Whose Conspiracy? (The Jose Padilla case)

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from Firedoglake:


Whose Conspiracy?
By: Lewis Z. Koch


The government has concluded its case against Jose Padilla and yesterday, to no one’s surprise U.S. District Court Judge Marcia Cooke refused a defense request for directed verdict of not guilty. Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Frazier claimed “I think it is a very tightly knit conspiracy.”

Indeed there has been a tightly knit conspiracy but not the one Frazier is trying to portray.

The conspiracy – and one doesn’t need 300,000 wiretaps to expose it — is between President Bush, his chosen legal representatives – former Attorney Generals John Ashcroft, former Deputy AG James Comey, current AG General Alberto Gonzales and the representatives in a Miami Federal courtroom prosecuting the case against Jose Padilla — Frazier, John Shipley, Russell Killinger and Stephanie Pell. It is a conspiracy to commit of a travesty of justice. A conspiracy of dunces.

On the day Padilla’s capture was announced to the American public by then Attorney General Ashcroft via satellite from Russia (n doubt during KGB Heritage Month,) took its brand new “John Yoo Constitution” out for a test drive. Ashcroft flat out accused Padilla of being “an al-Qaida operative…exploring a plan to build and explode a radioactive “dirty bomb.” Bush immediately followed by declaring Padilla an “enemy combatant.” Two years later those charges vanished, just like Superman’s nemesis Mr Mxyzptlk (pronounced mix yez pittle ick) used to appear and disappear into the Fifth Dimension.

Next Deputy Attorney General James Comey stepped up to the microphone with
with his own take on Padilla’s guilt – saying Padilla had been planning to use gas stoves to explode high rise apartment buildings in the United States.

This did, however, present Comey with a conundrum:

The challenge of the Padilla case, for me as the United States Attorney, was the absence of a hammer. If I can’t credibly threaten criminal charges, no lawyer in the world is going to tell their client to talk to me, because any good lawyer would know, what I’m sure Mr. Padila’s lawyers knew, that if you just clam up, they can’t do anything with this. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.firedoglake.com/2007/07/18/whose-conspiracy/