interview

Sibel and I gave an interview on Peter B Collins show today. You can download it here if you are interested. (about 25 mins.)

We talked, in part, about whether Waxman's reluctance to hold hearings might be due to the fact that there are some Democratic ex-congressmen involved in the bribery scam.

Sibel says that there are at least two democrats involved - I said that Stephen Solarz' name comes up in the case.

The (video) interview that Sibel did with Armenian Weekly is here.

The text version is here and here.

Contact Chairman Henry Waxman by calling (202) 225-3976 in DC or 323 651 1040 in LA.

Waxman: "you must do the oversight"

This from Think Progress:

"Waxman explained that “you must ask the questions” and “you must do the oversight if we’re going to keep people honest, if we’re going to provide the checks and balances that our Constitution envisions.”

(Unfortunately he wasn't talking about Sibel)

Sibel Edmonds: There are traitors in our midst. Call Waxman. Demand hearings. (with video!)

Today is the last day of the current spike of the Let Sibel Edmonds Speak campaign. We are begging you to call Henry Waxman's office (202-225-3976) and demand public hearings into her case.

Sibel is a former FBI translator who has documented evidence, supported by a number of agents, and confirmed by numerous government investigations, that people like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and Dennis Hastert have been involved in treasonous activities.

Waxman has seen the evidence and was "outraged" and "stunned" and promised to hold hearings when the Dems controlled Congress - but has been ignoring our requests.

In this post, I have some compelling video of a recent interview that Sibel gave asking people to demand that Waxman hold hearings, and I also want to focus on one important issue that comes up in Sibel's case. High level officials are literally selling out their government, and the country, while they are in office. This maybe isn't that surprising, but here we have a case where we literally have evidence, and we have proof that many governmental organizations were aware of the fact, and they didn't do anything, and they continue to do nothing.

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I've been running diaries all this week on Sibel's case asking you to call Waxman and demand hearings.

My post yesterday demonstrated that the US Attorney crisis pre-dates the current scandal - and the Pentagon (Perle & Feith) were dictating which FBI investigations were and were not allowed to proceed (Hint: they were not allowed to proceed when Perle & Feith were targets).

Tuesday's post was mostly a recent interview that Sibel gave describing the importance of public hearings and asking you to contact Waxman. I've resolved some technical issues and the YouTube segment is below.

In Monday's post I argued that we need to support people like Sibel because if she can't get public hearings, with documented evidence, validated by previous governmental investigations, then we can't reasonably ask any other people to come forward with evidence in any of the other investigations that Waxman might conduct.

For background information on the case, see What the heck is Sibel Edmonds' Case about? and Who wants to gag Sibel Edmonds? And why? (with answers!)

For today's post, firstly, here's the YouTube (2 parts) of the last 12 minutes of a recent interview that Sibel gave where she discusses the need for hearings, the fact that her case is documented, that other agents want to testify, and that Waxman has ignored her, despite previous promises to hold hearings into her case.






If you cant see these embedded here, try Part One and Part Two.

(partial transcript here)

I also want to highlight something that Sibel says in this interview that sometimes gets missed, but it's still important today, and the specific example in her case can apparently be generalized across broad swathes of the US government.

We are all aware of the problem of the revolving doors within the Military Industrial Complex - but Sibel says that (at least) one of the key perps in her case, Marc Grossman, was explicitly working for foreign interests while he was in office, with a guaranteed payoff when he left office.

Sibel says:

"This is very important: In order to obtain (the post-retirement job) they had to serve those foreign interests while they were working and they had those high positions. That's how they earn those future positions, that's how it happens. In every single case, that’s how it happens."

Sibel has previously written: "Please do not make the grave and naive mistake of assuming that Grossman found and obtained his highly lucrative and questionable positions after his resignation in January 2005."

Again, this is nothing new, really. We recently saw that the CIA's Number 3, Dusty Foggo, did exactly the same thing in the Duke Cunningham case - but a) we need to put a stop to it b) Grossman's 'sponsors' are most unsavoury and c) a number of people, in a variety of US Govt agencies knew about Grossman's dirty dealing, and did nothing about it, for years.

Most people don't know much about Grossman, fair enough. He was the #3 guy at the State Department under Armitage and former Ambassador to Turkey. To the extent that his name is familiar, it is because it was his memo to Scooter Libby that first identified Valerie Plame as Joe Wilson's husband - but his proximity to a number of scandals forces us to ask exactly what Grossman did to earn his new $2m+ salary.

For example, contrary to conventional wisdom, as I detail here,

The thing is, Brewster Jennings was 'outed' (privately, within the criminal network) long before Valerie Plame was officially outed. In fact, Brewster Jennings' cover was blown in the Summer of 2001 by Marc Grossman, former #3 at the State Department and Ambassador to Turkey.

Brewster Jennings was investigating Pakistan's AQ Khan nuclear proliferation network - a network which also involved Turkish companies. WHy did Grossman 'out' Brewster Jennings? and why is he now working with a shady Turkish company?

According to Sibel:

Most and foremost, Grossman is known for his extraordinarily cozy relationship with Turkey and Israel; followed by Pakistan.

Grossman's relationship with Pakistan is curious. As British MP Michael Meacher wrote in the Guardian:

"...General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead (911) hijacker.

Ahmed, the paymaster for the hijackers, was actually in Washington on 9/11, and had a series of pre-9/11 top-level meetings in the White House, the Pentagon, the national security council, and with George Tenet, then head of the CIA, and Marc Grossman, the under-secretary of state for political affairs. When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to "retire" by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn't the US demanded that he be questioned and tried in court?"

Sibel has previously commended me on highlighting Grossman's meeting with General Mahmoud Ahmed that week.

That isn't Grossman's only involvement in 911 related stuff. As I wrote here:

"Thirdly, two weeks after 911, Sibel overheard two 'targets' of a (Counter intelligence) monitoring program having a conversation. Apparently, three associates of these targets were arrested in New Jersey immediately after 911 - two Turkish guys and an Uzbeki. The targets were desperate to get their associates out of jail, and out of the country, so they called Marc Grossman who duly facilitated their release. (I've previously documented the NJ connection - home to Giza Technologies and a Brewster Jennings operation)"

My point here isn't to mount a critique of Grossman, per se, but it's important to understand what Sibel is talking about when she says that she has documented evidence that high level officials routinely sell out their country, to an extraordinary degree, because they have been promised post-career payoffs. And the parallel problem that many US govt agencies have known about this for years, and done nothing. How many Grossmans are there in the US Government today, making the same deals to sell out their country?

We need to put a stop to it. And that's why you should call Waxman (202-225-3976) and demand public hearings into Sibel's case. Do it today. Please.

Sibel Edmonds case: Pentagon controls US Attorneys, FBI. Call Waxman.

All this week we are asking, begging that you call Henry Waxman's office (202-225-3976) and demand hearings into the case of FBI translator Sibel Edmonds.

Campaign headquarters are at Let Sibel Edmonds Speak.

In today's post, I'll demonstrate that the focus on the current US Attorney scandal is incomplete.

Long before the White House started putting on pressure on the attorneys, the Pentagon (and the State Department) was dictating whether (or not) the FBI could investigate crimes, up to and including treason, by officials at the Pentagon (and State).

In a terrific new interview, Sibel Edmonds talks about how it hapens, who is involved, and why we need Waxman to hold hearings into her case.

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(This is my third post this week about Sibel's case. There'll be another post tomorrow. See Monday, Tuesday.)

In yesterday's righteous "The Death of Democracy" rant about the latest Dem cave-in regarding Iraq, One Pissed Off Liberal wrote:

"We are witnessing the end of an era. The great American experiment in democracy is over.

It is now clear, the Military Industrial Congressional Complex has usurped the power of the people and cemented its control over our government."

What many people aparently don't realize is that the Sibel Edmonds case is about the corruption of US government agencies by the military industrial congressional complex (both foreign and domestic).

We need, desperately, to have open public hearings to shed a light on Sibel's case because those hearings will clearly demonstrate the process of the corruption, the purpose of the corruption, and the outcomes of the corruption. Until we have open hearings into this case, then we can't expect anything to change - as long as the corruption remains, we'll get the same results, again and again.

In a new interview, Sibel says:

And in fact, then-Attorney General Ashcroft said this in his declaration when he invoked the State Secrets Privilege in my case. He said that exposing these issues in courts, whether or not I’m right, would damage certain sensitive diplomatic relations and would hurt certain U.S. foreign business relations...

They’re not even saying what diplomatic relations they refer to. Are they ashamed of it? Are we talking about billions of dollars of weapons procurement? Why don’t they be more specific? Because (they say) this is top-secret, classified stuff. That’s why I have been writing these papers, relying on outside sources, getting all the data. You’re looking at $5 billion every two years of weapons procurements? That’s not top-secret. Who benefits from this? What companies? Who are the individuals who are benefiting from this? And is there anything in the issues that I dealt with that if exposed would harm the Americans and their security? None. None whatsoever.

(Because Sibel is gagged, she has to use questions and hypotheticals to make her point, and to point fingers.)

Sibel adds:

Our government has taken unprecedented steps to silence and coverup this case. That should tell the American public how important this case is.

In Phil Giraldi's fantastic article, he writes that Sibel's case

"could provide a major insight into how neoconservatives distort US foreign policy and enrich themselves at the same time.
[]
Some of (the money) may come from criminal activity, possibly drug trafficking, but much more might come from arms dealing. Contracts in the hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars provide considerable fat for those well placed to benefit."

We know some of the people involved in Sibel's case - Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Marc Grossman, Eric Edelman, Dennis Hastert and others.

We know that all of these people were appointed to senior positions in Congress, in the Pentagon, in the State Department, despite (or because?) very serious claims about their involvement in criminal activity, up to and including treason.

We know that they were allowed to maintain their positions even after Sibel's claims were verified, with documentary proof, five years ago, in a variety of different channels and official reports.

We know that all of these people are still free to walk the streets, with lucrative jobs, today - despite the fact the many people in Congress, in the FBI, in the Department of Justice know the facts of Sibel's case.

And as I outlined in "Who wants to gag Sibel Edmonds? And why? (with answers!)" we know that the efforts (2002-present) to silence were led by high level officials at the Pentagon and at the State Dept, the actual culprits in the case! They successfully pressured Ashcroft, and then-FBI Director Mueller, to use every means at their disposal to shut down the case. As Sibel says:

"The people who made that decision were not the Justice Department or the FBI, and that’s what I try to emphasize all the time—they were pressured, they were forced by higher-up forces within the Pentagon and the State Department. "

In other words, long before the White House (with an assist from ex-WHer, Gonzales) was corrupting the Department of Justice, long before the 'heroic' stand by Ashcroft & Mueller regarding the illegal spying, the DoJ was already 'owned' by the Pentagon and State - and was protecting criminals who were personally profiting from the Hijacking of a Nation.

But, of course, it's much worse than that. Somehow, Sibel Edmonds was a crack in the system, providing insight into one particular case regarding Turkey, and we got a glimpse of how the game is played. However, we also learn that not only are these crimes common practice across a range of foreign clients, we also learn that the 'coverup' almost always starts from the beginning, with the Pentagon and State departments literally telling the FBI not even to investigate.

As Sibel says in her awesome "Highjacking of a Nation" piece:

"For years and years, information and evidence being collected by the counterintelligence operations of certain U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies has been prevented from being transferred to criminal and narcotics divisions, and from being shared with the Drug Enforcement Agency and others with prosecutorial power... Why?"

Sibel isn't only talking about her particular case, in the recent interview she says:

There are similar cases we are not hearing about that I'm aware of that have to do with similar cases, maybe having to do with other countries. For example, the Larry Franklin case, with the espionage case that they pursued with AIPAC. And what the American public doesn’t know is the fact that there were other counter-intelligence operations within the FBI that obtained far more information not only limited to Mr. Franklin. These other operations were similarly shut down in 2000 and 2001 because they ended up going to higher levels and involving maybe way too many people.

Larry Franklin was, of course, working in Feith's Office of Special Plans (OSP) at the Pentagon. Then-DOD Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, another neocon booster of Turkey, established the OSP and appointed Feith, who then appointed Richard Perle as Chairman of the Defense Policy Board. Who do you think got the FBI to "shut down" investigations into the Pentagon's dealings with AIPAC and the Israeli embassy? Who do you think are the implicated people at the "higher levels"?

The same thing occured, with the same people, in Sibel's specific case. Here's Sibel, again:

"Now the same thing was about to take place with Turkish counter-intelligence operations... Now, in 1998 and 1999, there were so many pieces of evidence of U.S. individuals’ involvement (We’re talking about people with official positions, whether they were in the State Department or the Pentagon or the U.S. Congress.) - it forced the Justice Department, and the agents, to start a parallel investigation that targeted individuals who were possibly committing acts of treason...

After the current administration came into power... the agents, the operation, the unit were told to shut down the parallel criminal investigation - the one that involved US individuals, US entities, officials.

The people who made that decision were not the Justice Department or the FBI, and that’s what I try to emphasize all the time — they were pressured, they were forced by higher-up forces within the Pentagon and the State Department."

Phil Giraldi says the same thing in a documentary about Sibel's case:

Around a year ago, I realized that I understood what the full story was and what (Sibel) was trying to say although she couldn’t do it publicly because of the gag order.

For me, the full story was to follow the money on this. And knowing the players in the game from my time in the CIA, I assumed that the Turks,
and the Israelis and these people, most of whom came out of the Department of Defence, would have been dealing in weapons.

All of these people have been investigated by the FBI at one point or another for passing secret information to Israel. In no cases, were any of them convicted.

The prosecutions were dropped… in my opinion because of political pressure

The curious tri-lateral military relationship between the US, Turkey and Israel has long been established, as has the curious fact that prominent neocons such as Perle, Feith and Wolfowitz, and others (of both parties) are boosters of Turkey. Yet, the Turkish equivalent of AIPAC, the American Turkish Council (ATC), somehow flies under the radar. Both organizations are essentially 'fronts' for the military industrial complex - particularly the ATC, which apparently engages in fewer peripheral activities. The ATC is essentially a creation of AIPAC (and JINSA) - and they share many of the same members etc.

Sibel repeatedly highlights the fact that the ATC is a 'sister' organization to AIPAC - and that the AIPAC investigation was actually a "sister operation" to the investigation into the ATC. We know that both investigations revolve around the same group of people, and we know that they both involve the 'distortion of US foreign policy' for personal profit.

One thing we don't know, specifically, is whether the billions of dollars spent by the US military in other theatres are equally corrupted - but we can make an educated guess. Just this week, for example, we learn "that the U.S. pays Pakistan roughly $1 billion every year to fight terrorists along the Afghan border, cash that continues to flow even as Pakistan cuts back on patrols in key al-Qaida and Taliban areas."

And a remarkable op-ed in the LA Times says:

"The Turkish air force already has 215 F-16 fighter planes and plans to buy 100 of Lockheed Martin's new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as well, in a deal estimated at $10.7 billion over the next 15 years. That's $10.7 billion on fighter planes for a country that ranks 94th on the United Nations' human development index, below Lebanon, Colombia and Grenada and far below all the European nations that Ankara is courting as it seeks to join the European Union. Now that's a real American sales job for you!
[]
Why do officials in Turkey, which already has 215 fighter planes, need 100 extras in an even higher-tech version? They don't, but Lockheed Martin, working with the Pentagon, made them think they did."

The LA Times piece didn't explicitly higlight something that Sibel has preciously highlighted:

"General Joseph Ralston, one of Cohen Group’s (Clinton's Republican Secretary of Defense, William Cohen) Vice Chairmen, is on the board of Lockheed Martin, which paid the Cohen Group $550,000 in 2005... Ralston is also a member of the 2006 Advisory Board of the American Turkish Council (ATC), and one of Turkey’s top advocates. If you think this ‘dime a dozen general’ ended one career and removed himself from the U.S. government by becoming ‘the foreign agent man,’ think again after reading the following.

On August 28, 2006, the U.S. State Department appointed the former U.S. Air Force General, current Vice Chairman of the Cohen Group, board member of American Turkish Council, registered lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, Joseph Ralston, as a “Special Envoy” for countering the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK)! Lo and behold, Ralston’s appointment came as Turkey was finalizing the purchase of 30 new Lockheed Martin F-16 aircraft valued at $3 billion, and as Turkey was due to make its decision on the $10 billion purchase of the new Lockheed Martin F-35 JSF aircraft. Coincidentally, the U.S. Congress approved the sale of the F-16s to Turkey in October 2006, shortly after Ralston’s return from Turkey."

I'm not sure I've made my case my case well - at this point you are probably either outraged, or bewildered (or you stopped reading long ago). If you've made this far, and either outraged or bewildered, I immplore you to call Waxman and demand public, open hearings into Sibel's case to resolve this situation. Call twice. It'll take you four minutes.

If you don't call, Baby Jesus will cry if you ever try to complain about either the war-mongering republicans, or the democrat enablers.

Please contact Waxman's office all this week and demand an answer:
DC phone: (202) 225-3976
LA phone: 323 651-1040
fax: (202) 225-4099
Capitol switchboard phone: 800-828-0498

Sibel Edmonds, democracy, want 4 minutes of your time. Call Waxman. Demand hearings.

All this week, we're asking you to call Henry Waxman's office (202-225-3976) to demand open public hearings into the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds.

Yesterday's post was It's time that we all helped Sibel Edmonds. Please call Waxman.

In today's post, I simply want to post Sibel's own, powerful, words about why we should demand that Waxman hold hearings into her case.

I was hoping to post a YouTube clip of the relevant portion of her latest interview, but I had some technical problems. Please look at the last 12 mins of the interview, starting at approx 41:00.

The key issues are that:
a) Sibel's case is documented
b) The case has been investigated and validated
c) Waxman was appalled when he learnt the details of the case and promised to have hearings when he could
d) Waxman has been silent on this, despite calls from 30 'good government' groups and calls from more than ten thousand citizens
e) You can make a difference by calling Waxman and demanding hearings.

I've also got a quote from a senior FBI agent who apparently fears that the US Government will murder Sibel.

******

(For background on Sibel's case, see What the heck is Sibel Edmonds' Case about?. For more information on our efforts to get Waxman to hold hearings, see Let Sibel Edmonds Speak.)

I'm going to let Sibel do most of the talking in this post, but before I hand her the floor, I want to quote John Cole from the documentary Kill The Messenger.

I want to make three points perfectly clear about Cole:
1) he is perfectly qualified
2) he knows that Sibel is "100 percent accurate"
3) he appears concerned that his employer, the US government, might actually murder Sibel, a US citizen, because what she knows can harm powerful people. (I don't want to overstate the case, but that appears, to me, to be what he is implying)

John Cole is perfectly qualified. He ran "undercover operations in the Washington area, focusing on counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence. Later, while playing a key role in the 9/11 investigation, he became the F.B.I.’s national counter-intelligence program manager for India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. "

John Cole "compared notes" with Sibel and what he knew "was identical" to what Sibel has claimed. Further, everyone he spoke to at the FBI said that "Sibel Edmonds was a 100 percent accurate, that management knew that she was correct."

Here is Cole describing his fears for Sibel's safety:

"I fear for her in a way because if somebody in the government thinks that she is getting too noisy, bringing up too much stuff, you don’t know how far they would go. Especially as high up in the government as this could be."

With all that in mind, here's Sibel, asking for your help, asking for Waxman to hold hearings into her case.

Some respected, great Representatives, Democratic Congressmen, have expressed interest in my case. The leader of that group was Congressman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), and I briefed his staff several times, by giving them the same details I gave five years ago to the Judiciary Committee. They obtained the classified version of the Inspector General’s report two years ago and they were outraged. I have several letters from Congressman Waxman saying he finds these actions against me and these gag orders stunning and that he would hold hearings into my case if it wasn't for the Republicans preventing a hearing from taking place on my case.

Well, in January, after we went through the change [in Congress], Congressman Waxman is now Chairman Waxman and there is no power within Congress that can prevent him from holding this hearing. He has the jurisdiction, the authority to put the hearing there, and I have already obtained the consent and names of conscientious, good agents. One of them was the head of the Turkish counter-intelligence operations who actually retired two years ago. They’re all willing to come forward and testify on all the issues I have been gagged on. And that gag doesn’t work in Congress during a hearing.

So in January, after the election results, especially since we have such a great Chairman today, 30 organizations have put together this petition addressed to Chairman Waxman saying you have been promising us for the past five years. These are major organizations, and we call them transpartisan, because there are organizations from the right, organizations from the left, organizations that are whistleblower-related such as the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), the Government Accountability Project (GAP), the National Whistleblower Center, human rights organizations, the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), civil liberties-related organizations such as the American Civil Liberties union (ACLU). We have 30 solid organizations that came together and put together this petition, addressed to Chairman Waxman, saying 'You have been promising us for the past five years.'

According to the ACLU, there has been no case of an American citizen who has had so many gag orders issued on her.

We also had 15,000 citizens sign the petition, and we had these 30 organizations, and they delivered it to Chairman Waxman’s office in March 2007, just over a month ago. And based on the office’s own report, tens of thousands of people in the past 3-4 weeks have called to say, well, when are you going to hold a hearing?

But we have received no response and we don’t know why. None of these organizations know why, because Waxman's office has all the facts, they have all the confirmation, they have the IG report, they have the executive branch’s own report saying she’s credible and her allegations have been supported by other witnesses and documents. We are not talking about allegations. We are talking about facts, documented and witnessed facts.

And I still believe that the Americans who care about their rights, their country, can make this happen. Maybe it hasn’t happened because one of the factors that is not present there is the mainstream media. We know the mainstream media has such influence over the Congress, whatever makes the headlines. If issue ABC is in the headlines right now, I Congresswoman, Congressman am going to hold a hearing and get facetime and media time and attention - sometimes for good reasons, I'm not saying for negative reasons, but media has not paid attention.

Maybe Congress is not finding it worthy of their attention despite all these severe consequences because the media isn’t there.

The citizens can change this, the constituents of Chairman Henry Waxman in California, in the LA area, can change that. They can say, you represent us, you represent our interests, and you are the chairman of the Government Reform Committee. Government Reform. Well, this is about bringing reform into Government, this is about reforming the wrongdoings in our government, and the price is being paid by every citizen.

So after not hearing back from Chairman Waxman through this petition and 30 organizations, I’m trying to reach out to those constituents in California, I’m trying to reach out to all citizens in this country and say, forget about me, this is not about Sibel Edmonds. Let’s go to the core issues: What was it that I reported that caused all these gag orders and firings and threats? What was it? What I reported had nothing to do with me. It had to do with the interests of the American public being stomped upon. It had to do with those who have been elected and given authority betraying the citizens. It had to do with those people who are using their positions in the executive branch agencies to obtain lucrative early retirement positions afterwards as representatives of foreign interests, and not afterwards - and this is very important: In order to obtain it afterwards they had to serve those foreign interests while they were working and had those positions. That's how they earn those future positions, that's how it happens. In every single one of them, that’s how it happens. You start serving the interests of outside foreign influences before you obtain your positions afterwards and say bye to your civil service career. And that is, especially in some cases, criminal. That is not something that should be tolerated by this country, and we need to set an example of those people.

We have the facts, we have the documents, we have the witnesses, and it’s time to do it. So stand up and call Chairman Waxman’s office, keep calling until you get an answer on when the hearing will take place. For each citizen it may cost four minutes. But the benefit to this country, and the number of issues that we are going to shed light on, is way worth it. And if it was not, they would not have gone this far to gag it. I have been fighting very hard, but you need to pay attention to the fact they have been fighting very hard, too.

This is unprecedented. If I am the most gagged woman in the history of this country, and if they have gone as far as invoking the States Secrets Privilege, the issue is important enough. So for anyone who may say, well, how do I know this case is credible? I’ll tell you that there is a report, there are statements from bipartisan senators, Senator Grassley, Senator Leahy, Congressman Waxman. And these are all on the record statements establishing the credibility of the case. The credibility has been established. The importance of this case has been established. Our government has taken unprecedented steps to silence and coverup this case. That should tell the American public how important this case is.

Call Chairman Waxman and write to him and do not stop until we have this hearing in place, and we have the agents testifying. I’m going to emphasize two things here: a) that they testify on oath, and b) that the hearings be public. I have had some hearings, and they have been behind closed doors in the Congress. I have briefed them. They already have this information, that's the point I'm trying to make here. They have the information. I have given this information to Chairman Waxman, to Senator Grassley, to Senator Leahy. It’s the American public’s turn to hear about this.

It’s possible that in light of the Chairman’s decision to hold a hearing, the government comes in and says it has to be in closed session and not in public because these are classified issues. But they’re not. If that happens, we won’t get anywhere because then it’s futile. I would not even be willing to testify because I have already done so. Five years ago I gave them testimony behind closed doors. So did other witnesses. It’s time to have open, public hearings and have people under oath. I will testify under oath, and the consequences of lying are severe.

So let’s make this happen, and let’s say that when all channels we rely upon — be it the courts and the Congress and the executive branch and the mainstream media — fail us, we still should move forward and not stop, and reach out to the American public, and make it happen. I hope we can do it, because not being able to do it sends a very bad, awful message to our children and our grandchildren, to say that active citizenry is dead in this country, and that either nothing comes out of it, or people don't care and don't do it.

We take pride in being Americans, and lovers and supporters of freedom - let's show that we can do it despite the fact that we don't have these four channels.

There is Chairman Waxman, an honourable individual, an established case, now we just need the public to say "Let's do it"

Please contact Waxman's office all this week and demand an answer:
DC phone: (202) 225-3976
LA phone: 323 651-1040
fax: (202) 225-4099
Capitol switchboard phone: 800-828-0498

It's time that we all helped Sibel Edmonds. Please call Waxman.

Back in March, we launched Let Sibel Edmonds Speak - a campaign demanding that Henry Waxman hold public hearings into the case of former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. The Edmonds case involves the nuclear black market, illegal weapons trafficking, money laundering and drug trafficking, and Sibel guarantees that the case will result in people like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Marc Grossman and Dennis Hastert going to prison.

Thirty different 'good government' organizations, from across the political spectrum, and many of you, contacted Waxman's office in support of the hearings. Despite Waxman's earlier promise to hold hearings, he has so far ignored our call, refusing to even make a statement or return any phone calls.

I'm asking you to contact ((202) 225-3976) Waxman's office again Monday to Thursday of this week. Details, and a new interview by Sibel, downstairs.

**

Henry Waxman's House Government Oversight Committee has been doing great work lately with various hearings and investigations, and some have argued that we shouldn't pressure Waxman on Sibel's case given that he undoubtedly has a full schedule. I have a two-fold response:
a) We are simply asking that Waxman announce that he will have hearings, we can argue about the timing later.
b) All of the background work on this case has been completed. Sibel's claims have already been investigated, and confirmed, by a number of other bodies - Congress, FBI, Department of Justice.

Of course, given the nature of Sibel's work as a translator, all of her claims are easily verified by the source material that she translated. As she says in Kill The Messenger:

"Put out those tapes. Put out those wiretaps. Put out those documents. Put out the truth. The truth is going to hurt them. The truth is going to set me free."

It was Whistleblower Week in DC last week - and Sibel's case highlights a number of important issues regarding whistleblowers. Not only do we have the dereliction of Congress and the media, but also the chilling effect on other whistleblowers, and more importantly, whistleblowing.

As Sibel says in a new interview:

"What kind of example is my case presenting to those other people who may want to do the right thing and come forward? They would say it doesn’t make a difference at the end, because I pursued every channel possible. I went as high as I could go with the courts, including the Supreme Court, and as you know, they issued a gag order on me several times and invoked the State Secrets Privilege... I’m prevented from discussing whether or not I’m right. And I went all the way to Congress, I did the right thing. I was not what they call a “leaker” who goes straight to the media and starts divulging classified documents. I went to the appropriate committees, the Judiciary Committee and the Intelligence Committee, too, by the way, and the House and Senate... I went through the other legitimate channels — the courts, the Inspector General’s Office, which is the executive branch. I tried the media. So I don’t blame those people that get pessimistic and say it doesn’t make a difference, or think they’ll lose their job or possibly go to jail. "

Think about that. Even if you don't know anything about Sibel's case (there's a primer here), I urge you to call Waxman's office and demand public hearings into her case because if Sibel can't get hearings into her case, why would anyone with incriminating evidence step forward to assist Waxman, or anyone else, with any of his other hearings?

As Sibel said in the same interview:

"They make an example out of you. Because if one case, let’s say my case, would really bring justice and accountability, you would see so many people doing the same thing. And how many times — let’s just look at the past decade — have you seen a legitimate whistleblower from any of these agencies come forward and prevail? I don’t think you can name one case."

Again, if you have hope in Waxman and in the investigations that he will hold (as many of us do), I urge you to call his office and demand public hearings into Sibel Edmonds' case - if only because it will help facilitate investigations into the things that you most care about.

For whistleblowers, there are 'knowns' and 'unknowns' - the 'knowns' include the fact that you will be retaliated against, lose your job, and probably your career, and often your family and your home. The 'unknowns' include whether there will be any upside, any accountability, any justice, to mitigate against the known, guaranteed, downside.

How can we ask potential whistleblowers to stand up and be 'patriotic' and disclose wrong-doing if people like Sibel Edmonds, with documented proof of corruption, espionage, and treason by high-level US officials, validated by multiple investigations by Congress, FBI & DoJ, can't get any resolution or accountability?

Here's Sibel, again from the same interview:

"So you have this case which for the past five years has been confirmed by Congressional sources, and people familiar with my case, and the Department of Justice’s Inspector General’s Office, and has never been contradicted or denied by the Justice Department or the FBI, and still nothing has been done.

There has been no hearing and nobody has been held accountable. We are basically where we started and I find that really appalling. "

Seriously, if we don't stand up for Sibel, and demand public hearings and accountability into her case, then we can't reasonably expect anyone with incriminating evidence to come forward regarding Waxman's other investigations - the Global Warming propaganda, the Niger caper, the Plame Wilson caper, war profiteering etc.

Please call the offices of Congressmen Waxman - (202) 225-3976 demanding open hearings into Sibel Edmonds' case. (Capitol switchboard number - 800-828-0498)

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I'll have a new post every day this week discussing different elements of the case - but for today I just wanted to highlight one topical element that comes up in Sibel's case - illegal domestic spying.

One thing that gets lost in the 'Sibel Edmonds Case' is that many of the agents, the people running the operations involved in her case, have also filed the same claims, and also want to testify in public hearings in Congress.

In 2002, Special Agent Gilbert Graham, who led some of the Counter-Espionage operations that Sibel worked on, filed an official, classified complaint with the Department of Justice's Inspector General (DOJ-OIG) and the FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility stating that FISA warrants were being improperly used to illegally spy on "high-profile U.S. public officials."

As James Bamford described it recently:

"So there’s really two elements here – one is the illegality on the part of the FBI by going this route and getting the easier (FISA) warrant when they should be getting the (criminal) one, and the second element is the illegality of the case they were looking into – the fact that there are people involved in the Turkish government, there were people involved in Turkish lobbies, people involved in the Bush administration, high officials in the Bush administration who were getting payoffs, getting money, and that was what the corruption investigation was looking into."

I'd add that there are actually four more elements:
a) The illegal FISA warrants were organized by the "FBI’s administrative headquarters and the higher-ups within the Justice Department" - not by the agents.
b) The FBI & DoJ covered up Graham's claims and refused to investigate them
c) Nothing was ever done to stop the illegal activity that the illegal wiretaps discovered.
d) Sibel's FBI sources tell her that "it would not be illogical to actually consider the fact that the Bureau and the Justice Department may be using this information to actually blackmail people within Congress."

Another veteran espionage agent also filed similar reports regarding the same cases with Congress and the DoJ-IG. He recently told Sibel:

"You are looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to top that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved has motive to cover up these reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure. No wonder they invoked the state secrets privilege in Edmonds’ case."

As Sibel says, the agents "were as outraged as I was when I was going through these cases and reporting them internally. If one of these committees, be it the Judiciary Committee or the Government Affairs Committee in the House, would set a hearing and call these individuals to testify, these agents would tell the truth under oath."

It's long past time that these issues get aired in public. Every branch of the US government already knows all the details and are happy to let traitors walk around amongst us.

As Sibel says in the interview when asked about how she has dealt with the frustrations of her situation:

I can't say it's been easy, as is the case with so many whistleblowers, the build up of pressure comes to a point where many will have nervous breakdowns, or they explode with anger. And to contain that disappointment - that our country, our government, the mainstream media has let all of us down - and they do explode, or they get disgusted and just go away. They say, after one year of fighting, or two years of fighting, they say "What the heck with it?" and they turn away and leave. And if you explode, you have given them the perfect, perfect excuse to point at you and say 'Look - this person is crazy! She's not legitimate."

If you explode, and put out some documents... they have an excuse saying "She has breached security and we are going to jail her" - again, they (our domestic enemies) benefit. And if you just go away, again, they have won. And they have been winning, they've been doing this criminal activity for many years... because they have gotten away with it.

They have gotten away with it because nobody has been willing to come forward, and right now it's only me... If there were one or two other agents who could have committed to that much compromise & sacrifice and come forward, maybe we would have seen more progress - but the fear factor is so great out there..."

Mr Waxman is familiar with the details, he promised Sibel that he'd have hearings when the Democrats were in charge, it's time that he commits to having hearings. It's time that we all helped Sibel.

I strongly recommend that you watch the recent interview (1 hour). Watch it and you'll be as outraged and passionate about this case as I am.

Please contact Waxman's office all this week and demand an answer:
DC phone: (202) 225-3976
LA phone: 323 -651-1040
fax: (202) 225-4099
Capitol switchboard phone: 800-828-0498

We should have some more on Monday or Tuesday, and we'll restart the campaign and get people calling Waxman.

Stay tuned.

Who wants to gag Sibel Edmonds? And why?

I have a new post over at my main blog "Who wants to gag Sibel Edmonds? And why?"

Things have been slow in campaign news. We still haven't heard anything from Waxman.

I should have more for you next week.