Latest Episodes of Visibility 9-11 Recent Media Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs History Commons
Michael Wolsey's Blog
Video from the historic broadcast of Loose Change: 9-11 An American Coup on Colorado Public Television Channel 12 on December 4, 2010. Featured in-studio guest is 9-11 whistleblower Kevin Ryan and members of Colorado 9-11 Visibility manning the phones.
www.cpt12.org
www.colorado911visibility.org
Anxious that Wikileaks may be on the verge of publishing a batch of secret State Department cables, investigators are desperately searching for founder Julian Assange. Philip Shenon reports.
Pentagon investigators are trying to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security, government officials tell The Daily Beast.
The officials acknowledge that even if they found the website founder, Julian Assange, it is not clear what they could do to block publication of the cables on Wikileaks, which is nominally based on a server in Sweden and bills itself as a champion of whistleblowers.
“We’d like to know where he is; we’d like his cooperation in this,” one U.S. official said of Assange.
American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait.
And given the contents of the cables, the feds have good reason to be concerned.
As The Daily Beast reported June 8, Manning, while posted in Iraq, apparently had special access to cables prepared by diplomats and State Department officials throughout the Middle East, regarding the workings of Arab governments and their leaders, according to an American diplomat.
The cables, which date back over several years, went out over interagency computer networks available to the Army and contained information related to American diplomatic and intelligence efforts in the war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, the diplomat said.
American officials would not discuss the methods being used to find Assange, nor would they say if they had information to suggest where he is now. “We’d like to know where he is; we’d like his cooperation in this,” one U.S. official said of Assange.
Assange, who first gained notoriety as a computer hacker, is as secretive as his website and has no permanent home.
He was in the United States as recently as several weeks ago, when he gave press interviews to promote the website’s release of an explosive 2007 video of an American helicopter attack in Baghdad that left 12 people dead, including two employees of the news agency Reuters.
Wikileaks has not replied directly to email messages from The Daily Beast.
FBI Veteran Executive Calls For Special Counsel Investigation, Prosecutions in Sibel Edmonds Case
Details panic inside the Bureau, executive effort to ‘keep this whole thing quiet’ when matter first came to light in 2002. Further confirms FBI translator/whistleblower’s allegations, credibility…
Brad Blog
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 insiders 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 to 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.”
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.”
Whistleblower deposed in Schmidt versus Krikorian election complaint
Sibel Edmonds finally gets to tell her story
Source: newsdemocrat.com
8/24/2009
Ohio Second District Congresswoman Jean Schmidt, R-Cincinnati, filed nine election complaints against independent candidate David Krikorian concerning the 2008 election in May this year.
Krikorian opposed Schmidt in the Second District Congressional race as an independent in 2008 and is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2010 race in April. The complaints focus on Krikorian’s statements during the election stating that Rep. Schmidt was taking money from organizations related to the Turkish government in exchange for denying the occurrence of what Krikorian called the Armenian Genocide at the hands of the Turks during World War I.
The complaints also relate to Election Commission records on campaign contributions Schmidt received from the Turkish American Heritage PAC and the Turkish Coalition USA PAC.
Since filing the complaints, Schmidt’s counsel has withdrawn four complaints, and an Ohio Elections Commission three-person panel decided there was probable cause to hear the remaining complaints on Thursday, Aug. 13. The five remaining complaints will be reviewed by the entire Commission on Sept. 3.
In preparation for the Sept. 3 hearing, Krikorian’s lawyer requested a subpoena for well known whistleblower and former interpreter for the FBI, Sibel Edmonds. The OEC declined to enforce the subpoena, however Edmonds agreed to speak to Krikorian and Schmidt’s lawyers on a voluntary basis.
The video deposition was brought forward by Krikorian’s counsel to provide background on the alleged involvement of the Turkish government in Congressional affairs through blackmail, bribery, and campaign contributions filtered through various organizations. Edmonds also describes Turkish infiltration of the Pentagon and Air Force.
Edmonds’ deposition is significant because she has twice been “gagged” by a State Secrets exemption from testifying for a 9/11 investigation and a Congressional hearing.
By various Internet bloggers she has been called the most gagged woman in the U.S.
“We were very surprised she was allowed to testify,” said Krikorian about the deposition. “She was gagged twice under the Bush Administration and we have received several threatening letters from the FBI and the Department of Justice. To Obama’s and to Eric Holder the Attorney General’s credit she was allowed to testify.”
As the Sept. 3 OEC hearing approaches, the depositions continue. Licoln McGurdy, Treasurer of the Turkish Coalition USA PAC was the recent subject of a deposition and Schmidt was to be deposed Monday, Aug. 24.
Edmonds (who is Turkish-American) called as a witness for Krikorian (who is Armenian-American) testified to infiltration, bribery, corruption, and blackmail within the U.S. Government, by current and former members of the U.S. House and other high ranking officials, on behalf of Turkish interests.
Schmidt, the co-chair of the Congressional Turkish Caucus filed the complaint with the OEC alleging “false statements” by Krikorian when he alleged she had taken “blood money” from those opposed to a Congressional declaration of Armenian Genocide by the Turks during WWI. There are claims by Krikorian that Schmidt took more money from Turkish interests during the 2008 campaign than any other House candidate.
Below is the video deposition by Edmonds. Some serious charges are made in this deposition, this newspaper/website provides this as public information that readers/viewers may develop their own opinions and understandings of the subject. Note most of Edmonds’ deposition is relevant to a time period previous to Rep. Schmidt taking office.
Related Links:
Sibel Edmonds video deposition
Sibel Edmonds transcript
Finally, an apology from the National Geographic Channel
by Kevin Ryan
August 22, 2009
Six days after September 11th, National Geographic Today (NGT) published one of the very first descriptions of the official myth for what happened to the World Trade Center (WTC) towers.[1] This article exaggerated the little known facts about the fires in the towers, equated gas temperatures with steel temperatures, and detailed the long-surviving but incorrect Pancake Theory of “collapse.” Since that time, millions of people have been killed or injured in the 9/11 Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that originated from the official myth about 9/11.[2,3] Fortunately, this week it was announced that the NGT’s parent, the National Geographic Channel (NG Channel), is scheduled to broadcast a new television special covering the science behind the events of 9/11. We can only assume that this new show is meant to correct the record and apologize for the company’s false statements that contributed to the ongoing wars.
Some of the false statements made in that NGT article had to do with an early version of the Pancake Theory for destruction of the buildings. One claim was : “As the steel columns at the core of the Twin Towers collapsed, the floors they supported fell on each other like two stacks of pancakes.” Another statement was more authoritative, saying: “Once the structural support of the upper floors is removed, a few falling floors can bring down an entire building.” The Pancake Theory did not make sense to many people but was tested by my former employer, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), in August 2004. The tests showed that the floors in the WTC buildings could not have pancaked, even when exposed to higher temperatures for longer periods of time than was actually the case. Two years later, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finally made clear that its “findings do not support the ‘pancake theory’ of collapse.”[4]
To date, there have been no apologies from any of the media sources that, oftentimes arrogantly, promoted the Pancake Theory as a means to prevent further questioning of the WTC events. But we all know that “National Geographic” is different, right? Actually, some people are unaware that the NG Channel is majority controlled (67%) by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.[5] The National Geographic Society, publisher of the well-known magazine, was a minority partner in creation of the NG Channel, but does not have editorial control over what is produced there. Instead, the News Corporation controls the programming much like it controls Fox News.
In the early article promoting the WTC myth, NGT described how “Jet fuel fires burn unusually hot, and engineers believe the fire may have led to temperatures as high as 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,900 degrees Fahrenheit).” But the truth is that the jet fuel fires at the WTC, which lasted a total of 79 seconds by one expert estimate, and lasted only a few minutes according to NIST, would have been cooler than the later fires fed by office furnishings alone.[6] It has since been admitted by NIST that gas temperatures reached only “as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius.”[7]
Exclusive Interview with FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds
By Khatchig Mouradian
The Armenian Weekly
August 21, 2009
On April 23, 2007, I sat down in Washington, D.C. with FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds for an extensive interview, which was published in the Armenian Weekly and on ZNet and widely circulated. On Aug. 18, 2009, I conducted a follow-up phone interview with Edmonds, who was visiting New Zealand. The interview is an overview of what has transpired in her case since 2007, with emphasis on her deposition in the Schmidt vs. Krikorian case in Ohio earlier this month.
Edmonds, an FBI language specialist, was fired from her job with the FBI’s Washington Field Office in March 2002. Her crime was reporting security breaches, cover-ups, blocking of intelligence, and the bribery of U.S. individuals including high-ranking officials. The “state secrets privilege” has often been invoked to block court proceedings on her case, and the U.S. Congress has even been gagged to prevent further discussion.Edmonds uncovered, for example, a covert relationship between Turkish groups and former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), who reportedly received tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in return for withdrawing the Armenian Genocide Resolution from the House floor in 2000.
Born in Iran in 1970, Edmonds received her BA in criminal justice and psychology from George Washington University, and her MA in public policy and international commerce from George Mason University. She is the founder and director of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC) and in 2006 received the PEN/Newman’s Own First Amendment Award. She speaks Turkish, Farsi, and Azerbaijani.
Below is the full transcript of the follow-up interview.
***
Khatchig Mouradian—I asked you in 2007 what had changed during the five years since 2002, when you first contacted the Senate Judiciary Committee to reveal the story on Turkish bribery of high-level U.S. officials. You said, “There has been no hearing and nobody has been held accountable. We are basically where we started…” Two more years have passed, we have a new president, and I have to ask the same question again. Has there been any change?
Sibel Edmonds—Nothing has changed. As far as the Congress is concerned, the Democrats have been the majority since November 2006 and I have had zero interest from Congress on having hearings—any hearings—on this issue, whether it’s the states secrets privilege portion of it or the involved corruption cases. The current majority has been at least as bad as the previous one. At least the Republicans were gutsy enough to come and say, We’re not going to touch this. But the new majority is not saying anything!
FRIDAY, MAY 15, 2009
Rob Kall interviews Sibel Edmonds
Rob Kall of Op-Ed News interviewed Sibel on Wednesday.
The following is a partial transcript. All errors, edits and omissions are mine.
Sibel Edmonds:
[SNIP]
We (NSWBC) stopped our activities for a while, and we are restarting them again, and I just launched my blog, www.123realchange.blogspot.com, and the first series that I’m posting there is on the mainstream media, and in the next few days, you’re going to see more than 300 whistleblowers who are going to post their comments at the blog too, about their experiences with various people in the mainstream media.
So that’s going to be the main discussion, because currently we review the mainstream media as the culprit, because if they were to do their jobs, they would put pressure on the people in the congress, because these people want to get re-elected, and therefore that pressure would act as a catalyst to get these things that we, the people, have been asking for – the real hearings and accountability. But without the mainstream media putting that pressure, going after them, well, they don’t have anything really to fear. You know, you have to have carrots, you have to have sticks, but there have been no sticks for these people. They get away with everything.
And even when we have some coverage, it only lasts for a couple of days, you don’t get what you saw, let’s say, with Watergate. You have to keep at it, and the mainstream media is not doing this. And the best example of this is the Harman case, it just popped out, and then in a couple of days it disappeared, and it has been buried.
SIBEL EDMONDS: In Congress We Trust…Not
The former FBI translator and whistleblower suggests blackmail may be at the heart of Congressional refusal to bring accountability and oversight to its own members – such as both Hastert and Harman – in matters of espionage and national security
Source: bradblog.com
Exclusive to The BRAD BLOG…
Guest Editorial by Sibel Edmonds
5/4/2009
I have been known to quote long-dead men in my past writings. Whether eloquently expressed thoughts by our founding fathers, or those artfully expressed by ancient Greek thinkers, these quotes have always done a better job starting or ending my thoughts – that tend to be expressed in long winding sentences. For this piece I am going to break with tradition and start with an appropriate quote from a living current senator, John Kerry: “It’s a sad day when you have members of Congress who are literally criminals go undisciplined by their colleagues. No wonder people look at Washington and know this city is broken.”
The people do indeed look at Washington and know that this city is ‘badly’ broken, Senator Kerry. The public confidence in our Congress has been declining drastically. Recent poll results highlight how the American people’s trust in their Congress has hit rock bottom. A survey of progressive blogs easily confirms the rage rightfully directed at our Congress for abdicating its role of oversight and accountability. Activists scream about promised hearings that never took place – without explanation. They express outrage when investigations are dropped without any justification. And they genuinely wonder out loud why, especially after they helped secure a major victory for the Democrats. The same Democrats who had for years pointed fingers at their big bad Republican majority colleagues as the main impediment preventing them from fulfilling what was expected of them.
Delta Force officer: US officials stopped plans to kill bin Laden
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Monday October 6, 2008
The Raw Story
After September 11, 2001, a team of elite Delta Force commandos was sent into Afghanistan with an assignment to find and kill Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora — but that mission failed.
The commander of the Delta Force team has now written a book which tells what he says is the true story of what went wrong. He appeared anonymously on CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday to summarize that story.
Bin Laden was known to be holed up at Tora Bora on a ridge with an elevation of 14,000 feet. The Delta Force team’s initial plan was to come at him from the direction he’d least expect, climbing over the mountains at his back, but that plan wasn’t approved by the higher-ups. Their second idea, to drop hundreds of landmines along the mountain passes to Pakistan to impede bin Laden’s retreat and then bring in helicopters, was also turned down.
“How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that’s disapproved by higher headquarters?” CBS’s Scott Pelley asked the commando leader.
“In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before,” he replied.
The only remaining option was a frontal assault by 50 US Delta Force members plus their Afghan guides — and the Afghan warlord accompanying the commandos frankly told them, “I don’t think you guys can handle it.” A few million dollars from the CIA quickly secured his cooperation, but only to a degree.
The Delta Force leader told CBS that the Afghan fighters went home every night, abandoning whatever territory had been gained that day. “It was almost like it was an agreement, an understanding between the two forces fighting each other,” he stated When the CIA did come up with an exact location on bin Laden, it was nighttime, and the Afghan support was nowhere to be found.
“It wasn’t worth the risk at that particular moment to go up there and play cowboy,” the leader told CBS. “It was better to be cautious, refit, go up there with the entire force the next day and play the battle out as we had planned.” But when he attempted to move on bin Laden the next day, his Afghan allies balked, saying they had negotiated a cease fire with al Qaeda, and even drew their weapons on the Delta force team to prevent it from acting alone.
Read the rest of this story which includes a video from 60 minutes.
Shooting the Messenger
by William F. Jasper
July 7, 2008
For six years, Sibel Edmonds has been carrying out an heroic crusade to protect her adopted country from national security threats within the top levels of the American government. Hired as an FBI translator in the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, Edmonds, a Turkish American, threw herself into the daunting task of translating thousands of hours of recordings of backlogged intercepts in Turkic, Farsi, and Azerbaijani. What she heard on the tapes was alarming: Turkish agents in the United States bribing high-level U.S. officials and obtaining our military and intelligence secrets. What she witnessed at the FBI was even more appalling: translators who were intentionally filing false translations and passing information to foreign powers; and, what’s even worse, FBI superiors who did nothing about it when these serious breaches were brought to their attention.
Unwilling to settle for the bureaucratic “don’t rock the boat” response she faced from immediate supervisors, Sibel Edmonds decided to take her concerns higher up the FBI chain of command. The result? She was fired, and those she tried to have investigated got off scot-free; some fled the country to avoid potential prosecution, while others continued their alleged criminal and treasonous activities. Some of the FBI colleagues who blocked her efforts were promoted.
How could this be, especially in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks, when “homeland security” was our number one concern? And especially since FBI Director Robert Mueller had expressly promised that the agency’s notorious penchant for punishing whistle-blowers was now a thing of the past.
In a November 2001 memorandum to all FBI employees, Director Mueller stated: “I will not tolerate reprisals or intimidation by any bureau employee against those who make protected disclosures, nor will I tolerate attempts to prevent employees from making such disclosures.”
However, Director Mueller’s assurances notwithstanding, the case of Sibel Edmonds is Exhibit A in a long line of examples indicating that reprisal and intimidation against whistle-blowers continues to be standard operating procedure at the FBI and other federal agencies. The public may be tempted to wonder: “Well, if the national security compromises Mrs. Edmonds alleges are as grave as she claims, why doesn’t she go the Congress, or the courts, or the media?” She has attempted to do all of that, but has been blocked at every turn by a smothering gag order imposed by the Bush administration under the “State Secrets Privilege.” The gag order not only classified all of Edmonds’ testimony to the 9/11 Commission, to the investigative staffs of congressional committees, and to the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), but even letters by members of Congress requesting information from the executive branch.
Sibel Edmonds vs. the Nuclear Terrorists
May 22, 2008
Erik Larson
Sibel Edmonds is a national security whistleblower and senior Senators Charles Grassley and Patrick Leahy, and Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn Fine called her a credible witness- much of her testimony was corroborated by others at the FBI. She was hired by the FBI September 21, 2001 as a contract translator, and fired March 26, 2002 after pressing allegations of corruption, espionage and coverup in the FBI’s Translation Unit. Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed “state secrets†privilege in her case and even classified her date of birth. According to the American Civil Liberties Union she’s the most gagged person in US history. Recently, she broke her gag orders; January 2008 the Sunday Times of London published her claims that still-classified FBI investigations uncovered State Department, Congressional and Pentagon officials trafficking in nuclear secrets, obstructing investigations into 9/11 and more. The series was picked up by media around the world, but almost entirely ignored by the US media, and not commented on by the US government. This article summarizes some of her most troubling allegations, and the response of the US government and media.
Since 2002, Sibel Edmonds has been very public with her allegations involving “unclassified†evidence of wrongdoing- these include:
Supervisor Mike Feghali was telling translators to slow down work so they could show Congress a backlog and justify a budget increase. This was right after 9/11 when agents in the field were urgently requesting translations. In addition to new leads about 9/11, one special agent requested retranslation of a document that had been translated before 9/11, thinking that important information may have been missed in the first translation. Retranslation revealed that information had been omitted that referred to building blueprints and pictures being sent overseas, as well as information regarding criminal actions in connection with obtaining VISAs through certain mideast embassies. Feghali decided not to send the new translation to the agent; instead he sent a note saying the original translation had been correct.
Sibel Edmonds discovered that her co-worker, Melek Can Dickerson, was connected with Turkish agents that were targets of FBI investigations, that had spies operating in the State Department and Pentagon who were passing on military and intelligence secrets. Dickerson mistranslated and stamped “not pertinent†hundreds, possibly thousands, of documents and wiretapped conversations related to these investigations, and with the help of Supervisor Mike Feghali, forged signatures on documents and stole hundreds of others from the FBI office.
A 10-year Iranian intelligence asset informed 2 FBI agents and a translator in April 2001 that Osama Bin Laden was planning attacks on 4-5 US cities, with planes, that some of the people were already in the country and the attacks would happen in a few months. The translator, Behrooz Sarshar, translated and documented the info, and the two agents reported it to Special Agent in Charge of Counterterrorism Thomas Frields by filing “302†forms. Frields did nothing with the information before 9/11, and after 9/11 told them to keep quiet about it. Sarshar reported this incident to the Deparment of Justice Inspector General.
Scott Horton Interviews Sibel Edmonds and Luke Ryland
June 15th, 2008
Sibel Edmonds and Luke Ryland discuss the London Times series on her case and the international nuclear black-market network surrounding A.Q. Kahn, the U.S. government’s total clamp-down by gag orders even against Congress, the American foreign policy hypocrisy of demonizing certain nuclear ambitions and supporting others, the military-industrial-congressional complex revolving door, the bipartisan lack of enthusiasm in pursuing whistleblower cases, the movie about Sibel’s case “Kill The Messenger,” and how it only takes one congressman to call her to testify to blow the case wide open.
“The Congress has everything it needs to
MP3 here: http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_06_12_edmonds_ryland.mp3
Sibel Edmonds is the most gagged person in United States History and Luke Ryland is a blogger who has closely followed her case.
Source URL: http://antiwar.com/radio/page/4/
BRAD BLOG EXCLUSIVE: FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds Will Now Tell All – and Face Charges if Necessary – to Any Major Television Network That Will Let Her
She’s Prepared to Name Names, Including Those of Two ‘Well-Known’ Congress Members Involved in Criminal Corruption
The ‘Most Gagged Person in U.S. History’ Tells The BRAD BLOG She’s Now Exhausted All Other Channels…
– By Brad Friedman
Attention CBS 60 Minutes: we’ve got a huge scoop for you. If you want it.
Remember the exclusive story you aired on Sibel Edmonds, originally on October 27th, 2002, when she was not allowed to tell you everything that she heard while serving as an FBI translator after 9/11 because she was gagged by the rarely-invoked “States Secret Privilege”? Well, she’s still gagged. In fact, as the ACLU first described her, she’s “the most gagged person in the history of the United States of America.”
But if you’ll sit down and talk with her for an unedited interview, she has now told The BRAD BLOG during an exclusive interview, she will now tell you everything she knows.
Everything she hasn’t been allowed to tell since 2002, about the criminal penetration of the FBI where she worked, and at the Departments of State and Defense; everything she heard concerning the corruption and illegal activities of several well-known members of Congress; everything she’s aware of concerning information omitted and/or covered up in relation to 9/11. All of the information gleaned from her time listening to and translating wire-taps made prior to 9/11 at the FBI.
Here’s a handy bullet-point list, as we ran it in March of 2006, for reference, of what she’s now willing to tell you about.
“People say, ‘why doesn’t she just come forward and spill the beans?’ I have gone all the way to the Supreme Court and was shut down, I went to Congress and now consider that shut down,” she told The BRAD BLOG last week when we spoke with her for comments in relation to our story on former House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s original attempt to move a resolution through the U.S. House in 2000 declaring the 1915 massacre of 1.5 million ethnic Armenians in Turkey as “genocide.”
“Here’s my promise to the American Public: If anyone of the major networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX — promise to air the entire segment, without editing, I promise to tell them everything that I know,” about everything mentioned above, she told us.
“I can tell the American public exactly what it is, and what it is that they are covering up,” she continued. “I’m not compromising ongoing investigations,” Edmonds explained, because “they’ve all been shut down since.”
“She’s Very Credible”
She has, in fact, spent years taking every reasonable step to see that the information she has goes through the proper channels. The Supreme Court refused to hear her whistleblower lawsuit, even in light of the Department of Justice forcing the removal of both her and her own attorneys from the courtroom when they made their arguments concerning why it was that she still had to remain gagged under the “States Secrets Privilege.”
On the morning that the SCOTUS refused to hear her case, the facade cracked on the front of the building. In a ridiculously ironic metaphor which would have been rejected by any credible screen-writer, a chunk of marble — just above an allegorical statue representing “Order” and just below the words “Equal Justice” — came crashing to the ground.
She has met with, and told her story to, U.S. senators including Republican Charles Grassley and Democrat Patrick Leahy, both of the Senate Judiciary Committee, both who found her extremely credible. 60 Minutes producers may remember when Grassley told them, “Absolutely, she’s credible…And the reason I feel she’s very credible is because people within the FBI have corroborated a lot of her story.”
In fact, the FBI itself has done so. Their Inspector General found her allegations, as described in the unclassified version of his report, to be “credible,” “serious,” and “warrant[ing] a thorough and careful review by the FBI.”
As far back as 2002, Grassley and Leahy co-wrote letters on Edmonds’ behalf to Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and DoJ Inspector General Glenn A. Fine, calling on all of them to take action in respect to the allegations she’s made.
“Certain officials in this country are engaged in treason against the United States and its interests and its national security,” she said during an interview an August 2005 interview on Democracy Now. That comment followed 60 Minutes’ revelation years before alleging that Edmonds had information revealing that a “Turkish intelligence officer” she worked with at the FBI “had spies working for him inside the US State Department and at the Pentagon.”
She’s briefed many legislative offices — as well as the 9/11 Commission — in regard to her claims, and now, she says, she’s even prepared to tell the media “the names of every single Congressional office who has received the names of the witnesses” to the crimes she’s detailed.
When we spoke last week, Edmonds seemed to reserve most of her frustration for Congressman Henry Waxman’s office. Waxman is the Democratic Chairman of the U.S. House Government Reform and Oversight Committee.
After briefing members of his security-cleared staff “inside the SCIF” — a high-security room in the U.S. Capitol, specially created for discussion of highly sensitive information — Edmonds says she was told on several occasions, prior to the 2006 Election, that her case would be one of the first heard in his committee, once he became Chairman.
“I even gave names of former and current FBI agents who were willing to go to Waxman’s office and give more information on all of this,” she said.
“Before the elections, I had a promise from Congressman Waxman’s office.” She claims they told her, before the election, “the only reason they couldn’t hold hearings, was because the Republicans were blocking it.”
“They said ‘your case will be one of the first ones we will hold investigations on,’” she told us. Now, however, since the Democrats have become the majority in the House, Waxman’s office is “going mum.” They won’t even respond to her calls.
The congressman’s office did not respond to several requests for comment on this story.
Two Other “Well-Known” Congressmen
Aside from the allegations she’s already made concerning Hastert, as we reported in some detail in early 2006, following up on a Vanity Fair exposé in 2005, Edmonds says there are at least “two other well-known” members of Congress that she’s prepared to name as well.
“There are other Congressional people, whose names have not come out,” she explained. “As [Waxman's office knows] I’ll be able to give them file numbers and investigations, including investigations by the IRS. I will be giving details one by one, not just allegations.”
“But,” she added, “unfortunately nobody wants to have an investigation like that.”
For the record, she told The BRAD BLOG, the other two “well-known members” are from the House, both Republican, and “one of them is recently no longer there.”
So far, she says, “those names have not been public.”
“Kafka-esque”
Since leaving the FBI, and in the wake of her years-long ordeal, which she frequently describes as “Kafka-esque,” Edmonds has founded the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
In addition to the support she has received, at various times, from members of Congress, she’s received a great deal of support from members of the national security whistleblower community and government watchdog organizations.
As we reported last Spring, Veteran FBI counterintelligence agent John Cole has said he’s “talked to people who had read her file, who had read the investigative report, and they were telling me a totally different story” than that given publicly by FBI officials. “They were telling me that Sibel Edmonds was 100 percent accurate,” he said, “management knew that she was correct.”
Famed “Pentagon Papers” whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg has described Edmonds as “extremely credible.” In a 2005 interview on KPFA, Ellsberg said, “FBI agents we’ve talked to have, in every respect that was raised, have confirmed her story – that she’s a very credible witness.”
More than 30 groups, from across the political spectrum — including the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the September 11th Advocates, the Liberty Coalition, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), OMB Watch, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and People for the American Way (PFAW) — all signed a letter in March of this year calling on the House Oversight Committee to “hold public hearings into the case of FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, and the erroneous use of the State Secrets Privilege to shut down all court proceedings in her case.”
That petition was sent almost precisely one year after The BRAD BLOG originally reported on a public petition to Congress, demanding they hold public hearings. More than 30,000 people, Edmonds says, have now signed that petition since it was first announced.
“Exhausted Every Channel”
In a speech given over the Summer in D.C. at the American Library Association (ALA, video here), Edmonds detailed the “Kafka-esque” nature of her unprecedented gag-order. Among the information still-regarded as “classified” under the States Secret Privelege: the fact that she was a translator for the FBI, where she was born, what languages she speaks, the date of her birth, the universities she attended, and the degrees she earned.
In fact, the interview that CBS’s 60 Minutes aired with her in 2004, was later retroactively classified by the Department of Justice under the same “privilege”!
But enough is enough. She’s now ready to tell all. To the public. But not (yet) to us. She will speak, however, to any broadcast network that would like to have her.
“I have exhausted every channel. If they want to, they can bring criminal charges against someone who divulges criminal activity, and see how far they’re going to get.”
But will any of the corporate mainstream networks take her up on the offer? It’d certainly be an explosive exclusive.
“I don’t think any of the mainstream media are going to have the guts to do it,” she dared them.
So whaddaya say 60 Minutes? We’ve given you scoops before that you ended up turning down — and likely later regretted. Will you be smart enough to take this one?
“You put me on air live, or unedited. If I’m given the time, I will give the American people the exact reason of what I’ve been gagged from saying because of the States Secrets Privilege, and why it is that I’m the most gagged person in the history of the United States.”
“My feeling is that none of them have the guts to do that,” she dared them, before charging, “they are all manipulated.”
“I keep using the word Kafkaesque…” she paused, during her speech at ALA, clearly showing her exasperation, “because…,” she continued slowly, “…I really can’t come up with a better word.”
Original article here.
FBI, Congress: Sibel Edmonds case ‘unclassified’
by lukery
In a recent speech, Sibel again emphasized that the reason that she has been gagged is not for reasons of national security, but rather to cover-up criminality, treason, by high level US officials.
As evidence for this claim, Sibel explained that for the three months prior to Ashcroft blanket-gagging her case, the FBI was conducting unclassified briefings for Congress on the case.
In other words, from the beginning, neither Congress, nor the FBI, even considered that this information might be classified, let alone a ‘national security’ issue.
As Michael Ostrolenk, National Director of the Liberty Coalition, said: “The excuse of protecting national security is fallacious.”
Anthrax Coverup: A Government Insider Speaks Out
by Steve Watson
Is it possible that the anthrax attacks were launched from within our own government? A former Bush 1 adviser thinks it is.
Francis A. Boyle, an international law expert who worked under the first Bush Administration as a bio-weapons adviser in the 1980s, has said that he is convinced the October 2001 anthrax attacks that killed five people were perpetrated and covered up by criminal elements of the U.S. government. The motive: to foment a police state by killing off and intimidating opposition to post-9/11 legislation such as the USA PATRIOT Act and the later Military Commissions Act.
“After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush Administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress,” Boyle said in a radio interview with Austin-based talk-show host Alex Jones. “That would have set up a police state.
“Senators Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) were holding it up because they realized what this would lead to. The first draft of the PATRIOT Act would have suspended the writ of habeas corpus [which protects citizens from unlawful imprisonment and guarantees due process of law]. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, come these anthrax attacks.”
“At the time I myself did not know precisely what was going on, either with respect to September 11 or the anthrax attacks, but then the New York Times revealed the technology behind the letter to Senator Daschle. [The anthrax used was] a trillion spores per gram, [refined with] special electro-static treatment. This is super weapons-grade anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly proclaimed programs, had never developed before. So it was obvious to
me that this was from a U.S. government lab. There is nowhere else you could have gotten that.”
Boyle’s assessment was based on his years of expertise regarding America’s bio-weapons programs. He was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.
After realizing that the anthrax attacks looked like a domestic job, Boyle called a high-level official in the FBI who deals with terrorism and counterterrorism, Marion “Spike” Bowman. Boyle and Bowman had met at a terrorism conference at the University of Michigan Law School. Boyle told Bowman that the only people who would have the capability to
carry out the attacks were individuals working on U.S. government anthrax programs with access to a high-level biosafety lab. Boyle gave Bowman a full list of names of scientists, contractors and labs conducting anthrax work for the U.S. government and military.
