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http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/printables/051003roco01?print=trueAn Inconvenient PatriotBy DAVID ROSE Love of country led Sibel Edmonds to become a translator for the F.B.I. following 9/11. But everything changed when she accused a colleague of covering up alleged illicit activity involving Turkish nationals. Fired after sounding the alarm, she's now preparing a Supreme Court appeal—and threatening some very powerful people (from Vanity Fair, September 2005) ~snip~ ...in addition to her allegations about the Dickersons, she reported hearing Turkish wiretap targets boast that they had a covert relationship with a very senior politician indeed—Dennis Hastert, Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House since 1999. The targets reportedly discussed giving Hastert tens of thousands of dollars in surreptitious payments in exchange for political favors and information. "The Dickersons," says one official familiar with the case, "are only the tip of the iceberg." ... ~snip~ In her secure testimony, Edmonds disclosed some of what she recalled hearing. In all, says a source who was present, she managed to listen to more than 40 of the Chicago recordings supplied by Robertz. Many involved an F.B.I. target at the city's large Turkish Consulate, as well as members of the American-Turkish Council and the Assembly of Turkish American Associations.
Some of the calls reportedly contained what sounded like references to large-scale drug shipments and other crimes. To a person who knew nothing about their context, the details were confusing, and it wasn't always clear what might be significant. One name, however, apparently stood out—a man the Turkish callers often referred to by the nickname "Denny boy." It was the Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert. According to some of the wiretaps, the F.B.I.'s targets had arranged for tens of thousands of dollars to be paid to Hastert's campaign funds in small checks. Under Federal Election Commission rules, donations of less than $200 are not required to be itemized in public filings.
Hastert himself was never heard in the recordings, Edmonds told investigators, and it is possible that the claims of covert payments were hollow boasts. Nevertheless, an examination of Hastert's federal filings shows that the level of un-itemized payments his campaigns received over many years was relatively high. Between April 1996 and December 2002, un-itemized personal donations to the Hastert for Congress Committee amounted to $483,000.... ~snip~ Edmonds reportedly added that the recordings also contained repeated references to Hastert's flip-flop, in the fall of 2000, over an issue which remains of intense concern to the Turkish government—the continuing campaign to have Congress designate the killings of Armenians in Turkey between 1915 and 1923 a genocide. For many years, attempts had been made to get the House to pass a genocide resolution, but they never got anywhere until August 2000, when Hastert, as Speaker, announced that he would give it his backing and see that it received a full House vote. He had a clear political reason, as analysts noted at the time: a California Republican incumbent, locked in a tight congressional race, was looking to win over his district's large Armenian community. Thanks to Hastert, the resolution, vehemently opposed by the Turks, passed the International Relations Committee by a large majority. Then, on October 19, minutes before the full House vote, Hastert withdrew it.At the time, he explained his decision by saying that he had received a letter from President Clinton arguing that the genocide resolution, if passed, would harm U.S. interests. Again, the reported content of the Chicago wiretaps may well have been sheer bravado, and there is no evidence that any payment was ever made to Hastert or his campaign. Nevertheless, a senior official at the Turkish Consulate is said to have claimed in one recording that the price for Hastert to withdraw the resolution would have been at least $500,000.Hastert's spokesman says the congressman withdrew the genocide resolution only because of the approach from Clinton, "and to insinuate anything else just doesn't make any sense." He adds that Hastert has no affiliation with the A.T.C. or other groups reportedly mentioned in the wiretaps: "He does not know these organizations." Hastert is "unaware of Turkish interests making donations," the spokesman says, and his staff has "not seen any pattern of donors with foreign names." For more than two years after Edmonds was fired, the Office of the Inspector General's inquiry ground on. At last, in July 2004, its report was completed—and promptly labeled classified at the behest of the F.B.I. It took months of further pressure before a redacted, unclassified version was finally issued, in January 2005. It seemed to provide stunning vindication of Edmonds's credibility."Many of Edmonds' core allegations relating to the co-worker were supported by either documentary evidence or witnesses," the report said. "We believe that the F.B.I. should have investigated the allegations more thoroughly."
The F.B.I. had justified firing Edmonds on the grounds that she had a "disruptive effect," the report went on. However, "this disruption related primarily to Edmonds' aggressive pursuit of her allegations of misconduct, which the F.B.I. did not believe were supported and which it did not adequately investigate. In fact, as we described throughout our report, many of her allegations had bases in fact," the report read. "We believe … that the F.B.I. did not take them seriously enough, and that her allegations were, in fact, the most significant factor in the F.B.I.'s decision to terminate her services."
Meanwhile, Edmonds had new lawyers: the A.C.L.U.'s Ann Beeson, who is leading the challenge to the state-secrets privilege, and Mark Zaid, a private attorney who specializes in national-security issues. Zaid has filed a $10 million tort suit, citing the threats to Edmonds's family, her inability to look after her real-estate and business interests in Turkey, and a series of articles in the Turkish press that have vilified her.
In July 2004, a federal district court had ruled in favor of the government's use of the state-secrets privilege. Like Ashcroft's declaration, its opinion contained no specific facts. Next came a bizarre hearing in the D.C. appeals court in April 2005. The room was cleared of reporters while Beeson spoke for 15 minutes. Then Beeson and Edmonds were also expelled to make way for the Department of Justice's lawyers, who addressed the judges in secret. Two weeks later, the court rejected Edmonds's appeal, without expanding on the district court's opinion. At press time, she was set to file a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court. If the court agrees to take the case, the government's reasons for its actions may finally be forced into the open; legal experts say the Supreme Court has never allowed secret arguments.
A week after the April appeal hearing, Edmonds gathered more than 30 whistle-blowers from the F.B.I., C.I.A., National Security Agency, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies to brief staffers from the House and Senate. Among the whistle-blowers were Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, and Coleen Rowley, the F.B.I. agent from Minneapolis who complained that Washington ignored local agents who in August 2001 had raised concerns about a flight student named Zacarias Moussaoui, who has since admitted to being an al-Qaeda terrorist.
Many of those present had unearthed apparent breaches of national security; many said their careers had been wrecked as a result. At a press conference after the briefings, Congressman Edward Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, praised Edmonds and her colleagues as "national heroes," pledging that he would introduce a bill to make it a crime for any agency manager to retaliate against such individuals. Afterward, the whistle-blowers mingled over hors d'oeuvres and explored their common ground and experiences. By July, they were working to formalize their association as a not-for-profit campaign group, the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. "When they took on Sibel," says Mike German, who is now the coalition's congressional liaison, "they made the wrong woman mad."
"I'm going to keep pushing this as long as I can, but I'm not going to get obsessional," Edmonds says. "There's other things I want to do with my life. But the day the Iranians tried to arrest me, my father told me, 'Sibel, you live your life once. How do you choose to live? According to your principles, or in fear?' I have never forgotten those words."
Contributing editor David Rose is the author of Guantánamo: The War on Human Rights, which grew out of his V.F. article "Guantánamo Bay on Trial."
http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/printables/051003roco01?print=true
Credibility is something that disgusting flip-flopper never had. "Look who's gone fish'n and look who paid.mm mm mm" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1520997What a corrupt lying pig that Hastert, huh? Only there for his loose pockets and his 'fiend'$ ...What else should the People expect from these Republicans? :grr: |
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