimidation at a Philadelphia polling station -- with Shabazz brandishing what prosecutors called a deadly weapon.
The Obama administration won a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panthers didn't appear in court to fight the charges. But the administration moved to dismiss the charges in May 2009. Justice attorneys said a criminal complaint, which resulted in the injunction, proceeded successfully.
The department "is committed to comprehensive and vigorous enforcement of both the civil and criminal provisions of federal law that prohibit voter intimidation. We continue to work with voters, communities, and local law enforcement to ensure that every American can vote free from intimidation, coercion or threats," Schmaler said Wednesday.
But the Justice Department's explanation has failed to appease the United States Commission on Civil Rights, which is probing the department's decision, or Republican lawmakers who say the dismissal could lead to an escalation of voter intimidation.
The commission held a hearing in April in which Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who has led the charge for answers from the Justice Department, was among those testifying. The Justice Department did not provide witnesses at that hearing. Instead, Perez testified before the commission in May.
"At a minimum, without sufficient proof that New Black Panther Party or Malik Zulu Shabazz directed or controlled unlawful activities at the polls, or made speeches directed to immediately inciting or producing lawless action on Election Day, any attempt to bring suit against those parties based merely upon their alleged 'approval' or 'endorsement' of Minister King Samir Shabazz and Jackson’s activities would have likely failed," he told the commission.
The commission has repeatedly sought information from the Justice Department, going as far as filing subpoenas. Schmaler said the department has provided 2,000 pages of information in response.
But Adams said in the Times article that the department ordered the attorneys "to ignore the subpoena, lawlessly placing us in an unacceptably legal limbo."
Adams also says that after the dismissal, Justice Department attorneys were instructed not to bring any more cases against racial minorities under the Voting Section.
Adams told Fox News that the New Black Panther case was the "easiest I ever had at the Justice Department.
"It doesn't get any easier than this," he said. "If this doesn't constitute voter intimidation, nothing will."
And new questions are being raised about the testing of the preventers. At today's hearing before a House subcommittee, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., revealed that the blowout preventer had a leak in a crucial hydraulic system and had failed a negative pressure test just hours before the April 20 explosion. And at a hearing in Louisiana on Tuesday, the government engineer who gave oil giant BP the final approval to drill admitted that he never asked for proof that the preventer worked.
In addition, an oil industry whistleblower told Huffington Post that BP had been aware for years that tests of blowout prevention devices were being falsified in Alaska. The devices are different from the ones involved in the Deepwater Horizon explosion but are also intended to prevent dangerous blowouts at drilling operations.
Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP.
As he describes it, the test involves a chart that shows whether the device will hold a certain amount of pressure for five minutes on each valve. (The test involves increasing the pressure from 250 pounds per square-inch (psi) to 5,000 psi.) "Sometimes, they would put their finger on the chart and slide it ahead -- so that it only recorded the pressure for 30 seconds instead of 5 minutes," he tells HuffPost.
Mason claims that a BP representative was usually present while subcontractors performed the tests.
Mason and another oil worker provided sworn statements in a 2003 lawsuit that rig supervisors "routinely falsified reports to show equipment designed to prevent blowouts was passing state-mandated performance tests," reported the Wall Street Journal in 2005.
Mason was interviewed by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2005 during a probe into allegations that Nabors Drilling, a subcontractor to BP, falsified such tests, among other claims that BP failed to report blowouts at the massive Prudhoe Bay oil field. The probe was spurred by oil industry critic Charles Hamel, who forwarded his allegation to then-Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.
Hamel claims that BP is at fault for the falsification because "Nabors had nothing to gain by shortening the time because they got paid, and BP rep was on rig at all times." He adds that BP was the beneficiary of a falsified test, claiming that the company rushes work and cuts corners to save money.
Hamel sent a letter to Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), the chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations subcommittee, in advance of Wednesday's hearing into the Gulf oil rig disaster, urging him to ask BP about the falsification claims:
"You and your fellow Committee members may wish to require BP to explain what action was ultimately instituted to cease the practice of falsifying BOP tests at BP Prudhoe drilling rigs. It was a cost saving but dangerous practice, again endangering the BP workforce, until I exposed it to Senator Ted Stevens, the EPA, and the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission."
After a four-month-long investigation, the commission in Alaska found that a single Nabors employee "violated rules regarding testing of blowout prevention equipment ("BOPE") on Rig 9ES by falsifying test results with a practice referred to as "chart spinning." The AOGCC proposed a $10,000 cost assessment on Nabors to reimburse it for the expenses incurred during the investigation.
As part of the probe, BP officials were interviewed, says AOGCC investigator Jim Regg, but the company was not assessed any costs or found to have committed any violations in its role as operator of the well. The commission did not find any evidence of the other allegations regarding BP. A spokesperson for BP did not return repeated calls for comment.
AOGCC commissioner Cathy Foerster explains that investigators didn't find widespread evidence of such falsification at oil drilling operations, calling it "an isolated incident" and adding, "It cost the state $50-60,000 and all that came of it was this poor kid got fired."
Foerster, who said that the commission is funded through a surcharge assessed on oil operators, dismissed industry critic Hamel's allegations regarding malfeasance in the oil industry: "It's a light breeze and he declares a Category 5 hurricane." She added that there is usually a "shred of truth" to his claims, before warning that reporters who misrepresent her comments could face "legal ramifications."
Hamel, who is on the board of the Project on Government Oversight and formerly worked as an oil trader, has a long history with BP -- the company was forced to pay more than $1 billion in safety-related improvements to the 800-mile Alaska pipeline as a result of investigations prompted by Hamel.
Alyeska Pipeline, the company which operated the pipeline on behalf of BP, responded by hiring a private security firm, Wackenhut, to conduct surveillance on Hamel in the 1990s.
"They tapped my phone at my home in Alexandria, Virginia, had keys to my house -- I discovered that they went into my house twice," he says. And he claims that they sent a group to follow him up in Alaska, including a woman dressed provocatively who tried to get him into a hotel room with her.
A congressional hearing was called to examine the spying of Hamel and Wackenhut later settled a lawsuit filed by Hamel. And Alyeska apologized to him in full-page newspaper ads.
"These oil interests are very powerful -- they will stop at nothing to stop you."
Lehman Brothers Holdings had its whistleblower. Now it appears Citigroup had one, too.
His name is Richard M. Bowen III.
- Bloomberg News
- Richard Bowen testifying today
And in written testimony prepared for the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and posted on the commission’s Web site, Bowen said he started issuing “warnings in June 2006 and attempted to get management” to addresses related “critical” credit risks.
He says he was worried about the fact that 60% of the roughly $50 billion of prime mortgages that Citigroup bought and sold annually were “defective.” Bowen said, “a mortgage file that is not underwritten to Citi policy, or it does not contain all policy-required documents, is considered a defective file.”
Bowen oversaw quality control in Citigroup’s consumer-lending department. A licensed CPA, Bowen worked as a senior vice president in the Citigroup’s mortgage unit from 2002 and 2005. He was promoted to the chief business underwriter in the consumer division unit in 2006. He no longer works at Citigroup.
“In mid-2006, I discovered that over 60% of these mortgages purchased and sold were defective,” he said. Although Citigroup didn’t underwrite the loans, Bowen worried that investors who bought the loans from Citigroup could force the bank to buy them back because it had vouched for their credit quality.
Bowen also described what he termed the loosening of Citigroup’s standards on the pools of subprime mortgage that it was willing to buy from mortgage companies.
“During 2006 and 2007 I witnessed many changes to the way the credit risk was being evaluated for these pools during the purchase processes.” He said a large number of underwriting decisions were reversed on “mortgage loans from ‘turn down’ to ‘approved.’ And variances from accepted Citi credit policy were made. Subprime mortgage pools, many over $300 million, were purchased even though the minimum credit-policy-required-criteria was not met.”
Bowen sent an email to Robert Rubin and three other members of uppper management in November, 2007, raising his concerns and asking for an investigation by officials outside of the consumer-lending department.
Bowen testifies this afternoon, Rubin is scheduled to testify Thursday.
A Citigroup spokeswoman said in a statement: “The issues raised by Mr. Bowen were promptly and carefully reviewed when he raised them and corrective actions were taken.”
Letter: Lehman accounting tricks
possibly illegal
In letter, fired Lehman whistleblower calls bank's accounting tricks possibly 'unlawful'
NEW YORK (AP) -- A Lehman Brothers whistleblower warned his bosses that accounting gimmicks the bank used before its collapse may have been illegal, his lawyer said Friday.
Matthew Lee, a former Lehman senior vice president, was fired days after questioning the accounting tricks in a letter to his superiors, attorney Erwin Shustak said. Shustak gave a copy of the letter to The Associated Press.
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. imploded in September 2008, becoming the biggest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. The collapse sent financial markets across the globe into a free-fall and prompted a massive bailout of the U.S. banking system.
An examiner appointed by the bankruptcy court said in a 2,200-page report last week that Lehman hid its debt and perilous financial condition by using an accounting gimmick called Repo 105. The report revealed Lee's warnings to the bank, though his letter makes public the first internal assessment of the legality of Lehman's bookkeeping.
In a letter dated May 18, 2008, Lee wrote that he discovered that the bank had been underreporting its debt by about $5 billion at the end of each month. Lee, a 14-year Lehman veteran, wrote that he felt compelled to report the "discrepancies" under the firm's code of ethics, saying he believed they "possibly constitute unethical or unlawful conduct."
"I believe the manner in which the firm is reporting these assets is potentially misleading to the public and various governmental agencies," Lee wrote. "If so, I believe the firm may be in violation of the code."
Days after sending the letter, the firm told Lee he was being terminated as part of a general layoff, Shustak said. After his firing, Shustak wrote a letter to the bank saying that Lee "believes he has been the victim of retaliation for bringing what he believed, in good faith, to have been ethical and securities law violations by Lehman."
Lee, 56, later reached a severance agreement with Lehman, however, he stopped receiving payments after the firm's collapse, Shustak said. He has filed a claim with the bankruptcy court to recover the unpaid amount.
The bankruptcy examiner's report and Lee's letter could provide a framework for any future legal action against Lehman executives.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd on Friday called for Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate the circumstances that led to Lehman's collapse. A Justice Department spokeswoman said the department would review the request.
The examiner, Anton Valukas, discovered that Lehman put together complex transactions that allowed the firm to sell "toxic," mostly mortgage-backed, securities at the end of a quarter -- wiping them off its balance sheet when regulators and shareholders were examining it -- and then quickly buy them back.
His report doesn't conclude whether executives violated securities laws. It does say that the executives' decision not to disclose the effects of its business judgments appears to be sufficient evidence to support the awarding of civil damages in a trial.
The executives named by the report include former CEO Richard Fuld and three chief financial officers. Fuld has denied knowing what the transactions were or the accounting for them.
Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro said Wednesday that the agency is investigating several companies' actions in the run-up to the financial crisis of 2008. She said the SEC's review of the Lehman disaster "has taken us down a path where we're looking broadly" and that Valukas's report will be helpful to the agency in its investigation.
She did not name other firms.
CONTINUED AT...
http://sites.google.com/site/thecatbirdsnest/home/lehman-brothers-and-the-liars-brew
Hawaii state auditor:
'Lack of integrity' in administration
Higa challenges administration over state investments
Advertiser Staff Writer
Marion Higa
A feud between state auditor Marion Higa and Gov. Linda Lingle grew more heated yesterday with Higa challenging the administration to take a lie detector test.
At issue are more than $1 billion in state investments in student-loan-backed securities that have declined in value by about $250 million over the past several years. The state won't necessarly lose that money, because the principal will be paid back in full if the investments are held until their maturity.
However, Higa said yesterday that state purchases of so-called auction rate securities violated the law and put state funds at increased risk.
According to a report released by the auditor yesterday, the investments didn't comply with state laws and policies that require diversity of investments, that investments maintain a AAA rating and that short-term investments mature in less than five years.
The audit, which covered the Department of Budget and Finance from July 1, 2008, to June 30, 2009, said the agency lacked leadership and accountability and is not effectively managing the state's $3.8 billion treasury.
Earlier this month, Lingle harshly criticized a draft version of the report, calling it "shoddy," "unprofessional" and "politically motivated." The governor also called on state lawmakers to investigate Higa.
Higa yesterday said she and others within her office would be willing to take a lie detector test to prove their veracity.
"If the administration will do the same, we'll see where the truth might lie," Higa said.
Higa took the unusual step of releasing the results of the audit at a news conference yesterday in which she criticized Lingle's administration and Department of Budget and Finance officials who made the investments.
"I believe that the administration's attack on our reputation and our credibility deserves some unprecedented attention," Higa said. "I think we need an affirmative response to set the record straight.
"The behavior of the administration has also been unprecedented. I believe it reflects a lack of integrity."
Lingle yesterday was unavailable to comment on the audit.
In a written response attached to the audit, Georgina Kawamura, the Budget and Finance Department director, said the report includes inaccurate , misleading and false statements. She also expressed concerns that the audit's allegations of a lack of leadership and accountability could hurt the state's reputation.
"We are concerned that this baseless conclusion may damage Hawai'i's hard-earned reputation as a prudent manager of public resources and adversely affect our ability to sell bonds," Kawamura wrote.
The main issues raised in the audit resulted from a rise in the popularity of auction-rate securities as "near cash equivalents," investments that can be easily and quickly converted into cash. The rate of return on auction-rate securities is typically higher than for comparable investments. However, the liquidity of the securities evaporated when the auctions began failing last year as dealers hamstrung by subprime losses pulled back from purchase guarantees and credit markets started to tighten.
Cash crunch
The state shifted large amounts of its investments into the bonds even as the auction rate market started to tighten in second half of 2007, because of their high rate of return. The investments were legal and in line with an opinion by the state attorney general, according to the state.
However, those yield -driven purchases were in conflict with state policies that emphasize safety and liquidity of investments over yield, Higa said.
Money tied up in auction rate securities reduces the state's potential cash reserves, could affect the state's ability to meet future cash needs and could potentially be a factor behind state plans to delay income tax refunds , she said.
"It's very obvious the state is in a cash crunch," she said. "Having the billion dollars frozen like this presents a cash crunch. Whether we might still have to delay tax refunds is a possibility even without the billion dollars being frozen, but it exacerbates the situation."
The audit recommended that the state formalize polices and procedures and improve cash and investment management practices , including doing a regular review of investment policies.
Kawamura agreed with some recommendations, but maintained that the audit's main findings were unsubstantiated and lacked merit.
"The result of the review is an undeserved attack on the hard-working men and women of this department," she wrote.
RELATED
CONFESSIONS OF A WHISTLEBLOWER
Toyota Wins A Round; Whistleblower
Attorney Can't Divulge Secret Docs
But Texas Case May Allow Dimitrios Biller To Spill Inside Info on Safety Defects Anyway
Feb. 15, 2010
An arbitrator has ruled that Dimitrios Biller, a former top in-house lawyer for Toyota, cannot make public thousands of confidential documents that he says prove the automaker regularly hid evidence of safety defects from consumers in hundreds of court cases.
Biller today told ABC News he was "thrilled" by the arbitrator's ruling because it denied Toyota's demand that he immediately return the documents to the company and provide an inventory of them. Biller said a pending lawsuit in Texas may allow him to spill company secrets on the witness stand anyway.
Biller says he has four boxes worth of documents that he claims were deliberately withheld from plaintiffs' lawyers suing Toyota in product liability lawsuits, despite court orders requiring that the automaker disclose the information.
"They were hiding evidence, concealing evidence, destroying evidence, obstructing justice," said Biller.
A lawsuit Biller has filed against Toyota alleges the company "engaged in improper and illegal activities, including concealing and destroying evidence, perjury, violation of court orders, obstructing justice, mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit crimes." Toyota has also sued Biller, claiming that he had violated a non-disclosure agreement he made when he left the company.
The suits are currently in arbitration, and the former judge overseeing the case issued a preliminary injunction last week prohibiting Biller from releasing the documents in question to the "press or other third parties."
According to retired judge Gary Taylor, the ruling will "preserve the status quo" until a ruling on the merits of the case is decided at a later hearing. An earlier California Superior Court ruling had granted Toyota's motion that the documents remain confidential.
Terri Patraw Blog #1
UNR's Retaliation Apparatus To Silence The Whistleblower
We've seen examples of faculty and staff, coaches, police officers, and citizens who have evidence of criminal violations and they've suffered massive retaliation at the hands of the whole University of Nevada, Reno retaliation apparatus that protects the upper-level administrators.
The retaliation apparatus involves President Milton Glick's private police force, the UNRPD. It also involves the human resources and affirmative action offices.
Affirmative action is designed to protect the faculty, staff and students. But at UNR it's turned around and used as a tool for harassment by conducting secret investigations of whistleblowers.
You've seen evidence that the president's office and the attorneys working for the president's office have actually intimidated the local media to make sure that they're really just a mouthpiece for the university administration and won't print most of the allegations that come forth from whistleblowers.
Other parts of the protection and retaliation apparatus are the general counsel's office (led by Mary Dugan). And that office is housed within the president's office. Therefore, everything that they do has the explicit recognition and approval of the upper administration.
What is all this trying to protect? It's trying to protect widespread abuses of the law involving financial crimes, athletic department crimes, police department crimes, EEO crimes, legal counsel crimes, and the whole UNR abuse of power.
UNR's message to faculty, staff, students and the public: If you challenge our power, we will threaten, intimidate, harass, demote, fire, sue and sanction you, and we'll get the taxpayers to pay for it.
I'm sure that when you first heard us say this or first read our documents you thought this was a pretty outrageous claim: UNR as a RICO operation. We submit to you that we have described and presented evidence that meets all 11 elements of the FBI RICO criteria.
- Excerpts from the transcript of the hearing on public corruption at the University of Nevada, Reno.
Categories: Terri Patraw
Tags: Cary Groth Terri Patraw Milton Glick University of Nevada Reno Mary Dugan
Copyright © 2009 The American Conservative
Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?
The gagged whistleblower goes on the record.
Sibel Edmonds and Philip Giraldi
Sibel Edmonds has a story to tell. She went to work as a Turkish and Farsi translator for the FBI five days after 9/11. Part of her job was to translate and transcribe recordings of conversations between suspected Turkish intelligence agents and their American contacts. She was fired from the FBI in April 2002 after she raised concerns that one of the translators in her section was a member of a Turkish organization that was under investigation for bribing senior government officials and members of Congress, drug trafficking, illegal weapons sales, money laundering, and nuclear proliferation. She appealed her termination, but was more alarmed that no effort was being made to address the corruption that she had been monitoring. A Department of Justice inspector general’s report called Edmonds’s allegations “credible,” “serious,” and “warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI.” Ranking Senate Judiciary Committee members Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) have backed her publicly. “60 Minutes” launched an investigation of her claims and found them believable. No one has ever disproved any of Edmonds’s revelations, which she says can be verified by FBI investigative files. John Ashcroft’s Justice Department confirmed Edmonds’s veracity in a backhanded way by twice invoking the dubious State Secrets Privilege so she could not tell what she knows. The ACLU has called her “the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.” But on Aug. 8, she was finally able to testify under oath in a court case filed in Ohio and agreed to an interview with The American Conservative based on that testimony. What follows is her own account of what some consider the most incredible tale of corruption and influence peddling in recent times. As Sibel herself puts it, “If this were written up as a novel, no one would believe it.”...
October 5, 2009
An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for a Special Counsel to be appointed to investigate the allegations of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. John M. Cole, who now works as an intelligence contractor for the Air Force, made his comments during an audio interview released late last week with radio journalist Peter B. Collins.
He also offered a detailed insider's look at the concerns among high-level officials inside the Bureau as Edmonds' disturbing allegations began coming to light back in 2002, before they would be quashed for seven long years by the Bush Administration's unprecedented use of the so-called "State Secrets Privilege" to gag her.
Earlier last week, following the publication of a remarkable American Conservative magazine cover story interview with Edmonds --- detailing a broad bribery, blackmail, and espionage conspiracy said to have been carried out between current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and covert operatives from Turkey and Israel, resulting in the theft and sale of nuclear weapons technology on the foreign black market --- Cole had been quoted by the magazine confirming one of Edmonds' key allegations.
"I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of" Marc Grossman, he said in response to the AmCon article/interview. Grossman had served as the third-highest ranking official in the Bush State Department and was alleged by Edmonds in the interview, and in a sworn, video-taped deposition a month earlier, to have been the U.S. ringleader for a massive Turkish espionage scandal reaching through the halls of power and into top-secret nuclear facilities around the country to the benefit of allies and enemies alike. Cole said that the FBI's counterintelligence probe "ultimately was buried and covered up," and that he believes it is "long past time" for an investigation of the case to "bring about accountability."
In his subsequent interview with Collins last week (audio and text excerpts posted below) Cole elaborated on those comments in much greater detail, noting that Edmonds has been "one hundred percent right on the money, on the mark" and confirming the existence of an "ongoing and detailed effort by Turkey to develop influence in the United States" through various illegal activities.
"Yes, I can confirm that," Cole told Collins, "That's true."
The FBI veteran executive also offered an insider's account of the panic that ensued inside the highest echelons of the bureau following Edmonds' first disclosure of information in 2002, recounting how an executive assistant director admitted to him at the time, just after the story first broke, "Well, all I know is that everything that Sibel is stating is true. I read her file. Everything she stated is, in fact, accurate."
"Everybody at headquarters level at the bureau knew that what she was saying was extremely accurate. ... They were trying to figure out ways of keeping this whole thing quiet, because they didn't want Sibel to come out."
Cole further describes how the concerns about Edmonds ultimately led to the Bush Administration's two-time use of the Draconian "State Secrets Privilege" in hopes of keeping her extraordinary information from becoming public. "Everybody at headquarters level at the bureau knew that what she was saying was extremely accurate."
"I know they didn't want her to go out and speak about it at all," Cole revealed, "and I know they were trying to figure out ways of keeping this whole thing quiet, because they didn't want Sibel to come out."
He also offered information which directly counters one of the criticisms of Edmonds' allegations as frequently offered by skeptics. Namely, that as a short time FBI contract translator --- even though she was tasked to review some seven years of counterintelligence wiretaps made from 1996 to 2002 --- she couldn't have had enough understanding of the full scope of the investigations to understand what was really going on.
"The thing is," Cole explained to Collins, "the position that Sibel was in, she had access to extremely sensitive information. The translators have access to some of the most sensitive information that we receive."
He detailed how first-hand information goes first from the translators to the investigators who then act on it, as some of the most important information collected by FBI language specialists could have "implications that may affect even the White House, or policy."
"So what I'm saying is, I know she had access to some very sensitive stuff, and I could see why the Bureau would squirm over her coming out and speaking about some of the things that were going on."
The interview concluded with Cole's reiteration of both his confidence in Edmonds' credibility, and his call for accountability.
"I would love to see, especially with the allegations that Sibel has come out with, her allegations --- which I believe are in fact true, I have no reason to doubt what she's saying --- I would love to see somebody take that, a Special Counsel or whatever, some group of people that you could trust, have them investigate those allegations and have people's feet held to the fire. Have them be held accountable for their actions --- and prosecuted if they've done wrong."
"You know, no one's above the law, and no one should be above the law," he added, along with one more chilling thought: "You know, it really irritates me that people are getting away with murder, in some cases. They should not be allowed to get away with that. There needs to be accountability. And that's what I'd love to see."
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=7449
whistleblower case
BY GUILLERMO CONTRERAS, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
The Boeing Co. has agreed to pay $2 million to the Justice Department to settle a whistleblower's claims that the contractor cheated taxpayers by falsifying billing records at a San Antonio plant that maintains Air Force planes.
The litigation, filed in 2006 by former Boeing employee Edward Quintana, claims Boeing manipulated records to show more people had been making repairs or maintenance on KC-135 tankers when it was usually just one person -- Quintana.
The lawsuit had been kept secret for three years as the Justice Department looked into his allegations, and then joined the suit.
Federal law requires such "qui tam" lawsuits to proceed under seal until the government feels they are ready to be made public. The suit was unsealed by the U.S. attorney's office after Assistant U.S. Attorney Harold Brown Jr. helped negotiate the settlement.
Quintana, under federal law, is entitled to 15 percent to 25 percent of the $2 million payout, according to his lawyers, Glenn Grossenbacher and John Clark.
Despite settling, Boeing denies the allegations and is separately fighting Quintana over his claims that he was wrongly terminated.
"We cooperated fully with the government during the course of the negotiations with this settlement," Boeing spokeswoman Deborah Vannierop said. "In the negotiations, Boeing denied it had made any false claims. The settlement is consistent with Boeing's denial. Further, we have taken action to correct internal charging issues. In no time was readiness compromised during the internal charging issue ... We continue to support the war fighter by keeping the KC-135 mission-ready."
Quintana claims Boeing made false claims at what was formerly known as the Boeing Logistics Support System at then-KellyUSA in San Antonio. The former Air Force base is now called Port San Antonio and the maintenance facility is now known as Boeing's Global Services and Support San Antonio Facility.
The suit alleges that, for at least three years -- from 2002 to 2005 -- that Boeing plant inflated its estimates of how many labor hours were required to do "non-routine" repairs and maintenance tasks on the KC-135, and then falsified the records to inflate the number of workers who did the repairs.
The work Quintana did involved maintenance of horizontal stabilizers on the KC-135 tankers, including removing paint, primer, coatings, corrosion, resurfacing, and, when necessary, fabricating and installing titanium alloy shims and bushings.
But while it took Quintana eight or nine hours alone to do the work, the billing records were changed to show "people who had never been near the plane," Grossenbacher said.
The change allowed Boeing to keep charging that amount as it renegotiated the contract.
"They didn't want anybody to get the idea that this job could be done in smaller numbers of hours," said Clark, a former U.S. attorney in San Antonio.
Boeing started working on the KC-135 program depot maintenance in 1998. In September 2007, Boeing was awarded a 10-year contract, but competitors have protested that award. Boeing continues to perform the work under a "bridge" contract while it is put up for bid, Vannierop said. She declined to specify how much the contract award is for.
Vannierop also declined to address Quintana's claims that Boeing retaliated and fired him because he reported the violations, citing ongoing litigation on those issues. But she said the company encourages employees to report wrongdoing.
It Ain’t About Hot Dogs & Fireworks
Reflections on this Fourth of July
“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”- - William Faulkner
We have two more days to the 233rd anniversary of our Independence Day. I know this is a day that is commonly associated with fireworks, good old fashioned hot dog and burger barbecues, heavenly kegs of beer, picnics, and baseball. I know many recognize this day as the anniversary of the American Colonies’ announcement declaring themselves as free and independent states, separated from allegiance to Great Britain. However this day is far more than just that. This day marked our nation’s definition of legitimate government and the proclamation of a political system under the sovereignty of the people. Thus, this is an occasion calling for more than hot dogs and fireworks. This should be an occasion to reflect upon where we are today, to take a hard look at the current state of our liberty and the rights we were fortunate to inherit, and to renew our pledge to revive and defend those precious principles of liberty and justice.
On this anniversary of our liberties let us put aside our blinding pride; let us remove our tainted patriotism spectacles; let us free ourselves from the irrational leech of fear; let us strip ourselves from the gown of denial worn for way too long, and reflect…
Pay special attention to our current national security apparatus, and remember the last time you found yourself within its control: whether when you encountered it while being stripped and searched at the airport, or paused in the middle of a sentence during a phone call due to the ‘others’’ present danger, or hesitated to sign a petition due to fear of inclusion on one of ‘their’ lists. I know you remember such encounters; as do I. Next, read and truly register a few words of wisdom by the fathers of our nation’s liberties, such as this: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Let us ask ourselves whether we deserve either. The answer should not matter in the least, since it seems that today we have neither.
Engage in a bit of nostalgia on this great day, and remember the long-gone days when those in our government were called ‘public servants.’ Then ask yourself when and how that morphed into such ostentatious forms as the now popular bureaucratic ‘Czar.’ Let us push our imagination and ponder what the founding fathers would have thought of the very idea of royal titles within the nation they created, and the coronation of those who were intended by them to be ‘servants’ of the people. Here is one from Franklin: “In free governments the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns."
Take notice of our mighty military and even mightier paramilitary intelligence and police agencies today; this awe inspiring beast of our government industry sustained by equally awe inspiring sums taken from every one of our pockets. Next, let us savor the words and pay a deserved special tribute to the father of our nation, George Washington, who said “Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
Consider the fact that our great Constitution was not written and not meant to be circumstantial nor conditional. For those who sincerely believe in compromising those liberties granted to us by our Constitution under the illusion of gaining security: Try to present a persuasive argument to justify those liberties we lately have given up, those taken away from us in the name of a vague war without end. Let’s make sure it is solid enough to stand on its own and able to counter Jefferson’s “A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”
Finally, recall the words of the Constitution Oath that all federal employees, all federal judges, all military personnel, all new citizens are required to take, step back, and pay special attention to these lines: “support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies- foreign and domestic.” Now ask yourself who is meant by ‘domestic’ enemies.
Here comes our Fourth of July. Surely what is left of our Bill of Rights is worth celebrating, and just as surely what has been taken away is worth fighting for. So let us enjoy that cold beer, savor that hot dog, and while doing that let us reflect and renew our pledge to fight for those irreplaceable American liberties that have been taken from us; the fight against our ‘real’ foes. Are we prepared to make the same pledge those founding fathers made 233 years ago?
“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”- - Thomas Paine
Happy Fourth, all!
http://www.justacitizen.com/OpEd/It%20Aint%20About%20Hot%20Dogs%20and%20Fireworks.htm
Continues at...