Troy Eid Hates The Bloggers
By Nicole Belle Tuesday Sep 16, 2008 12:00pm
Remember Troy Eid? He's the Denver US Attorney (one that apparently survived the US Attorney purge) who was quick to play down any actual threat of the alleged assassination plot against Barack Obama during the Democratic National Convention, characterizing the men arrested as nothing more than a bunch of "meth heads".
Media Bloodhound did a lot of research to show that showed that Eid wasn't exactly on the up and up with the media about what was going on.
Eid's statement appears to be patently false. As reported by the Associated Press:
(Suspect Nathan) Johnson later told a federal agent that the men talked about assassinating Obama only because he was black, according to a federal arrest affidavit. Johnson said he also heard Adolf say that he wanted to kill Obama "on the day of his inauguration" and that he would "find high ground to set up and shoot Obama," the affidavit said.
That's not merely, as Eid called it, "the racist rantings of drug abusers." Rather, coupled with the arsenal found, it shows motive, intent and a plan. And, to be clear, contrary to what Eid told the press, it was in the affidavit.
Turns out, that kind of research got under Eid's craw, and he wrote an op-ed for the Denver Post complaining about the bloggers who were demanding he explain why he didn't think three men with maps, ammo, weapons, computers and written intent shouldn't be considered a "credible" threat.
By law and as required by ethics rules, federal prosecutors may never file criminal charges against anyone unless there's a "reasonable likelihood" we can prove them at trial with credible, admissible evidence. That's a high standard, and understandably so. Such was the case here. The oath we take as prosecutors is not to rack up convictions, but to ensure that the entire justice system is served.
The "political" thing to have done in this case, of course, would have been to charge all three defendants with making a threat against Obama and then quietly drop those charges later - expedient, Machiavellian and self-serving, but also illegal, unethical and immoral.
This is all lost in the blogosphere. Within minutes of our Aug. 24 press conference announcing criminal charges, I found myself being accused of racism and worse for not filing the threat charge - all by anonymous bloggers, none of whom are accountable to anyone or have seen a scrap of evidence in the case.
What happened next marks the paranoia of our times. Major news outlets contacted us, cited the blog reports, repeated their where- there's-smoke-there-must-be-fire allegations, and demanded I deny them. These were many of the same reporters who had participated in our press conference just hours before.
Blog-driven "news" is tragically becoming the rule, not the exception. Much of it is misinformation, where some person or interest group "spins" some angle for an unknown purpose. You can tell this when calls and e-mails start flooding the office, reading from the identical script, accusing you of the moral equivalent of crimes against humanity.
On many days, my office spends more time dealing with anonymous and often outlandish Internet rumors than talking with professional flesh-and-blood journalists. Why? Because so many print, TV and radio journalists are getting their story leads directly from the blogs, or - thanks to the changing economics of the news business - are blogging themselves.
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I don't believe anything that comes out of the Bush Administration.
This government cannot be trusted.
When did intoxication become exculpatory?
What would we ever hold any public official accountable to the people who elect or appoint them?
Damn bloggers....
Total displacement - he called rightfully called out for doing a bad job and he's attacking those that called him out. If the press did their job properly they would have thought of the same questions and he would be blaming them instead of bloggers. But they are sycophantic assholes who don't question politicians these days (especially republicans) so we NEED bloggers.
'he called rightfully called out' was supposed to be 'he was rightfully called out' sorry
If he's not a Cheetos, we hate him too.
Has any blogger ever reported finding a Cheeto that look just like Bill Gates?
Was his letter ghost written by Joe Scarbarough? Gotta run off to my trekie convention...
Gee, Nicole Belle, you're so 'anonymous'.....
That guy's a piece of shit.
A perfect example of what is wrong with our criminal injustice system.
Oh Bullshit! Check this out, I was lead to this site via Wonkette! We need a little comic relief!
God forbid we call him out on his failure to follow proper procedure and his willful injection of his partisan belief system into his daily duties.
"A horse is a horse, of course, of course, it's the famous Mr. Eid"
I'm sure Mr. Eid has no problem with the rightwing bloggers, though.
Wonder if this threat would have been credible had it been made against Mr. Eid or his family? Armed, full of hate, with a written plan and maps to Eid's home... nah, they was just kiddin'!
PEACE
This guy makes my skin crawl. These Repugs have no conscience. Truly scary.
Meemers @ 11:
Check what out? Oh, wait i<a href="">nvisible link!
ysbaddaden @ 6:
No. But my dog pooped out an image of the GOP nominee.
We are under attack by Rove appointed attorney's, the media conglomerates, the U.S. Supreme Court, the Bush Administration, the Voting Machine Manufacturers, The Federal Reserve boys, etc etc. We are under attack by those people trying to bury important stories and hush the public into blindly submitting to their abuses. Sad state. Hope Crooks and Liars and enough other blogs can make up for the melee and wake up enough people to get this ship back on board. Or whatever those stupid sayings are.
Liberal AND Proud @ 16:
Well I always said GOP sounds like an onomatopoeia of someone stepping in elephant dung.
Liberal AND Proud @ 16:
Isn't there someone here who has collected cheetos that look....ahem.....phallic? I can't remember who it is.
There may be a semi-silver lining here. The less media exposure people like the potential attackers get, the better. They don't need what would be perceived by other nutcases as positive reinforcement.
Wait, he says the political thing to do would be to charge the would-be assassins and then drop the charges? Who on God's green Earth would think dropping the charges would be the politically smart thing to do? What *sic* competent prosecutor would just let a political/racially motivated assassination plot go?
On this page:
CNN (Aug 26): U.S. Attorney: Threat against Obama not 'operational'
you will find links to three (almost identical) pdf files:
Complaint against Gartrell
Complaint against Johnson
Complaint against Adolf
filed by the Federal Investigator.
There is no doubt they were planning to assassinate Obama, went to Denver with that intent, and brought rifles and other equipment with them to do it.
Liberal AND Proud @ 1:
...which is exactly why there are so many "anonymous and often outlandish Internet rumors" to deal with. And the liars in charge, like this guy, can use that to their benefit. There are numerous instances but one that comes to mind is "Rathergate." The fact that Bush was AWOL was obscured by the other b.s.
"By law and as required by ethics rules, federal prosecutors may never file criminal charges against anyone unless there’s a “reasonable likelihood” we can prove them at trial with credible, admissible evidence."
Try to sell that bullshit to the "Lackawanna Six" or the "Chicago Seven". See if they'll buy it.
Maaaaaaaaaaaan, the hypocrisy of some people. What kind of a sham justice system do we have here?
This guy needs to be transferred to Alaska to protect Sarah Palin from frivolous prosecution and then in January, Obama can accept his resignation.
Yet the kids from the RNC Welcoming Committee can be charged with 'conspiracy to commit terrorism'.
Boggles the mind.
He starts the article out with a lie:
""Only the Paranoid Survive."
That was the title of a best-selling book by Andrew Grove, then-chief of Intel Corporation. Grove describes how rumors of an alleged flaw in the company's new Pentium computer-processing chip — spread by mostly baseless and anonymous Internet e-mail — metastasized overnight, nearly sinking one of the world's leading companies."
There was indeed a major flaw with the pentium chip. In fact Intel attempted to poo poo the idea until scientists said that inaccuracies in their calculations would make their research meaningless and the Pentium Celeron was born; a cheaper bu defective chip.
Doesn't that just sum up the Drudge Report, in a nutshell?
james @ 26:
Did you mean 'DNC'?
Georgette Orwell @ 20:
Copy-cat assassins are a very real threat. But I believe that this observation by Eid to be completely lacking the scope of this particular threat.
You would think the FBI would at the very least come up to bat and publicly question the integrity of Eid's dangerously inadequate conclusion regarding the obvious level of threat these assassins were.
They didn't charge these guys because their carefully-concealed links to Karl Rove and/or Dick Cheney could be exposed in the trial.
30 Is the Coast Clear?— Says: Georgette Orwell @ 20:
There may be a semi-silver lining here. The less media exposure people like the potential attackers get, the better. They don’t need what would be perceived by other nutcases as positive reinforcement.
Copy-cat assassins are a very real threat. But I believe that this observation by Eid to be completely lacking the scope of this particular threat.
________________________________________________________________________
Do copy-cat assasins tie fireworks to their own tails?
Where's Chimpie today? Where's the American Cadaver and his trained parrot?
The country is in crisis! Where is our leadership? Boy, Darth Cheney's "undisclosed location" must be pretty crowded.
So, the trained parrot cancelled her Hannity interview...cause of the hurricane. LOL. The hurricane on Wall Street.
Guess they gotta load her up with new talking points...those "we need more deregulation" quotes are just soooo...1980s.
Gotta make sure that she has her "concerned look" down pat too.
"How dare the public try to hold me accountable for my actions! The nerve!"
With McCain/Palin we'd see four more years of this attitude.
19 Fanon Says: Liberal AND Proud @ 16:
ysbaddaden @ 6:
If he’s not a Cheetos, we hate him too.
Has any blogger ever reported finding a Cheeto that look just like Bill Gates?
No. But my dog pooped out an image of the GOP nominee.
Isn’t there someone here who has collected cheetos that look….ahem…..phallic? I can’t remember who it is.
________________________________________________________________________
palin?
McCain/Palin...the Rockey and Bullwinkle of Republican politics.
james @ 26:
Yeah, because there's a double-standard when it comes to Democrats and Republicans...
I love how Republicans and their cronies can screw up and then turn around and blame those who try to hold them accountable by playing the victim card...It happens all the time! Bloggers want to hold Palin accountable = The most outrageous case of SEXISM this country's ever known, bloggers want to hold Eid accountable for not taking this threat seriously when he slammed the book on the guy who mailed baby powder to the McCain campaign = bloggers are MEAN to me, WAHHHHHHH! Call the freakin Wambulunce...
the "indepth" todd palin interview
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/the-first-dude-on-fox/
watch the whole thing and feel your brain cells die
That would be a much more palatable sentiment if the Bush Administration you serve actually believed it. Oh, how I long for prosecutors in this country to hold those principles dear, rather than cynically exploit them for political purposes.
And entirely consistent with the way most defendants are treated in this country.
So, explain yourself fully. Unfortunately, what we have seen are scraps of evidence. And scraps of evidence are too often what prosecutors use to convict people in this country. So, instead of just railing against a mentality you exploit on juries, why don't you release the entire case file to the media so it can review all of the evidence? If there's really nothing in it, you'll be vindicated.
This is not blog-driven. It's Republican-driven. It's Bush Administration-driven. It's Rupert Murdoch-driven. It's the atmosphere you fucks created. Too bad it's come back to bite you in the ass.
Easy answers. Scapegoating. Simplistic. Bushevik.
Has the Palin family set a record yet. I mean it seems to have been quite a while since someone got pregnant.
Troy Eid will soon be out of a job go fuck yourself troy with you wife's dildo oh wait your a republican boyfriend's dildo.
Georgia Democrat @ 29:
Nope. RNC Welcoming Committee is accurate, certainly not a Conservative group which explains the charges. You can show up with high powered rifles to a Democratic Convention and excused, but if you show up at a Republican Convention and plot to block traffic you are a terrorist.
muddy @ 2:
Intoxication is very often exculpatory. Even voluntary intoxication can negate the state of mind necessary for a conviction.
Liberal AND Proud @ 33:
the chimp may be hiding, but they have sent talking points out to all the wingnut talkers
bush has wanted to strengthen regulations since day one.....haahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Georgia Democrat @ 29:
No. To the best of my knowledge they were just rounded up and 'detained' for a few days... as abhorrent as that is.
You can see the faces and the charges here... all 'conspiracy', not a single actual crime...
http://cbs11tv.com/slideshows/rnc.protester.mugshots.20.809519.html?rid=1
james @ 26:
Yep. Down is up and up is most assuredly down in this crazy, mixed up fascist (lite) country.
Uncle Joe Mccarthy @ 44:
Bush Inc. No lie too large or too small.
Now would we really want to violate their second amendment to Kill!..elitist idea.
Uncle@44, He's in the back-yard at the White House playing with Barney. And Chaney? Probably looking for another old man to shoot in the face.
I concur with the esteemed Mr. Eid. When it comes to reporting and commenting on current affairs, freedom of speech should be limited to those citizens with a journalism degree and legitimate press pass.
Thank you for your continued commitment to upholding our constitution with such integrity, Mr. Eid!
burnt @ 50:
Stop blogging! Stop blogging, right now!!
Uncle Joe Mccarthy @ 44:
I'm sure. He is such a financial genius and so knowledgeable on history. And of course he has the ULTIMATE Republican virtue and quality...he was a FAILED CEO...several times over. So, by their logic...his is the most qualified person to ever hold the office of President!
Look...we need to stay on top of what's REALLY important in this election, and that is...did the American Cadaver have a normal bowel movement today?
According to US Code:
"If two or more persons conspire to kill or kidnap any individual designated in subsection (a) of this section and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be punished (1) by imprisonment for any term of years or for life, or (2) by death or imprisonment for any term of years or for life, if death
results to such individual." (Chapter 18 Section 351)
While I am not a lawyer it seems that since Senator Obama is an individual designated in subsection a (member of congress) and the 3 suspects had purchased guns and ammunition that they would be guilty of this offence. At the minimum it would be worth indicting them and letting the courts decide. Maybe Troy should try to use the internets and google (took me all of 3 minutes to find the relevent pages) so he could do his job properly instead of pissing and moaning about how the "bloggers" are "driving the news"
I certainly hope the Secret Service is taking the job of protecting Obama more seriously than Troy is. In case anybody doesn't already realize it, if some racist douchebag does kill Obama every major city in the U.S. WILL go up in flames. This ain't a joke, these "meth heads" need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, cause I don't want to see what happens when martial law comes to the U.S.
This whole affair stinks!
And Eid is the stinkiest skunk of them all.
Fanon @ 51:
lol, isn't that a little like tattling on your little sister for having her eyes open during the dinner prayer?
oh wait. I'm a blogger. I know nothing of christianity.
Liberal AND Proud @ 53:
Depends......
burnt @ 50:
Does Jeff Gannon and his "press credentials" approve of your message?
Karen @ 43:
That is very interesting...
So if you're drunk and you do something illegal conceivably you can get a "get out of jail" coupon....
I always thought people who were drunk were acting uninhibited mentally albeit having more obviously impaired physical limitations....
Karen @ 43:
It's my understanding that any act has to have mens rea, actus rus and concurrence, and the latter can be difficult to prove when people are intoxicated.
However, here in Texas they execute murderers all the time who claim to have been high during their crime.
That's one of the things about the M'Naughton rule I hate. Knowledge of simple right and wrong doesn't seem to take concurrence into consideration.
... federal prosecutors may never file criminal charges against anyone unless there’s a “reasonable likelihood” we can prove them at trial with credible, admissible evidence. That’s a high standard, and understandably so.
I guess that wasn't operational in the case of those guys in Miami who were plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Their expertise? One of them used to live there and saw the building. If seeing something gives you insight into it, the Palin nomination makes sense.
Sorry actus reus.
Rus was a prehistoric tribe whose name was given to Russia.
This crackpot is an embarassment to the legal profession
I guess it pisses him off the bloggers have more regard for the laws of this country than he does.
Liberal AND Proud @ 36:
I thought they were the Boris and Natasha?
Jesus Christ, one of them fucking admitted to it. Since when is a confession, in conjunction with actual hard evidence like a high-powered rifle with a scope and ammo, not credible, admissible evidence? What, were they disappeared to one of Dick Cheney's black sites?
" ... got under Eid’s craw, ... "
No, something gets under one's skin, not under one's craw.
Something gets stuck in one's craw, as in to choke.
Always gotta wonder what the attorney's that didn't get purged did to keep their jobs, don'tcha?
And the reason that you are getting journalists with repeat questions is because they aren't asking the valid questions in the first place, else the bloggers wouldn't have too, eh?
Repugs love free speech as long as they can control it. They just haven't figured out how to control the internet yet. You know, with all them tubes it's hard to get your hands around it.
ysbaddaden @ 60:
M'Naughten does take concurrence into consideration. And it's a little more than knowledge of right and wrong. M'Naughten is one of the insanity defenses. There must be a mental defect involved. I can't really speak to Texas law, though. I have no knowledge of it.
Voluntary intoxication can make negate the mens rea, but doesn't always go over well with juries.
Actually Eid's comments are more dangerous after initial considerations....
Is he advertising that criminals who would be interested in harming our candidate Obama will not be seriously prosecuted?....
I'm about to say something very unpopular here, but here goes:
If you read Eid's editorial, he makes several reasonable points. The blogosphere demanded a lynching of these three men. When Eid declined to prosecute them for making threats against a presidential candidate, we leapt to the conclusion that his decision was based on politics, rather than lack of evidence. This assumption was based on our justifiably cynical views of the way the Bush "Justice" Department has done things the past eight years.
This is probably a case where our assumptions were unwarranted. Eid's right, bloggers didn't see the evidence he did, so we really don't know anything beyond our own wild speculation.
In this case, I think Eid deserves the benefit of the doubt.
That said, I think our overreaction is a sad commentary on what Bush has done to people's trust of their own government.
Amalink @ 4:
I think you're missing the point. This government doesn't want ANYONE questioning them. AT ALL! EVER! Not the bloggers, and certainly not the media. The media got that message, and that's why the bloggers are doing what they are doing.
Gollum @ 71:
You have a reasonable answer but I have to disagree because of the politics that apparently allowed Eid to survive as a USA....
He has to be a "Bushie" that in itself is suspect....
Gollum @ 71:
Twenty two shotguns and enough ammo, coupled with supporting evidence that a conspiracy/plan exists is not enough to prosecute such a case? Not even a conspiracy to cause bodily harm?
Did the three suspects slip you some meth? Please tell me you didn't sneak into the evidence room and help yourself to some of it. What are you smoking?
RFID @ 58:
I dunno about my "message", but he sure approved of my t-bags! =)
Bloggers, ie, CITIZENS OF THE USA!!!! The constituency he's sworn to protect.
69 Karen
Out of curiosity, I'm wondering about the Munchausen by Proxy argument. I've always wondered if it was a way to supply a motive to a crime when none is apparent, or a way to establish an insanity plea or both?
Is the Coast Clear?--- @ 59:
It very well could be that they are merely uninhibited. And that would be considered by the jury. (Frankly, a defense of voluntary intoxication is not popular with judges or juries. "I was drunk," doesn't go over well.)
Nevertheless, there are legitimate reasons for the defense. Often laws are written so that you have to intend something specific in order to be guilty of a crime. If you were drunk when you acted, you might not have formed that specific intent. Think of certain theft crimes, for instance. The law might require you to actually intend to steal an item, and permanently deprive the owner of his right to it. If you're drunk, and just wander off with something, thinking it's kind of funny, and then fall asleep, there can be very reasonable doubt about whether you actually intended to steal.
There's a lot more to it, but I hope that illustrates how intoxication can be exculpatory. :)
Strikingly, the reverse was true in St. Paul where credentialed journalists housing was raided pre-emptively WITHOUT ANY PROBABILITY of threat!
Gollum @ 71:
Those are valid points, but Eid brought this on himself by not being forthright with the public. This wasn't the bust of some two-bit meth dealer; it was a threat against a presidential candidate. He works for us, and he owed us the truth.
Oh, with the help of the FBI, you know, federally sponsored raids.
Liberal AND Proud @ 36:
Hey! Knock that off. I like Bullwinkle and Rocky.
Dave
Viet Vet
Good thing Eld never asks if the politicization of the DOJ by Gonzalez has incited this "paranoia"
ysbaddaden @ 77:
To be perfectly honest, I have neither handled nor even studied a case where it was involved.
What I know of it is that people who have Munchausen syndrome are caretakers who harm the people for whom they care in order to create the appearance of an illness that requires their care.
I don't think it's really been used as an insanity defense, though I suppose there might be a case out there somewhere. (Or there's an area of law that has eluded me.) It would seem a difficult case to make in the U.S. Legal insanity largely comes down to mental defects that either render the defendant incapable of understanding the difference between right and wrong altogether, incapable of appreciating the nature of her actions or incapable of controlling her actions no matter how hard she tries. There are plenty of people we'd think of as insane who are not legally insane (e.g. psycopaths). And there are plenty of people we'd think of as insane who might actually be legally insane (e.g. kleptomaniacs who can have normal conversations, go to work, contribute to society, etc., but who suffer from some genuine defect that they can't control, and which compels them to steal). I think it'd be hard to plug in Munchausen by Proxy into that paradigm.
On the prosecution side, from what I know, there have been cases where the prosecution has introduced expert evidence about the syndrome, but only in order to prove that the defendant caregiver actually could commit that with which she is accused. Perhaps it is used for motive as well, but I think there is also a lot of skepticism about it in the legal world, and that experts are often prevented from diagnosing the defendant for the jury.
That's about all I can really say on the subject, and I hope I haven't already misinformed. :)
So in other words, if bloggers were to inquire about the possibility of a serious and credible TERRORIST PLOT, Mr. Eid would be pooh-poohing anything we write, and ignoring our e-mails because we clearly are a bunch of ignoramouses.
Yet when it's the Republicans' turn, suddenly the police are so diligent and dutiful that they're arresting that horrible radical Amy Goodman.
Hey, Troy, what's that brown stuff on your nose? I don't think that's gonna rub off, man ...
This guy has been the bane of folks existence around Denver...He and his state-based brotheren want to arrest EVERYONE based on some fictional DNA test they say they now have but want to ignore the FACTS when it comes to reality..(hummm..where have we heard that before???)..
Anything that doesn't fit into their master plan that was delivered to them from Dobson's group just to their south - they ignore...