This has been another crazy week, so I missed posting this one on Thursday. The government failed to convict seven Liberty City (Miami) men of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower without explosives, money or shoes ... as part of an al-Qaida plot made the more difficult because the men aren't Muslims ... (ahem) ... on Thursday, after the case of the Liberty City Seven ended with one acquittal and a mistrial for the other six.
I know one of the jurors on this case, and one of the lawyers. Needless to say I have refrained from discussing the case with my juror friend up to now, although I plan to now that it's over. This was always a flimsy, almost silly case -- seven down on their luck guys from the hood, practicing karate together in a warehouse and forming their own little community group, suddenly decide to pledge fealty to al-Qaida without renouncing their own religion -- Moorism -- which would surely have gotten them beheaded had any actual al-Qaida ever caught up with them.
We interviewed a cousin of the acquitted man, Lyglenson Lemorin, a native of Haiti like several of the men, back on 1080 several months ago, and his contention that his cousin was nothing more than a religious guy who kept to himself turns out to have been believable for the jury. Unfortunately for Lemorin, he will probably be deported anyway.
I was hopeful that the men would be acquitted, based on the almost laughability of the case, and the seedy nature of the star witnesses, as outlined thoroughly by the Miami New Times here ... but I did worry that in this age of fear, when Republicans have spent six years breeding constant terror into the populace, that there might be tremendous pressure to convict inside that jury room (especially after the Padilla case.) I can only guess that the defense's superior jury selection saved the day, as did the government's ham-handed job of infiltrating and setting up the hapless group.
Good job, Rod V and the other attorneys!
Now, let's hope the Bush administration wises up and drops this silly case. So far, their track record suggests that pursuing a retrial won't do much good anyway.
There were shifting alliances, heated debates and an intense review of the evidence.
After nine days of deliberations in the so-called Liberty City Seven terrorism case, four jurors stood firmly against any convictions, skeptical that the defendants were serious about helping terrorists or even considering the possibility before FBI informants began prodding them, the jury foreman said in an interview Friday.
Of the four, some adamantly believed the group's central defense that an alleged plot to bomb buildings in Miami and Chicago was a scam for money, said foreman Jeff Agron, 46.
Agron, a religious school principal and a lawyer who supported convicting some defendants on some counts, said jurors who embraced the defense's scam theory were "unwilling to change their minds."
"I think a lot of the jurors really, really struggled and analyzed and went back and forth throughout the deliberations," he said. "I also think there were some jurors who more or less had their minds made up and it was going to be very, very hard to persuade them."
Juror Michael Silva, 48, said he wavered as he considered the evidence during deliberations. However, he described the prosecution's case as "muddled" and said he gave little weight to testimony from two government informants.
"The evidence just wasn't clear-cut," said Silva, general manager of a Miami radio station. "It was not like they had evidence of somebody planting explosives."
According to both jurors, the panel did not divide strictly along racial lines. Of the two men and two women aggressively opposing convictions, three were black and one was white, said Agron. The remaining eight jurors were also a racially diverse group. ...
By JAY WEAVER Some legal observers and pundits say the Bush administration will confront a daunting challenge in the second trial of the Liberty City 7 terror case because they will be stuck with the same witnesses and same evidence that led to Thursday's mistrial. The only difference: a new group of jurors.
But experts note prosecutors are going into the new trial -- scheduled for Jan. 7 in Miami federal court -- knowing that a previous jury was so skeptical of their case that they acquitted one defendant and could not reach an agreement on the other six after nine days of deliberations.
U.S. District Court Judge Joan Lenard, who has imposed a gag order on all parties, will preside over the second trial.
The original Liberty City 7 case was built upon an FBI informant posing as an al Qaeda operative who led a group of minority men from a poor Miami neighborhood into a 9/11-like plot. The two-month trial turned on the role of the FBI informant, who infiltrated the Miami organization in December 2005. He was introduced to the group's ringleader, Narseal Batiste, by a previous FBI informant, a North Miami shopkeeper who began reporting to his handlers that Batiste was allegedly talking about terrorism plans.
At trial, Batiste came across as a complex messianic-like figure, a father of four who lived in North Miami while trying to get a construction business off the ground. He also was trying to start a chapter of the Moorish Science Temple in a warehouse called ''The Embassy'' in Liberty City. The religion embraces the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.
`FABRICATED'
His main defense: The FBI informant entrapped him and his men in a ``fabricated crime.''
After their arrests, agents found no terrorism blueprints or weapons of mass destruction in The Embassy -- only Samurai swords, law books, Bibles, Korans and personal items.
University of Miami law professor Bruce Winick says ``the [second] trial will depend on jury selection -- that's such an important part of the case.''
''Here we had an interracial jury [in the first trial] that understands what goes down in the 'hood,'' he said.
Indeed, the 12-member jury -- a mix of blacks, Hispanics and white non-Hispanics -- failed to find common ground on six of seven defendants. One, Lyglenson Lemorin, was acquitted because they believed he had distanced himself from the others before their arrests in June 2006.
On Thursday, about half of the jurors believed the paid FBI informant, an Arabic man known as ''Brother Mohammad,'' teased the defendants with promises of $50,000 so they would pledge their faith to al Qaeda in a scheme to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and FBI buildings. In other words, the informant entrapped them, some jurors concluded.
''Some jurors believed that and others did not,'' said foreman Jeffrey Agron, 46, a lawyer who is a principal at a Jewish school in Kendall.
The other half concluded some of the defendants joined the terror conspiracy -- and it didn't matter whether the al Qaeda representative was playing a role for the FBI because some of the defendants believed him, Agron said.
SKEPTICS
Some legal experts have viewed the homegrown terrorism case with much cynicism, especially after the Bush administration called the seven men's arrests a ''significant victory'' in the war on domestic terrorism -- declaring they were as ''dangerous'' as al Qaeda.
''Was justice really served by overblowing this into another 9/11?'' asked UM's Winick. ``This case has always made me wonder about the political motives of the Bush administration before the midterm elections in fall 2006.''
Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at the University of Richmond, said the fundamental flaw in the Liberty City 7 case was the way the government overplayed the case with so much publicity when there was such little evidence of an actual security threat.
''It is difficult to believe these people were really going to blow up the Sears Tower,'' Tobias said.
Tobias, who has followed numerous terrorism trials in Virginia and other parts of the country, said the Liberty City 7 case is part of a pattern ``where the government overstates its claims and what it can prove -- it doesn't always prevail.'' ...
There will be no prosecution, at least for now, of the former CIA agent, Mr. Kiriakou, for his revelations about the torture (his words) of terror suspect Abu Zubayda whilst Mr. Zubayda was in the custody of the agency. Kiriakou has told ABC and NBC News that not only did he participate in the torture of Mr. Zubayda via waterboarding, but that the torture was cleared, specifically, up the chain of command from CIA headquarters to the Justice Department to the White House. The former agent said that each time agents wanted to use "harsh interrogation techniques" on a suspect, they didn't just do it willy nilly -- they had to get specific permission to do so, technique by technique.
So why is he talking?
On Dan Abrams' show last night it was clear that John Kiriakou wants to protect the reputation of the CIA, and to clear the agency of having acted somehow in a rogue fashion, waterboarding people willy nilly simply because agents wanted to do so. It seems pretty clear what his motivations are: to inoculate the CIA while redirecting the responsibility for what was done to the White House. Along with that, Kiriakou is telling the media in no uncertain terms that he felt that what was done was torture, but that he personally deemed it necessary, even "forced" -- at the time, "to save American lives."
Maybe on "24" (I've never heard one convincing piece of evidence that Abu Zubayda knew anything of importance regarding supposed future terror attacks on the United States. If torture worked, why didn't one of the torturees tip off the CIA to the Bali bombings, or the tube bombings in London...?) In fact, many on my end of the blogosphere are quite skeptical of the right's "torture works! ...but only for us..." claims.
Lesson number one from Kiriakou's tale is that you can't beat the CIA. Even the Bush administration, which operates with almost Darth Vader's Empire-like radicalism when it comes to lawbreaking, can beat the spooks. They always hit back. And no president that I can think of has ever out-foxed them. Bush has blamed the CIA for the "bad" intelligence on Iraq, when actually, his vice president and Pentagon cooked the vague intel coming out of Langley for the purpose of pushing the Congress, and the country, into a war with Iraq. Bushies imply that it was the CIA, and the FBI, who dropped the ball before 9/11, though somebody must have briefed Bush's then National Security Advisor Condi Rice, because she knew full well that "Bin Laden was determined to attack the United States" on at least August 6th, a full month before the attacks.
Back to Mr. Kiriakou... ABC reports on his "get out of prosecution" card (which is mirrored, apparently, by the White House's even as it becomes crystal clear that there's obstruction of justice afoot. From ABC:
The former CIA intelligence official who went public on ABC News about the agency's use of waterboarding in interrogations, John Kiriakou, apparently will not be the subject of a Justice Department investigation, even though some CIA officials believe he revealed classified information about the use of waterboarding.
"They were furious at the CIA this morning, but cooler heads have apparently prevailed for the time being," a senior Justice Department official told the Blotter on ABCNews.com.
Gen. Michael Hayden, the CIA director, did sent out a classified memo this morning warning all employees "of the importance of protecting classified information," a CIA spokesperson told ABCNews.com.
... and then, that new classified memo got out. Hm.
I don't know about you, but I think the spooks doth protest too much. They like having this guy out there. He's not hurting them -- he's hurting the people the CIA lifers apparently distrust -- George W. Bush and his band of nut-o-cons.
Here's Kiriakou on Abrams last night:
And here's part two, where poor GOP hack Jack Burkman tries to roll out the talking points, to hilarious effect:
I spend a lot of time focusing on the ills wrought by Republicans, whether President Bush or his lackeys in Congress and the blogosphere. But Democrats have some things on their consciences, too. Democrats have in many ways been the chief enablers of this most lawless of presidents, by refusing at every turn, to stand in the way of his trashing of both the law and the constitution, or to apply the Constitutionally mandated prescriptions for such violations.
In other words, the Democrats won't stop George W. Bush from violating the law. They won't punish him for violating the law. So they are inherently complicit in his lawbreaking, the same way someone who hides an escaped convict is guilty of aiding and abetting a fugitive.
When you look at the conduct of the 110th Congress -- which definitely is superior to the 109th in that it is not a complete fool's palace full of sycophant courtiers -- you can't help but notice a certain, I guess you could call it fear? of the president of the United States, or at least an unusually deferential and non-confrontational attitude, that is nothing like the "jealous" guardian of its own prerogatives that the framers intended each governmental branch to be. Hell, the Congress doesn't seem the least bit jealous about guarding its prerogatives. You can lie to them. You can hide information, even destroy it, with little consequence beyond quiet hearings without the force of consequences.
So what's the point of having hearings at all?
Think about a situation in which a Democratic president flagrantly violate U.S. statutes outlawing the torture of prisoners, violated the Geneva Conventions, possibly even condoning the commission of war crimes, then destroyed the evidencee, even after it was requested by the president's own commission, flouted Congress' authority by attaching signing statements to laws passed by the legislative branch, refused subpoenas, abused executive privilege in order to continue to shade information, outright lied to Congress about the case for starting a war, and issued dicta stating that the president literally is beyond the reach of the law, so long as we are in a war that he himself has declared to be endless ... your head spins wondering how thick the impeachment briefing would be. And yet, not only will the Democratic-led (barely in the Senate, which is actually 50/50...) Congress not move to hold a single impeachment hearing, they go further:
- They refuse to even censure the president, or even to criticize him in the stark terms his actions seem to call for.
- They refuse to call for an independent counsel to investigate the myriad Bush administration scandals, from the midnight coercion of former attorney general Ashcroft, to the summary firing of U.S. attorneys who wouldn't play ball on the Bush political agenda, to the latest bombshell -- the erasure of CIA tapes showing the torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.
- And they won't even verbalize what has become patently obvious, not just to the blogosphere or to talk radio hosts, but to a majority of Americans, and a majority of constitutional and legal scholars, including those from Republican administrations: that this president -- the man entrusted with leading the executive branch of our government -- is a liar and a lawbreaker.
And if the Congress won't hold him accountable, who will? Worse, if the Congress sees no point in stopping him, because they think it would be "bad politics in an election year," and they therefore take their oaths to defend the Constitution no more seriously than George W. Bush does, then what the hell is the point of the Congress?
OK, off my soap box. To the news.
The NYT reports that lawyers inside the CIA OK'd the destruction of those torture tapes, including the ones involving terror suspect Abu Zubayda.
ABC Newsman Brian Ross made short work of General Hayden's lie about the tapes being destroyed in order to protect the identities of the agents involved in the interrogations (et tu, Valerie Plame outers?) by interviewing one of the lead interrogators, who says yes, it was torture, and the tapes shouldn't have been destroyed.
Team ABC updates their coverage with an interview with President Bush, who denies, in very legalistic terms, remembering that he knew about the tapes:
he President said he was told just a few days ago.
"My first recollection of whether the tapes existed or whether they were destroyed was when [CIA Director] Michael Hayden briefed me," Bush said.
"There's a preliminary inquiry going on and I think you'll find that a lot more data, facts will be coming out," he said, "that's good. It will be interesting to know what the true facts are."
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy ... is there ANYTHING you won't take money for?
WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 — Although Rudolph W. Giuliani is campaigning as President Bush’s staunch ally in the war on terror, his law office has lobbied Congress on behalf of legislation that the Bush administration calls a threat to antiterrorism efforts in the Horn of Africa.
Mr. Giuliani was not personally involved in the lobbying last year on behalf of the company’s client, the American wing of a dissident Ethiopian political party known as the Coalition for Unity and Democracy, leaders of the group said.
But the firm, Bracewell & Giuliani, used Mr. Giuliani’s name in its pitch to win the assignment, and his clout was a reason it landed the job, said Seyoum Solomon, an Ethiopian-American from Maryland who helped negotiate the deal.
“He is a popular Republican, a good friend of the president and he might have some influence on the State Department,” Mr. Solomon said to explain the hiring decision.
The legislation sought by the dissidents proposes restrictions in American aid if Ethiopia does not agree to share power with opposition parties and take other steps promoting democracy. As part of its work, the Giuliani group set up a meeting at the White House last year at which the administration was urged to consider the viewpoint of a consortium of Ethiopian political parties that included Mr. Solomon’s group, as well as a more militant rebel organization. ...
...The Bush administration supports the government in Ethiopia as a bulwark against terrorism and has characterized the legislation as a liability in that effort.
A White House spokesman declined comment on Bracewell & Giuliani’s role. A State Department official described the legislation that the firm helped to push as detrimental. “The reality is, in fact, it does harm a relationship” with an ally, the official said.
I won't argue the merits of the legislation. It might have been perfectly wonderful. But this can't help Rudy with the GWOT-bots...
Iraq remains "unable to govern" itself effectively and hobbled by the absence of strong leadership, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's inability to broker political accord continues to make him vulnerable, according to a new U.S. intelligence report released today.
Seven months after President Bush ordered more U.S. troops to the country, "there have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq's security situation," the report concludes. . If U.S. forces continue their current strategy, security "will continue to improve modestly" over the next six to 12 months but violence will remain high and political reconciliation will remain elusive.
The report , determined that while some Iraqi security forces "have performed adequately," overall they "have not improved enough to conduct major operations independent" of U.S. forces in multiple locations on a sustained basis.
If U.S. troops were to downscale their mission to supporting Iraqi security forces and hunting terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda, the report contends that move "would erode security gains achieved thus far."
The British have a new "super weapon" to use to fight the "war on terror" in Afghanistan: an "enhance blast weapon" that kills the enemy by sucking the air out of his lungs and rupturing internal organs.
On the domestic "war on terror" front -- National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell admits what we already knew: that AT&T and other phone companies helped the government to spy on us. Why the admission? Because McConnell would like Congress to exempt the telcos from their customers' lawsuits. Nice.
It looks all bad. Bud don't worry, Dubya! Maybe some silly neocon can get Bushie to launch us another war?
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%>
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"[T]he practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.' Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84, August, 1788
