Well, the subtlety of Collins’ understanding impressed me. I read his article on SmirkingChimp.com, and decided to approach him through Jeff Tiedrich, publisher of the blog.
Michael Collins did me the favor of responding immediately. He wanted to know what the hell was going on. Like Brian Shaughnessy, he smelled a rat.
He took the time to find out. We sat down for three lengthy interviews at a Lebanese bistro near my home in Maryland. Collins took special care to analyze my history as an Asset overall, starting with Lockerbie. And he was the first journalist who asked to see my 11 letters to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, resulting in my indictment. He was aghast at the evidence that was supposed to convict me.
Collins nicknamed me “American Cassandra” for my tragic prophecies about the outcome of this War.588 The lack of illegal weapons in Iraq. The rise of Iran. The rise of Islamic fundamentalists through democracy. The $1.6 trillion war budget that would rob domestic programs and throw Wall Street and the Middle Classes into a downward tailspin. The emergence of charismatic terrorist cells inside Iraq to fight the Infidel Occupation. The Iraqi people’s bitter hatred of the U.S. for the misery of sanctions.
Like Cassandra, I foretold it all with clarity.
And like Cassandra, I suffered the contempt of our leaders, who did not wish to hear the truths that I forecast—
When Michael Collins got hold of my story— finally—a critically thinking journalist connected the dots, linking my indictment to events on Capitol Hill. He recognized the aspects of a major cover up immediately.589
Collins cried foul on the Justice Department for protecting Republicans from the hellacious fall out of poor decision making before the War. He was doubly appalled when he read the Andy Card letters, and saw what I’d actually done.
Collins had the integrity to be outraged.
By now, I’d lived under the storm of indictment for three and a half bitter years. I’d spent a year in prison. And all of a sudden, there was sunshine on my story. Where the New York Times had botched it so badly, the “New Media” now excelled. Truly it felt like a changing of the guard. It was exciting to be part of that.
Michael Collins took my story to “Scoop” Independent News, Op-Ed News, Atlantic Free Press, American Politics Journal, Intelligence Daily, Smirking Chimp, and the Agonist, to name a few of the provocative, cutting edge blogs that have established themselves as a vital source of information for the public.
His articles reach 400 blogs in a typical week, and my story posted on all of them.
With a single key stroke, Michael Collins obliterated the corporate media black out. And he proved the pen is still mightier than the sword when it comes to championing the rights of democracy and freedom.
For my own esteem, it was God-sent.
As the months rolled on, Phelan and Herzog’s radio shows and Michael Collins’ blog articles flagged all the breaking developments in my case, blow by blow.590 It would be a battle to the last day. Only now, thanks to the New Media, blog readers and radio audiences started to get some facts. And wouldn’t you know, those facts contradicted everything they’d been sold— not only about my life, but also about Iraq and 9/11 and the weakness of U.S. anti-terrorism policy. As the Presidential election fight heated up, Americans started asking some tough questions.
There was still confusion, as people had to absorb the vast differences of how the Justice Department portrayed me versus new revelations about the horrific abuses that I suffered on the Patriot Act. But I was no longer standing alone in the dock. Michael Collins, Michael Herzog and Janet Phelan showed me that America cared.
Thinking people cared. “Awake” people cared. That strengthened my confidence to face down the insults from my opponents, as I pushed forward with Brian Shaughnessy and Tom Mattingly towards a trial.
Those insults— and threats on my freedom— got much worse, not better. Republicans had me in a box. And they did not want me coming out of that box. My enemies camped out on Wikipedia, a useful tool for COINTEL propaganda that bastardized me every chance they got. Some of the mistakes were comical and stupid. Despite multiple corrections, for a couple of years Wikipedia insisted on giving me the wrong name, the wrong age and birthday. And they wrongly identified the allegations against me, upping my crimes to espionage. It went downhill from there.
Happily, notoriety does not scare me. I’ve got incredibly tough skin. I’m a big believer that you can tell a lot about a person by the strength of (her) enemies. Mine included Dick Cheney, John McCain, Andy Card, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell and Alberto Gonzales. So maybe I’m not so bad after all!
Hey, they’re big and I’m small. That doesn’t make them right.
Above all, the White House was in play. And my prime arch enemy, John McCain was running for President. His staff desperately wanted to keep me silent.
Unfortunately, as McCain’s poll numbers got tighter in the race with Barak Obama, there were constant threats to take me into custody. Several times Pre-Trial Services in New York threatened to revoke my bail, because, on my attorney’s advice, I phoned after hours to avoid ugly confrontations between us.591 I taped every phone call to Pre-Trial Services for my own protection.592
It was incredibly dirty. I was not some ex-convict, violating my probation. Three and a half years had passed, and I was still demanding my rights to a trial. By now, I had another year’s worth of psych observations from Counseling Plus, documenting that nothing was wrong with me.593 I hardly qualified as a flight risk, since I’d already surrendered to prison once. I’m not a drug user, who indulged in substance abuse. In five years I never committed any crime, which could justified bail revocation.
This was more like high stakes poker. Shaughnessy and I kept agitating for a trial, so we could shoot down the allegations. My very mediocre public attorney was gone. The Prosecutor squirmed with dread that he would have to play his cards, and show his lack of evidence to the Court. O’Callaghan would be forced to admit that he had knowingly concealed the facts of my identity. He would get busted for prosecutorial misconduct that resulted in the false imprisonment of a known Asset, with threats of forcible drugging to shut me up. Clearly O’Callaghan did not relish that confession.
I used to joke that the Judge should post a $500,000 bond on O’Callaghan’s house—identical to mine—so that the Defense could require him to come to Court.594 He was the one avoiding the Judge, not me. I used to taunt Pre-Trial Services that I was ready. Just name the day, and I’d be happy to kick the Justice Department’s ass.
Ominously for me, polls showed voter support for Republicans was sinking fast. Fighting to keep a death grip on power, the GOP’s worst nightmare was now coming true: I was talking on the radio about the real facts of Iraq, 9/11 and the weakness of GOP performance against -terrorism.
And some independent minded Americans were starting to listen. The Justice Department let me know they would not stand for it.
In September, October, November and December 2007, Pre-Trial Services mounted an aggressive effort to revoke my bail and ship me back to Carswell, with a series of false complaints.595
In one court deception, I was astonished when Pre-Trial Services accused me of “bursting in on another individual’s session at Counseling Plus.”596
It was a flagrant, audacious lie. Aggravating the ridiculousness of the accusation, I despise psychology so much that I would never dream of interrupting anybody else’s session. I was always happy to sit in the lobby, if Burton was running late. I had nothing to say to the woman. The longer I waited, the less time I would have to waste in her office, while she surfed the internet scheduling entertainments with her daughter, or shopping for clothes.
The upshot was that somebody else wearing a blue coat, similar to mine, “burst” into her office, while she finished up with another client. Heavens, I was probably entering a stage of brain death at that very moment, tucked in a corner of the lobby. Astonishingly, Pre-Trial Services never bothered to check with Bu
rton before reporting this incident to Judge Preska. They hauled me to New York for an emergency appearance, and argued vigorously that I should get shipped back to Carswell that very night. When I scorned the suggestion, given my contempt for psychology, Pre-Trial Services had to back down. Even the Judge had to acknowledge it sounded preposterous.597
Unhappily for O’Callaghan, this was a new game book! Shaughnessy didn’t play. He confronted my Pre-Trial Supervisor in Greenbelt, and demanded a retraction.
When they got caught, do you think Pre-Trial Services had the integrity to admit to Judge Preska they made a false report? Hardly. They pulled something else from their bag of dirty tricks. Something really dirty, even for these guys.
It got so bad that in December, 2007, Pre-Trial Services forced me to appear in Court without Shaughnessy— in the company of my former attorney, Sam Talkin, while the Feds fought to revoke my bail.598 This occurred after I paid Shaughnessy’s legal fees, and the Court was fully informed that he had taken my case. The court meeting was scheduled on the only day that entire week that Shaughnessy could not travel to New York. It was particularly outrageous, since the court meeting was scheduled for 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and Shaughnessy offered to appear by 8 o’clock the next morning. He offered to travel overnight for the appearance.
Talkin—who’d been replaced by this point—seized the opportunity to make one final pitch disputing my competence. He swore that he would agree to whatever O’Callaghan wanted to do with me. He declared in open court that if he had his way, I would never be declared competent until O’Callaghan said so!599
Much worse, Talkin argued that I should be forced to undergo a 3 day in-patient psych evaluation, in lieu of going back to Carswell, as a requirement for challenging the competency finding.600 Never mind that a year’s worth of session notes from Counseling Plus recorded that nothing was wrong with me,601 and I suffered no personal crises in Maryland—something a faithful attorney would have underscored in Court to preserve my freedom.
Not Talkin! Knowing Shaughnessy was proceeding in a totally different direction, Talkin tried to inflict as much damage as possible on his way, even to the point of costing me my freedom.602
Thankfully, Brian Shaughnessy got Talkin’s request overturned. He went the extra mile, soliciting opinions from the chief psychiatrists at Georgetown University, George Washington University and the Washington Psychiatric Institute, the last whom he tracked down on vacation in Israel. All swore my competency evaluation could be handled on an out-patient basis, and that hospitalization should be strictly limited to individuals in crisis. To their credit, every one of those Psychiatry Departments refused to admit me, or submit to being pawns of political leaders. They flat out refused.603
Instead, Shaughnessy arranged for a leading Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Ratner to do the evaluation for our competency challenge at his private office.
But Talkin’s behavior struck us as shocking misconduct. I was compelled to declare for the court record that I had no attorney present, insisting to his shame that Talkin no longer represented me, and my real attorney, Shaughnessy had to be absent, because of other Court commitments in Washington. I scoffed that anything in my life justified a 3 day in-patient evaluation for a competency review, insisting there was a huge disconnect between Pre-Trial Services’ fanciful inventions and the real facts of my life in Maryland— which was going very well, thank you.604
Looking back, it’s difficult to believe anybody could have tried to do this. But the threat was quite real. Every time we headed to New York, Shaughnessy would tell me honestly that he had no idea if I would make it home that night, or if the Judge would take me into custody.
One thing probably saved me. Shaughnessy warned that if the Court took me into custody, we would file an emergency appeal to the 2nd Circuit Appellate Court challenging the procedures by which my incompetence had been accepted. Then we would push for trial.605
The fear that Shaughnessy would use any bail revocation to force a trial probably saved me, especially since Shaughnessy freely declared my capacity to assist him.
An emergency appeal was ready to go if U.S. Marshals ever grabbed me. And we expected to win.
Does that sound like I don’t know the law? That I’m stumped in court? Hardly.
My case was non-stop legal fraud—a reflection on Washington’s desperation to silence me. They succeeded for so long because of the Patriot Act, and because I had no attorney willing to fight for me—except for my marvelous uncle, Ted Lindauer and the brilliant Brian Shaughnessy, after Carswell.
Alas, the Patriot Act handicapped even the most senior attorneys.
The Patriot Act changed the equation of power in the courtroom, such that all transparency in the proceedings got erased. It emboldened the Prosecutor to misrepresent the caliber of evidence against me, when the charges should have been dropped as frivolous. As time went on, protecting the lies invented on Capitol Hill required yet more abuse of my rights, and more deceptions to safeguard Republican officials from exposure.
It’s why I call the Patriot Act the foundation for all future dictatorship in the United States. It’s a very dangerous law. My case demonstrates several critical reasons why the Patriot Act should be repealed immediately. Every leader who supported the Patriot Act should be removed from power, Democrat or Republican, without exception. The Patriot Act should be a litmus test for judging who’s qualified to protect the best traditions of democracy in our country, and who’s unfit for leadership. It’s that bad.
Through every blow, Collins, Herzog and Phelan stayed right by my side. Many times, we’d end a radio show with a reminder that I might get carted back to prison in the next few days. That’s no exaggeration, unfortunately. For several months, I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to get seized and shipped back to Carswell at any moment.
It got so bad that U.S. Marshals phoned Shaughnessy two to three weeks before the November elections, warning of my impending seizure, as the battle hardened between Barak Obama and John McCain. Those sorts of phone calls almost always pre-indicate a defendant is about to get grabbed. Sure enough, that warning coincided with a heavy round of radio interviews, telling listeners the truth about our 9/11 warning and Pre-War Intelligence.
To his great credit, Shaughnessy backed me a hundred percent, and never cautioned me or Michael Collins to back down. He told us to keep fighting, and fight harder!
That’s where my opponents hit a wall.
Republican loyalists inside the Justice Department could deny me a trial on the most frivolous and absurd grounds. But they could not stop me from demanding my day in court to prove my innocence.
They could scorn my “incompetence.” But for all their speechifying, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill could not reinvent my contributions to Pre-War Intelligence, or the reality of my team’s 9/11 warning throughout the summer of 2001.
They faced a serious quandary that John McCain played a leadership role in both the 9/11 investigation and the Iraq Investigation—and both reports contained outrageous inaccuracies that McCain spoon fed to the American people, as key spokesperson for both Commissions.
If McCain had won the Presidency, I would have fought for his impeachment from his first day in office. He would have deserved it, too.
Some Americans have taken hard blows for questioning the official version of events about 9/11. They have possibly speculated in some wrong directions. But they are quite correct that a substantial body of facts has been concealed from the public, like the essential truth that the U.S. Intelligence Community urgently anticipated a 9/11 style of attack, with uncanny accuracy as to the method, target and timing of the attack, described as “imminent” in August, 2001. Or that urgent requests for intra-agency cooperation to pre-empt the strike were made in August, 2001 to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private staff and— at their suggestion— the Office of Counter-Terrorism.
I made some of those calls myself. And I was not the only
alarmist.
Finally, the 9/11 Truth community is absolutely correct that the 9/11 Commission was a white-wash. Can anybody blame them for being angry and frustrated? I don’t.
Some things really are unforgivable in a democracy. Allowing thousands of your own citizens to suffer horrible deaths, in order to rationalize an unnecessary War against an innocent country should be judged the most terrible crime of all.
Most Americans still can’t believe that Republican leaders did that to all of us. But it’s true.
The people around John McCain understood exactly what it would mean if my story exposed those deceptions at election time. McCain’s entire campaign platform on national security would have crashed to the ground.
All of that explains why, after Carswell, the louder I spoke out, the more furiously the Justice Department tried to send me back to prison.
The attacks never stopped until Barak Obama’s historic triumph over McCain at the voting booth.
When McCain lost the White House, the attacks ended overnight.
If that doesn’t demonstrate the power of democracy and the voting booth to thwart tyranny, I don’t know what could. Vote, people!
My fight was definitely not for light hearts or weak stomachs.
Only now I had a powerful and effective attorney who cared what happened to me. Shaughnessy stayed ahead of the curve at all times, so that my defense would be ready whatever happened next. Tom Mattingly assumed the role of paralegal, and together they developed a strategy for managing all avenues of the case.
Fellow activist, Karin Anderson of Takoma Park, agreed to pony up my legal fees from her savings. This grandmotherly animal rescue activist finds a penny on every street corner, and always stops to pick it up because it reads: “In God we trust.”
EXTREME PREJUDICE: The Terrifying Story of the Patriot Act and the Cover Ups of 9/11 and Iraq Page 60