The Enemy Within

by Paul R. Hollrah

                                                                                                                                                        

On Friday, November 13, 2009, the Obama Administration announced that the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four co-conspirators would be brought from Guantanamo Bay to New York to be tried for their crimes… the trial to be held just blocks from where ten Muslim jihadists murdered some 3,000 innocent people on September 11, 2001.

Five days later, in an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Eric Holder conceded that Mohammed and the other terrorists could have been taken before a military tribunal.  However, he argued that the Obama Administration favored criminal trials because to do so would “restore the integrity of our judicial system.”  He went on to assure the Committee that the trials would be quick, that the safety of New Yorkers would be a top priority, that no classified information would be revealed, and that the defendants would be found guilty.   

Then, in a January 31 appearance on CNN’s State of the Union, Obama’s sock puppet, Robert Gibbs said… with full awareness that KSM was to be tried in criminal court… “Mohammed is going to meet justice and he’s going to meet his maker… He will be brought to justice and he is likely to be executed for the heinous crimes that he committed in killing – in masterminding the killing of 3,000 Americans.  That you can be sure of.”   

It boggles the mind.  What they are telling us is that: a) they have made the decision to try Kahlid Sheikh Mohammed in criminal court where there is a presumption of innocence, b) that he will receive a quick and fair trial, c) that the evidence in the case is overwhelming, d) that the U.S. Attorney will refuse to allow full discovery by the defense, e) that Mohammed is certain to be found guilty, f) that if by some quirk of the justice system he is found not guilty he will not be released, and g) no matter what the jury’s verdict... they plan to kill him anyway.  

These statements come, not from the most ignorant laymen on the street, but from a man who claims to have been a Harvard-educated “constitutional law professor” and the Attorney General of the United States, the two highest law enforcement officials in the land.  These men cannot be nearly as stupid as they would appear.  The American people were outraged.

Then, on Christmas Day, a young Nigerian jihadist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,  attempted to detonate a chemical bomb aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253, bound for Detroit.  Although seriously burned, the bomber was restrained by other passengers and turned over to the FBI.  However, after only 50 minutes of interrogation, during which time FBI interrogators claim to have obtained all the information they could get from him, the terrorist was “Mirandized.”  He requested a lawyer and he stopped talking.  

Once again, the American people were outraged.  Columnist Byron York asked, “… Who made the decision to charge Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab… as an everyday criminal, as opposed to an enemy combatant?  After all, Abdulmutallab was trained by al Qaeda, equipped with an al Qaeda bomb, and dispatched by al Qaeda to bring down the airliner and its 278 passengers… So who decided to treat Abdulmutallab as a civilian, read him the Miranda warning, and provide him with a government-paid lawyer – giving him the right to remain silent and (losing) the potentially valuable intelligence that might have been gained by a military-style interrogation?”

After just twelve months of the Obama Administration, the American people demand to know who it is that makes such outrageous decisions.  If Obama denies having made these decisions and his Attorney General refuses to answer question from Republicans and the media, where does that leave us?  A May 2007 article for the New Media Journal by Managing Editor Frank Salvato provides a brief introduction to some of the major players in the Department of Justice. 

To understand who these people are and the role they play in the “administration of justice,” it might be instructive to look at some of the key players in the case of Sandy Berger, former National Security Advisor in the Clinton Administration.     

In October 2003, Berger was preparing for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission.  During four separate visits to the National Archives, Berger removed and then destroyed unique and classified documents pertaining to the Clinton Administration’s knowledge of terrorist threats to the United States.  Berger not only removed unique top secret documents in his briefcase and in his socks, he secreted additional documents at a nearby construction site for later retrieval.

But Berger was not worried about being prosecuted for his crimes.  As Salvato tells us, he had friends in high places in the Justice Department, men such as Bruce Swartz, John Dion, Howard Sklamberg,  and Glenn Fine, to name just a few.  So who are these men? 

▪ Bruce Swartz is a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General and head of the Criminal Division.  His primary claim to fame is that he was the most senior Justice Department lawyer named in the decision to keep the 9/11 Commission in the dark regarding Sandy Berger’s theft of classified documents from the National Archives.  Throughout the time that Berger sat before the Commission, Swartz continued to block any DOJ report on his criminal activity.  He currently serves as Deputy Assistant Attorney General under Eric Holder. 

▪ John Dion currently serves in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice and is a former Chief of the Counterespionage Section.  It was Dion who initiated the investigation into the Valerie Plame affair, resulting in the conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.  Libby’s crime was that he could not remember with absolute certainty every word of every conversation he’d had with a journalist years earlier.  Dion also collaborated with Bruce Swartz on efforts to keep word of Sandy Berger’s theft of classified National Archives documents from the 9/11 Commission.

▪ Howard Sklamberg currently serves as Deputy Chief of the U.S. Attorney's Fraud and Public Corruption Section in the DC Circuit.  He formerly served as a trial attorney in the Department of Justice Public Integrity Section.  It was Sklamberg who was assigned to inform the Inspector General of the National Archives, Paul Brachfeld, that the DOJ would not inform the 9/11 Commission that Sandy Berger had stolen classified documents from the National Archives. 

▪ Glenn A. Fine serves as Inspector General of the Department of Justice, charged with finding and prosecuting wrongdoing in the DOJ.  However, on April 9, 2004, in Fine’s presence, Bruce Swartz insisted to Paul Brachfeld, the National Archives Inspector General, that Berger had been supervised “at all times” while reviewing Clinton Administration documents at the Archives… a statement proven to be an outright lie by the senior National Archives official charged with Berger's supervision. 

So what is it that all of these men have in common… other than their participation in the Berger coverup ?  These men are all holdovers from the Bush Administration, but it wasn’t George W. Bush who brought them into the Justice Department.  They were all appointed during the Clinton Administration and held over through eight years of Bush’s presidency.  

Like his father, George W. Bush was so inept, politically, that he had eight years to purge the Justice Department of hundreds of such left wing cockroaches, or make them wish they were working elsewhere, but he simply wasn’t tough enough, or partisan enough, to get the job done.  It was no secret that all of these men were maximum contributors to the Democratic National Committee, and, as such, they could not be trusted with the administration of justice. 

As Salvato warns, “The implications of a political and partisan USDJ are disturbing and lay the groundwork for the demise of our Constitutional government, a government of laws such as it is.  That American justice would be administered politically on such a transparently partisan scale lends itself to an image of a nation where political corruption is accepted and political persecution is tolerated, which side benefiting from both being decided by the spoils of a successful political campaign and the patronage that includes.”

Adolph Hitler understood the value of a politicized justice system.  To increase the “political reliability” of the courts, Hitler established the Volksgerichtshof (People's Court) to try a wide variety of politically sensitive cases.  It was not unlike the justice system that Democrats have worked so hard to establish in the United States… a justice system featuring one set of standards for Republicans and an entirely different set of standards for Democrats.  Remember, Bill Clinton fired 93 U.S. Attorneys when he came into office.  Perhaps we can now understand why Democrats were so incensed when George W. Bush fired only eight.

As Salvato concludes, “It is apparent to anyone taking an honest look at the current situation of the (Department of Justice) that during the eight years of the Clinton Administration, the Clinton White House loaded the United States Justice Department with enough upper and mid-level political appointments and promotions to circumvent any investigation and/or prosecution of crimes originating and perpetrated at the hands of (Democrats and Democratic appointees.)

“It is equally apparent that the Clinton White House intentionally placed these people in positions where they could inflict the most political damage on the opposition party by simply investigating until either a crime was discovered or created, or there was enough dirt run through the Clinton-friendly mainstream media to destroy the subject's credibility and ability to be effective.”

Under Barack Obama, the corruption in the Department of Justice has been exacerbated by injecting it with a strong dose of Chicago-style Democrat thuggery.  What appears normal and acceptable to the likes of Barack Obama, David Axelrod, and Rahm Emanuel, looks like the worst sort of political corruption to the vast majority of Americans.  The voters will make them pay a heavy price in the coming elections.  To quote Robert Gibbs, “That you can be sure of.”

 

Paul R. Hollrah

150 Walnut Street

Locust Grove, OK 74352

phollrah@fairpoint.net