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...
84 Karen
I think MBP has been used to show a pattern of behavior, frequent hospital and doctor visits until the victim dies.
[Deleted. Don't advocate violence- or advocate for someone to advocate violence- at this site, please. Thank you. Site Monitor]
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Secret_Service_orders_police_to_block_0917...
Is there any question as to how far Rove has been able to Politicize the Government and Justice in this country?
From the desk of Rep. Les Gara, Anchorage, Alaska...
Since Monday the McCain camp has stepped up its personal attacks against Alaskans. They've continued their D.C.-style tactics against neighbors in this small state. The game plan is to find an excuse to stop our Legislature's Troopergate investigation, and hide evidence McCain's folks really don't want to surface before November's election. It's been a little Karl Rove, and parts Laurel and Hardy. How else can you explain the following?
Friday the Attorney General's office promised state witnesses would comply with subpoenas the Legislature issued last week. Tuesday the Governor's Attorney General flip flopped, and announced that state witnesses wouldn't comply because, well, and I'm paraphrasing here - - he's changed his mind. And in what has to be an idea hatched after a 4th Martini at Chilkoot Charlies, Governor Palin's attorneys have filed a motion to dismiss the ethics claim she filed against herself two weeks ago. Yup. She really filed a complaint against herself. Tuesday she said she's discovered, after a thorough investigation of herself, that she's done nothing wrong. Does anyone know how to get a hold of Jon Stewart and Tina Fey?
It's silly season up here in the far north, but this week's moves are aimed at one thing: John McCain's effort to find cover for being disingenuous. See, before Governor Palin's nomination for the Republican VP spot, she did the honest thing. She admitted the evidence -- of roughly 20 contacts between her staff and husband with Public Safety officials, seeking the firing of Governor Palin's former brother-in-law -- might lead a reasonable person to the conclusion that the she misused her office to fire a state employee. So when Alaska's Republican-led Legislature called for an investigation, she did the honorable thing and said she and her staff would comply. She denies any wrongdoing.
Things changed on August 29 when Governor Palin was added to the McCain ticket. Since then his handlers have told her she can't testify. They don't want the evidence in this case to come out. They don't want her to testify under oath. They don't want other witnesses to testify under oath. So they have engaged in daily maneuvers to attack, as disloyal to the McCain campaign, anyone who wants the investigation to move forward. They've now attacked two well respected prosecutors, and perhaps the state's most highly regarded law enforcement official -- the Public Safety Commissioner she hired, and then fired, Walt Monegan.
Every day this week McCain operatives have sung the same tune. Today a guy with an East Coast accent, who knows nothing about Alaska, stood in front of a McCain-Palin banner to lead the attacks against people he doesn't know. At press conferences on Monday and Tuesday campaign staffer Megan Stapleton spit vitriol to repeat her argument that this investigation is really a "Democratic" attack on Governor Palin. See, that's easier than just saying their VP has reneged on her promise to testify. It's easier than just saying they don't want anyone testifying before the November election. It's easier than admitting they are stonewalling a legislative investigation. Oh -- and I know they hate partisan stuff. Yesterday 5 Republican legislators -- all allies of Governor Palin, all supporters of the McCain campaign, filed a lawsuit against the Legislature to stop the investigation.
Here are a few things MCCain's operatives failed to say. There are a few small facts that make it hard to style this as a Democratic investigation. One is that Alaska is a Republican State. We have a Republican Governor and a Legislature of 34 Republicans and 26 Democrats. This summer the Legislature's Legislative Council voted 12-0 (8 Republicans and 4 Democrats) to hire an investigator, and appointed Democratic Senator Hollis French, a well-respected former prosecutor, to find an investigator.
Governor Palin stated she and her employees would comply with the investigation. French then hired Steve Branchflower, a former DA who most recently was hired by legislative Republicans to run the state's Office of Victims rights. And on Friday the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 3-2 (2 Democrats and 1 Republican in favor); and the House Judiciary Committee issued a 7 - 0 (5 Republicans, 2 Democrats) advisory vote, to issue subpoenas to witnesses the McCain camp had previously stopped from testifying.
Over the last two days McCain's outside operatives have vilified former prosecutor Hollis French -- as an Obama supporter who must have called this investigation to hurt the McCain ticket. But French was appointed to oversee the investigation by a 12 - 0 Legislative Council vote, and is probably the state's most respected legislator -- by Republicans and Democrats alike. He's so popular the Republican Party couldn't find anyone to run against him this year. They've called former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan -- a Native Alaskan who has served Republican and Democratic Administrations with honor, and put his life on the line in uniform- - "insubordinate." Odd, given that when Governor Palin fired him she offered him a different job. I guess being "insubordinate" was a job requirement for the new position. And they've challenged the independence of an investigator and former DA, who has no animus anyone can find.
Those Swift boat ads taught the McCain folks that if you say something untrue enough times, it can stick. My favorite moment of the week came when Governor Palin's attorneys filed a motion to dismiss Palin's ethics complaint against herself. Stay with me. Her attorneys have been buying the peyote, not me. See, on August 29 they needed to find a way to stop the Legislature's investigation. They tried asking the Republican leaders to call it off, and take one for the team. But the Senate President and others honorably said no. So they came up with an argument that the State Personnel Board -- 3 people appointed by Governor Palin and her Republican predecessor Frank Murkowski - had "exclusive jurisdiction" to investigate wrongdoing by the Governor.
The Legislature wasn't amused. So Governor Palin then filed a complaint against herself. That, they said, put "jurisdiction" in the hands of their friends at the Personnel Board. They argued that since the Personnel Board was now proceeding with an "investigation," the Legislature couldn't. To put icing on the cake, on Monday the Governor's attorneys moved to dismiss the Governor's case against herself. They said, and I loosely paraphrase again -- that they tried really hard and just couldn't find any evidence that the Governor did anything wrong. OK. I can't believe I just wrote that. And I wish it weren't true.
These are the things you have to do when your presidential candidate doesn't want his VP to honor a promise, and doesn't want evidence to come out before an election. These are the things you have to do if your folks aren't going to comply with a subpoena. That's because without spin the headline might read: "McCain Interferes With Investigation Palin Agreed To." How easy it is to re-write a headline. They learned that during the Swift boat campaign too.
All we can hope for is that members of the press will abide by what's taught in journalism school. Not to repeat the spin of political operatives without reporting the truth. Not to write "he said she said" stories, and pretend the truth is somewhere in the middle. But to report the facts. No matter how you spin it, Governor Palin promised to comply with this Legislative Investigation. McCain's folks got her to change her position. And the Legislature that voted for the investigation did so on a bi-partisan basis. End of story. End of headline.
Over the next few days McCain's folks will try to get local legislators to step in line, out of party loyalty, and reverse their vote to investigate Troopergate. But many local Republicans, like Senate President Lyda Green, have so far refused to play those politics. Stay for more from McCain's Campaign for "Change." They've tried to change the truth. They've succeeded at changing Governor Palin's promise to comply with this investigation. Let's see what they'll change next.
Rep. Les Gara, Anchorage, Alaska
I just want to say how grateful I am for bloggers. Without them we would be stuck the crap that the MSM tries to feed us.
This is from Wikipedia:
In August 2008, Troy Eid charged Marc Garold Ramsey, 39, for sending a threatening letter with white powdery substance to 2008 Republican Party presidential nominee Senator John McCain.[17] The letter read, "Senator McCain, If you are reading this then you are already DEAD! Unless of course you can't or don't breathe."[18] Although the powder was not lethal, Ramsey could face at least five years on charges of knowingly mailing a threat. Later that month, Eid also assessed an alleged assassination plot against Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, after alleged plotters Shawn Robert Adolf, Tharin Robert Gartrell and Nathan Johnson were arrested just prior to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Although the trio were charged with drug and weapon charges, Eid determined the racist statements the suspects made following their arrests had not risen to the legal standard that would have allowed the filing of federal charges for threatening a presidential candidate.[19] At an August 26 press conference, Eid dismissed the trio as drug addicts and said the "meth heads were not a true threat to the candidate, the Democratic National Convention or the people of Colorado."[20]
Liberal AND Proud @ 33:
That look? It reminds me of when I was trying to reason with my mother when I was a teenager. The look was, "Goddamit, the kid's using LOGIC on me! Better chew my lip and scowl."
She looks a lot like my mother and she reminds me a lot of me - hypersensitive, thin skinned, blindly loyal, vindictive, and entirely insecure.
VOTE ME!!!
But seriously, if it weren't for the bloggers, who don't get invited to McCain BBQs, there would be no objective reporting.
Members of the MSM who aren't Charlie Gibson are pissed they haven't landed an interview and after they ate his pork, too!
A group of black 'crack heads' are overheard plotting to shoot John McCain from a high vantage point. They are discovered to have the weaponry to carry out the threat.
Gee, think we'd be hearing about anything else for the next two months?
If you took those myth heads rants and replace Obama's name with Troys wife name you think he would be worrying about "reasonable likely hood"? And what does that mean? Now you can't prosecute people if they are redneck drug addicts who, even if they did get close enough, in all "likely hood" would have missed.
Methamphetamine is a CNS Stimulant. It is NOT something that makes you woozy or incapable of thinking, like getting drunk on alcohol does (alcohol is a depressant), rather, it speeds up your reflexes and metabolism temporarily. Just because somebody is stoked on meth does NOT make them incapable of planning, or setting up or pulling a trigger. These guys were indeed dangerous, and should have been taken seriously.
capnmike @ 97:
Not that they shouldn't have been taken seriously, but meth can also make you hallucinate, give you insomnia, make you paranoid and psychotic. Don't know if I would consider that as being "capable fo thinking", well, at least rationally.
Ysbadadden
MBPS (munchausen by proxy syndrome) is actually in the DSM-IV. It is sometimes know as factitious disorder. I don't know how it has been used in criminal cases (nurse, not lawyer) but I do know that there have been several court cases where this has been used to try to defend. Famous cold case that was solved when this syndrome came to light. I can't remember the woman's name, I think they lived in NJ and she killed 8 of her children over a 2 decade time period. They chalked a lot of the early ones up to SIDS but as they learned more about SIDS (doesn't happen to toddlers, only infants) they caught on to her. Suppose the googles would help you.
ysbaddaden @ 6:
I found a Cheeto that looked exactly like Bill Gates,but I didn`t announce it because people would think I`m a fanatic.
WE hate him too!
The re-Puke-lics have become a, sort of, party of WHINERS.
This is a serious concern - but this guy is a joke. The fact that he can't stand the bloggers - read "his lies exposed" -- is too funny.
It also completely illustrates why repuke-lics hate the "internets" -- they hate anything they can't control. What they continually strive for is the suppression of free speech -- and it drives them WILD that the internet is beyond their ability to control.
Funny as hell.
*
It's my party and I'll WHINE if I want to,
Whine if I want to . . . .
Whine if I want to -- da da - da ...
You - would - WHINE toooooooo, if it happened toooo yoooouuuuou . . . .
*
So basically what he is saying is his office is ordered by the government not to spend money pursuing any case that they may lose. Kind of like the IRS does not press any case that does not have a set amount of return.
Maybe if the meth heads had been Democrats, he would have been more inclined to act. They had no problem coming up with the funds to arrest protesters at the Republican Convention.
It is clear how he escaped the firings of Fed Pros by Bush&Co. when they went after their own people for not going after enough Democrats.
Better to let a few potential murders go than risk spending money.
CQ HOMELAND SECURITY
Sept. 5, 2008 – 6:24 p.m.
The Obama Assassination Plot That Wasn’t
By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor
The “assassination plot” against Barack Obama surfaced and sunk so quickly it seems like a figment of my imagination.
Did it really exist?
One of the meth-head defendants, Nathan Johnson, said it did.
But the feds have declined to prosecute, citing “insufficient evidence.” That, in turn, has fueled all sorts of Oliver Stone-like insinuations, most implying that the U.S. attorney in Denver, Troy Eid, must be covering up something or other because, after all, he is part of the politically corrupted Justice Department.
Eid, they note, was quick to charge a Denver inmate with making death threats after he sent a powder-laced envelope to John McCain .
It’s true that Johnson, 32, gave an extraordinary jailhouse interview that drew little notice during the conventions hoopla, telling Denver television station CBS4 that his two racist pals, Shawn Adolph and Tharin Gartrell, had talked about killing Obama with a high-power rifle as he gave his acceptance speech outdoors at Invesco Field.
The suspects were seized in the early morning of Aug. 24, after police stopped a Dodge pickup they had noticed weaving on the highway.
Gartrell was at the wheel, police said.
Inside they found two high-powered rifles, including one with telescopic sights, along with radios, wigs, a bullet-proof vest, a high-magnification spotting scope, three identifications not belonging to Gartrell, and 44 grams of methamphetamine, according to news reports. One rifle had a threaded barrel so it could be fitted with a silencer.
Pretty persuasive, if circumstantial, evidence of an assassination plot, it seemed.
Then Brian Maass, a reporter for Denver TV station CBS4, scored a jailhouse interview with Johnson that, at first telling, sounded like rock-hard evidence of a plot.
Johnson told Maass there was a plot to kill Obama, “probably on the day of the acceptance speech.”
“So your friends were saying threatening things about Obama?” Maass asked.
The Obama Assassination Plot That Wasn’t
“Yeah,” Johnson replied.
“It sounded like they didn’t want him to be president?”
“Yeah,” Johnson said.
He added, Obama “don’t belong in political office. Blacks don’t belong in political office. He ought to be shot.”
But when you watch the video more closely, the foundations of the plot stories start to sag.
Johnson, sounding like his mind has been terminally addled by drugs, tells Maass that he came to the conclusion that there was a real assassination plot only after he’d been interrogated by the FBI “two or three times. “
“I did say that it would be from a high vantage point and that it would be with the named rifle,” he said.
But he also says, “I told them I had no idea there was a plot, a plan, a conspiracy or anything like that . . . ”
“When the feds came and laid out everything on the table and how it looked,” he adds, “I was in agreement that they could have been up here to do something like that . . . how it was possible they could go through with it.”
As for statements attributed to him that a real plot had been set in motion, Johnson tells Maass, “I’m basing it off of their information . . . [what] the feds gave me, not the information I know.”
It hardly needs saying that U.S. Attorney Eid is livid at suggestions he failed to file assassination-related charges for political reasons.
“Had the evidence reached the threshold for probable cause required by the law (as well as ethical standards), I would have not hesitated to charge any or all of them for the alleged threat — as I would definitely do if new evidence emerges,” Eid said in a letter to an unnamed critic that his office provided to me. “It would have been disgraceful for me or any other prosecutor to charge someone for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Eid added, “There was no probable cause to support such a charge. To the extent you challenge my motives or those of the many investigating agents and career prosecutors who all reached this conclusion in this matter, you’re mistaken.”
The Obama Assassination Plot That Wasn’t
My takeaway is that suspicions about Eid’s handling stem from confusion about what Eid means by “no probable cause.” The sniper rifles, radios, wigs, bullet-proof vest and phony IDs police found in Gartrell’s rented truck, coupled with Johnson’s statement that they talked about killing Obama, would seem to provide plenty of “probable cause” to file charges.
But what it really means, Eid’s spokesman Jeffrey Dorchner told me, is that a jury is unlikely to convict Adolph and Gartrell on the word of Johnson.
“You are relying on that guy’s reliability and testimony,” Dorchner said. A defense attorney, he added, “would tear him apart.”
In any event, he added, the felony gun and drug charges the suspects are facing would send them away for longer terms than death threat charges.
But what about the weapons found in the truck? I asked.
A competent defense attorney would dismiss them as “tools of the drug trade,” Dorchner said.
End of story?
Evidently. Just a footnote in a presidential season that grows more bizarre by the day.
Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.
CQ © 2007 All Rights Reserved | Congressional Quarterly Inc. 1255 22nd Street N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037 | 202-419-8500
1. The FBI was the agency that made the determination that there was NO evidence of a threat.
2. The three guys have been charged by the feds for crimes that have LONGER prison sentences if convicted. Why charge someone with a crime that carries a 5 year prison sentence when you can charge someone with a crime with a 10 year prison sentence?
3. Why let the facts get in the way -- the FBI and Secret Service did not find evidence of a threat. Should a prosecutor bring charges in a case when the investigators find NO evidence that can be presented to a grand jury?
MountainMan23 @ 22:
the 223-250 rifle is lethal, but a bit of a toy in comparison to the older rifle, which is the moose/bear killing rifle, it was also bipoded.
I read up on the heavy one, might be an old gun but target shooters hit targets at a mile with these.
Both were sighted (scopes) at 750 yards, not something people do when hunting.
Jeff Dorschner @ 105:
using words like 'credible' and 'evidence of a threat' are twisted weasel words and phrases.
Of course there was no credible threat ONCE they were arrested and in custody, but before that they were a credible threat.
Eid's full of shit. If every element of this story, the players, the facts, the plan, the plausibility of them succeeding in their conspriacy...if every element were exactly the same except for one detail, his response would have been entirely different. If those guys said they were planning to hit McCain instead of Obama, they would already have been disappeared into the black prison gulag system, and that would be the last anybody would ever hear of them again. More, it would be a story that would never die either, because somehow, the MSM would find a way to insinuate, probably with help from Eid's office, that the plotters were operatives of the democratic party.
Typical Repuke who can't cope with an educated society that questions authority! Particularly corrupt political authority with an agenda to undermine the freedom of the press and the liberties of the Constitution!
That pesky internet is so much headaches!
Jeff Dorschner @ 105:
Can I ask you, Jeff, if you felt equally as strong about the prosecution of the "Sears Tower terrorists" whose case ended up being flimsy to the point of gossamer?
How about the "guilty by reason of being swarthy" college kids in Michigan who were suspected of being terrorists because they had a trunk full of cell phones?
Those were "credible" enough cases for the DOJ to pursue. Let us not forget the complete politicization of the DOJ by Alberto Gonzales (you remember him, don't you?). Eid was successfully sycophantic enough apparently to survive the attorney purge, so clearly he's not unaware of the desire to play down domestic terrorist cases against Democrats vs. playing up terrorist threats by "furriners".
Sorry, Jeff. This administration has done NOTHING to earn the benefit of our doubt. As you should well know.
Soooo, if I ranted to friends and colleagues that I wanted to kill McCain at his innaugrial, pick out a high place with a clear line of sight, wrote it down in my crazy-person manifesto, and when visited by the local law enforcement they found a cache of weapons and ammunition then I would be ignored as some kind of loon... but NOT prosecuted for the death threat?
I must begin a manifesto immediately!
not sure if any of the other 111 posts has this, but dave had a good run down on it
http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2008/09/fbi-wanted-obama-plotters-charged-b...
“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.”
Isn't this the same guy who charged an imprisoned man with threatening McCain with a fake anthrax letter? For a man in prison with no access to any means to carry out his threat there is "credible evidence" and a "reasonable likelihood" of conviction, but for three men with guns and bullet-proof vests arrested actually heading for the place where their target is there isn't?
Regarding the McCain threat -- at least 7 people went to the hospital -- and another 10 plus had to go through decontamination. They were all victims of the letter. And the letter makes great evidence. As for the other matter. You all seem disappointed that the three, Johnson, Adolf, and Gartrell, are being prosecuted for crimes with longer prison terms. Sad that you'd want them prosecuted for a crime (threats) that carries less prison time. Talk about advocating for public saftey -- let's charge them with a crime that allows them to get out of jail SOONER. Great idea.
Jeff Dorschner @ 114:
Jeff! You're back! Seeing as you're responsible for public access, let me ask you something: Do you think that we're all so stupid that we don't know that you can charge these men with MULTIPLE charges and request consecutive sentencing?
C'mon. Admit that you're part of the politicization and that men with ammo, guns, stated intent and plans to harm a Democrat don't really concern the Bush administration's DOJ. Were you appointed by Rove too?
Nice. I'm career service. Hired under Reno. Please read up on the advisory US Sentencing Guidelines. While the Judge could consider other conduct at sentencing, it won't necessarily increase their base level number -- which drives the length of the prison sentence. Also don't forget the FBI didn't refer this case to the US Attorney's Office for prosecution. Are you mad at the FBI also?
Jeff Dorschner @ 116:
Am I mad at the FBI? No, just suspicious. That's what happens after years of living in Bush America. We know how they sweep investigations that make them look bad under the rug...see the anthrax investigation for an example.
But you never answered my questions at #110. The college kids with cell phones and the Liberty Tower terrorists were credible enough to prosecute. Why weren't Johnson, et al?
7 people going to the hospital doesn't make it any easier for a man in prison to get his hands on anthrax- a cautious response doesn't make the original danger any more real. At any rate, the point was not that the letter-writer shouldn't have been charged with making a threat, nor was it that the three "meth-heads" shouldn't also have been charged with other crimes, it's that Eid's measuring stick for credible threats is inconsistent.
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