Lindauers Prosecutor - Left Case for Alaska - Palin Truth Squad

[autorank]

Ed O'Callaghan was Lindauers prosecutor over several years. He was Asst. U.S. Attorney, Southern District, Manhattan. He was also the architecht of the Sarah Palin Truth Squad in Alaska at McCain's
behest. He left the U.S attorney's office after Lindauer's competency hearing.

His arguments were the basis for the charges against her. It raises serious questions as to the "truth" of the charges and also about the political motivations. After all, Ed was the guy that McCain turned to to put out the most devastating political scandal.

O'Callaghan was working hard against Obama just as he had against Lindauer. But Obama couldn't be
locked up on an Air Force Base. The stakes were much higher though - the presidenchy. Had McCain
won, O'Callaghan could have been Attorney General or, more likely, Deputy A.G.

Fascinating isn't it.

Progressive Alaska
http://progressivealaska.blogspot.com/2008/09/saradise-lost-chapter-sixty-six-palin.html

Saradise Lost - Chapter Sixty-Six -- PALIN TRUTH SQUAD: BURNING BRIDGES IN ALASKA
-- by Shannyn Moore


O'Callaghan's most important client.

I attended Governor Sarah Palin’s press conference this week. I witnessed the “Palin Truth Squad” first hand. It was as “truthy” to politics as the Jeffrey Dahmer Cooking School would be to the culinary arts. It made me nauseous.

With a precarious political atmosphere in Alaska, we are still making our way through indictments, trials, and federal penitentiary sentences; the past two years of bipartisan work and healing thrown under the bus in attempt to win the White House.

National political assassins have invaded Alaska.

They were visible and in full force at the McCain-Palin press conference yesterday. Alaskans don’t roll that way. People get cranky, even nasty at times, over politics and what they think is best for the state. Alaska Lawmakers are sitting in federal prison for selling their votes and it wasn’t this nasty. The McCain-Palin ticket has become a poster child for partisan politics on steroids. On November 5th, the day after this election, the shrapnel of this campaign will be strewn across Alaska. It’s going to take Dr. Phil and a few Barry White albums to get the healing started.

Right off the bat, a full-on assault of character was laid out-Walt Monegan the target. Megan Stapleton, lead off hitter for the Palin Truth Squad was polished, assertive, dramatic, professional, fantastic….and LYING! For all of her assertions of Walt’s “loose cannon” behavior, you would have thought he was tasing Alaska children. A stack of emails from or regarding Monegan, chosen by Palin’s state paid attorney, were released to prove his incompetence.

I asked why, if he was such a terrible employee, was he offered another position in government? How could they risk something so important as the oversight of alcohol in rural Alaska? After all, alcohol is a huge contributor to our domestic violence and rape statistics. Megan’s answer felt like an out of control carnival ride for all the disingenuous spin!

Her co-“truther” is Edward O’Callaghan. He looks and acts like the evil and unstoppable Agent Smith from “The Matrix”. Six weeks ago he left his job as Co-Chief of the Terrorism and National Security Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s office in New York. Does the McCain camp consider a bipartisan group of Alaska Lawmakers to be terrorists?

--------------------------------

Can He Stop ‘Troopergate’?: A McCain lawyer scrambles to block a Palin ethics inquiry

September 16, 2008
http://sarahpalintruthsquad.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/can-he-ed-ocallaghan-stop-troopergate-a-mccain-lawyer-scrambles-to-block-a-palin-ethics-inquiry/

In a Newsweek Web Exclusive published online September 16, 2008, journalist Michael Isikoff investigates how a former top level Justice Department prosecutor, Ed O’Callaghan, is spearheading “an aggressive legal strategy aimed at shutting down a pre-election ethnics investigation into Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. ~ Sarah Palin Truth Squad

Newsweek: http://www.newsweek.com/id/159260

Edward O'Callaghan, left, and Megan Stapleton,
spokespersons with the McCain campaign, answer
questions concerning the firing of former public
safety commissioner Walt Monegan during a news
conference in Anchorage, Alaska Monday Sept. 15,
2008. Lawyers for Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin have
released e-mails detailing what they say is the
real reason she dismissed Walt Monegan, the public
safety commissioner whose firing prompted the
"Troopergate" controversy.

The growing role of Edward O’Callaghan, who until six weeks ago served as co-chief of the terrorism and national security unit of the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, illustrates just how seriously the McCain campaign is taking the so-called “troopergate” inquiry into Palin’s firing last summer of Walt Monegan, Alaska’s Public Safety Commissioner.

O’Callaghan emerged publicly for the first time this week when he told reporters at a McCain campaign press conference, in Anchorage, that Palin is “unlikely to cooperate” with an Alaskan legislative inquiry into Monegan’s firing because it had been “tainted” by politics. That new stand appeared to directly contradict a previous vow, expressed by her official gubernatorial spokesman on July 28, that Palin “will fully cooperate” with an investigation into the matter.

But O’Callaghan (who resigned from the U.S. attorney’s office at the end of July to join the McCain campaign) is doing more than just public relations when it comes to “troopergate.” He told NEWSWEEK that he and another McCain campaign lawyer (whom he declined to identify) are serving as legal “consultants” to Thomas Van Flein, the Anchorage lawyer who at state expense is representing Palin and her office in the inquiry. “We are advising Thomas Van Flein on this matter to the extent that it impacts on the national campaign,” he said. “I’m helping out on legal strategy.” A McCain spokesman said Wednesday that, while Van Flein was originally hired last month by the Alaska Department of Law to represent Palin and her office, that arrangement has been changed over the past week and he is now being paid only by Palin and her husband - not state funds. He has not billed the state for his work, the spokesman said.

The investigation revolves around allegations that Palin fired Monegan, the state’s top cop, because he rebuffed intense pressure from the governor and her aides to dismiss Mike Wooten, a state trooper involved in a messy custody battle with Palin’s sister. Critics, including Monegan himself, have accused Palin of being obsessed over the Wooten matter-sending him repeated e-mails about it-in an attempt to use her public office to settle a private score.

[Bolo Boffin]

1. You can next produce the backgrounds of the eight mental health professionals

on which O'Callaghan based his arguments for Lindauer's condition. Lindauer's antics in court didn't help her case of fitness at all.

[Bryan Sacks]

3. What a sad and stupid comment you keep repeating

Lindauer's antics in court didn't help her case of fitness at all.

Her antics during what she may have regarded as a kangaroo court case against her don't necessarily indicate anything about her mental state. Several people have made far bigger pains of themselves with good reason before a court. These two come to mind:

http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/celebrity/larry_flynt/6.html

http://bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/403/403.US.15.299.html

Your knee-jerk defense of psychiatry isn't surprising, though it is sad- because if these were just slightly different times it might be a person like you, and not Lindauer, who was being force-medicated and facing involuntary commitment in some form. Or did you forget that?

And that, dear bolo, is the difference between the world as many of us here in the dungeon would have it, and the world as you would have it. In our world, you'd have nothing to fear from professionals that might want to force-feed you drugs or lock you away because you didn't conform to others' conception of normalcy (others like, say, Rick Warren, for instance). It wouldn't be permitted. Period.

That's why, in the end, whatever our differences, you should be glad we anti-authoritarians are who we are, and we should be bothered by who you are.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. I'm sorry that the facts don't let you think the way that you want

I can't do anything to change them.

Now lay off the personal attacks and deal with the facts.

[seemslikeadream]

8. How do you like the Moonies speaking at the Capitol AGAIN!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5185268

[Bolo Boffin]

9. I think I will respond further to this.

Her antics during what she may have regarded as a kangaroo court case against her don't necessarily indicate anything about her mental state.

Except that I offered that statement as part of an argument, Bryan. It remains true that in Lindauer's case, her antics did in fact demonstrate to the court the validity of the considered opinions of psychiatrists from both the defense and the prosecution, that Lindauer was unable to stand trial. She was mentally unfit to do so.

Read her Motion to Reconsider, Bryan. It's the work of a diseased mind. She admits to inappropriate outbursts, but her reasoning is that she should be allowed to do this because that's her personality! She was also very upset that in one hearing, she had to appear with her old attorney instead of her new one. She melted down, to the point that she had to admit to doing so in her own motion. But that should be excused, reasons Ms. Lindauer, because she was upset! She interrupted Preska while the finding was being read to present evidence. Look at the evidence, Bryan. As much as you love to bash me around every chance you get, look at the evidence. Read something besides the one-sided stenography that Autorank considers journalism.

Check out the Times article I cited down below. Fuisz speaks! Godfrey speaks! That reporter went and interviewed them. Autorank keeps filing his dictation.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Fascinating?

Why yes it is!

[Bolo Boffin]

5. From Mukasey's order in the first findness of unfitness

"At least a half dozen mental health professionals, including a psychologist and a psychiatrist retained by the defense, and several psychologists and psychiatrists employed, and one psychiatrist retained, by the government, have found her mentally incompetent to stand trial, due principally to delusions of grandiosity and paranoia that make her unable to assist meaningfully in her own defense and understand the nature of the proceedings she faces."

Emphasis mine.

Further down:

"At the instance of her attorney, Lindauer was examined initially in January 2005 by Sanford L. Drob, Ph.D., a psychologist. Thereafter, in May and July 2005, she was examined by Dr. Stuart B. Kleinman, a government-retained psychiatrist. In September 2005, she agreed to go voluntarily to the Federal Medical Center, a Bureau of Prisons facility in Carswell, Texas, to undergo examination and, if necessary, treatment. There, she was examined and/or her records and other documentation reviewed by at least two psychologists and two psychiatrists on the staff of that facility. In addition, her records and other documentation were reviewed by Dr. Robert L. Goldstein, a psychiatrist retained by the defense. Whatever their differences in diagnosis, or as to the efficacy of forced medication, all agreed that Lindauer suffers grandiose and paranoid delusions.

At the Sell hearing, the court heard testimony from Dr. Collin J. Vas, a staff psychiatrist at the Carswell, Texas facility where defendant was evaluated; Dr. Stuart B. Kleinman, a psychiatrist retained by the government; and Dr. Robert L. Goldstein, a psychiatrist retained by defendant. In addition, eight reports from mental health professionals were received in evidence at the hearing pursuant to stipulation, including reports by the witnesses who testified. These were the following: (i) Report of Sanford L. Drob, Ph.D., February 28, 2005; (ii) Report of Stuart B. Kleinman, M.D., September 13, 2005; (iii) Report of James A. Shadduck, Ph.D., (reviewed by Robert E. Gregg, Ph.D.) December 13, 2005; (iv) Report of Collin J. Vas, December 19, 2005; (v) Report of James A. Shadduck, Ph.D., (reviewed by another psychologist whose signature was indecipherable), December 28, 2005; (vi) Report of William M. Pederson, M.D., December 29, 2005 (supplemented by Letter of William M. Pederson, M.D. to the Court, January 19, 2006); (vii) Report of Robert Lloyd Goldstein, M.D., March 20, 2006; (viii) Report of Stuart B. Kleinman, M.D., April 7, 2006."

Again, emphasis added. Please demonstrate the Palin Truth Squad membership of all of these doctors, hired by both Lindauer and appointed by the court, who all agreed that Lindauer suffers grandiose and paranoid delusions.

[Bolo Boffin]

6. Looks like Lindauer and Palin agree on one thing:

Lindauer's decision to drive to New York and visit the Libyans, she says, was also motivated in part by her deep personal faith in God, "the all-powerful, all-encompassing spirit" that she had known since she was a child. ...she found God again during the weekends she spent at the Victory Bible Camp in Alaska. The God she found there was not partial to any religious philosophy.

"God is not a man," Lindauer explained. "God is this supreme, magnificent force, intelligent, gorgeous beyond any description. If you've seen Alaska, you've seen the face of God."

That's from here:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=980DE2DC143EF93AA1575BC0A9629C8B63&pagewanted=4

You might want to take notes, Autorank. This is what journalism looks like.

[seemslikeadream]

7. How would you know?

[autorank]

10. Notes? Here they are.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0806/S00332.htm


Tuesday, 24 June 2008, 2:17 pm
Column: Michael Collins

From the People Who Brought Us Judith Miller & George Bush

Former New York New York Times reporter, Judith Miller,
who wrongly claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
(WMD) and her president.
(Images, left, right)

The New York Times "Covers" the Susan Lindauer Hearing

Michael Collins
"Scoop" Independent News
Washington, DC
(Links at original publication)

The New York Times disgraced itself and betrayed the citizens of the United States when it repeatedly headlined misleading stories by reporter Judith Miller that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The paper issued a meandering apology well after the 2003 invasion prompted by the inaccurate reporting of Miller, the self-styled "Miss Run Amok" reporter, and others. But it was too little and too late to correct the damage. And it seems the Times is still running amok at the expense of what's in the public interest.

One has to wonder if the New York Times and the White House coordinated efforts on the WMD matter. They certainly worked very well together, propping up in tandem the fear-based prophecy of a menacing Saddam who would deliver his nuclear filled hate to our shores. This was total nonsense, to put it kindly.

We know that the Bush administration and the New York Times editor, William Keller, communicated about a very sensitive matter before the 2004 election. New York Times reporters James Risen and Eric Lichtblau had discovered that the Bush administration had been illegally wiretapping citizens since Sept. 11, 2001. "Internal discussions about drafts of the article had been 'dragging on for weeks' before the Nov. 2 election, Mr. Keller acknowledged," according to an article by Times public editor Byron Calme Instead of publishing the story, Times editor Keller killed and barred the story from public release until December 16, 2006, 13 months after the 2004 election.

Was this a coincidence? Not at all. Bush requested the story be killed for "national security" reasons. Forgetting the paper's shining moment when it released the Pentagon Papers, Keller willingly complied.

This was the election that would determine if Mr. Bush would have another four years to work the magic that's brought the nation to its current state of peril. When the story finally broke, it created a wave of negative reaction across the political spectrum.

Thanks to the New York Times' deliberate delay, we'll never know how the public would have responded just weeks before the 2004 vote. Based on the public response when the story was released, it may well have created enough of a shift to render the dirty tricks of Ohio and elsewhere meaningless.

The false WMD reports represented propaganda of the most frightening type. It came from reporter Miller who had relied largely on one source, Ahmad Chalabi. He was on the Defense Department payroll at the time that reporter Miller gained the WMD information from him. Without any doubt, the New York Times was a major enabler of the Iraq invasion and occupation.

By withholding a most devastating indictment of the lawless regime in power, namely illegal wiretapping of U.S. citizens, the New York Times denied citizens the option of a fully informed choice in 2004 and it played a major role in returning Bush-Cheney to power.

Four thousand U.S. deaths, tens of thousands of life long injuries to U.S. troops, 1.2 million dead Iraqis due to civil strife triggered by the war, 5 million Iraqi orphans, and the loss of United States' prestige on a massive scale: this is the shared legacy of the New York Times coverage leading up to the Iraq invasion. A nation on the verge of bankruptcy, foreclosures at epidemic rates, national debt so out of control it is difficult to even measure and a deep recession with possibly worse down the road: this is just a part of the legacy of the New York Times' coverage of the 2004 election.

How low will they sink?

Even on a smaller scale, their depths are without limits, it would seem.

The most recent example is the New York Times' coverage of the competency hearing on June 17, 2008 in the Susan Lindauer versus the United States in the Federal District Court, Southern District of New York, in lower Manhattan. Antiwar Activist Returns to Court for Iraq Spy Case, Alan Feuer, New York Times, June 18, 2008.

The headline betrays the first major problem with the New York Times coverage. Susan Lindauer has claimed all along that she was an anti-war and anti-sanctions activist as well as a U.S. asset. However, no one who has read the indictment or the informed coverage would refer to Lindauer as an accused "spy." She is charged with being an "unregistered foreign agent." The "high water mark" of the indictment, as Judge Mukasey called it, is the charge that Lindauer attempted to influence U.S. policy on behalf of pre-war Iraq through the delivery of this January 2003 letter to Andrew Card, then chief of staff for President Bush, and Colin Powell, then secretary of state.

The New York Times story opens with this curious statement:

"She rolled her eyes. She stuck her tongue out at the prosecutor. It was decidedly not the usual courtroom demeanor. Then again, it was not the usual federal case." New York Times, June 18, 2008 (NYT)

I attended the hearing and sat in the front row of the courtroom. Of all the spectators, I had one of the best views of defendant Susan Lindauer and the witnesses. With regard to "rolling her eyes," that was simply not visible from the public seating since Lindauer faced the judge showing spectators only her back except when she turned and was visible in profile. As for "sticking out her tongue," I saw no such behavior and Lindauer denies the reporter's claim vigorously. The alleged gesture was not reported by the New York Daily News, Associated Press, and New York Metro. Nor did I report it in this article on the hearing.

Why would the reporter begin a news story with such an inflammatory unverified charge?

If we skip to the end of the article, we might find an answer. The reporter closed the story with this statement by Lindauer from her post hearing press conference in the hall just outside Judge Loretta Preska's courtroom.

"She angrily contested an accusation in her indictment that she had illegally lunched with Iraqi intelligence operatives.

"You want to send me to prison because I had a cheeseburger," she said, "even though I'm not the person who actually ate the cheeseburger." NYT

The reporter plucked out of context a random remark about cheeseburgers to characterize Lindauer's denial of serious charges as weak and less than serious.

Lindauer was arguing that the indictment was both flawed and incorrect. She denied these charges, pointed out that she had not been in the city on the dates alleged, and asserted that she can prove it. Then she illustrated what she clearly believed to be the absurdity of the charges with the cheeseburger remark. By lifting this quotation out of context, an entirely different meaning is implied.

The New York Times reporting on the facts of the case is also notably wanting. The reporter echoed the prosecutors claim that "a half-dozen doctors claimed Lindauer suffered from paranoia and delusions of grandeur." Lindauer, the subject of these professionals, questioned the accuracy of the prosecutor's statement.

The story leaves out the psychiatrist who examined Lindauer just after her arrest and found no such thing. It fails to mention the two psychotherapists who saw Lindauer over a period of months and failed to report any of this. Observation and interaction over an extended period are powerful tools for diagnosis.

The reporter also failed to note the completed report submitted to the court by a distinguished Washington, D.C. area psychiatrist and academic which reportedly says that Lindauer is competent to stand trial. The psychiatrist is scheduled to appear on Lindauer's behalf at the next hearing before Judge Preska on July 7, 2008. But discovering this would require that the reporter actually talk to the defendant.

This was, after all, a competency hearing on the mental capacity of Lindauer to stand trial. Wouldn't you expect the New York Times to cover both sides of the story?

The New York Times described the last hearing of former judge, now U.S. Attorney General Mukasey, on the prosecution's request to have Lindauer forcibly drugged. He said that "Judge Mukasey declined to rule on the request, saying that the case would be assigned to a new judge -- which turned out to be Loretta A. Preska -- and that she would eventually have to decide." NYT

That's entirely incorrect. In his "Opinion and Order" of Sept. 6, 2006, Mukasey wrote: "Based on the evidence presented at a Sell hearing on May 4 and May 9, 2006, for the reasons explained below, the government has failed to carry this burden --- Accordingly, the motion is denied." (Author's emphasis)

The New York Times article referred to the defense witnesses' testimony as "suggestively odd." Why would the Times make that inference?

The first witness, Kelly O'Meara, was a former reporter for the Washington Times and Insight Magazine and a senior congressional staffer for over two decades. She established a strong connection between Lindauer and an individual reported to be a part of U.S. intelligence, a relationship that endured over time.

The second witness, Dr. Parke Godfrey, was deliberate and thoughtful. He is a long time associate of Lindauer's and a PhD level associate professor of computer science with a solid academic record. He told of Lindauer's anti-war activism and also of her warnings about 911.

"Appearing for the defense, Dr. Godfrey testified under oath that Lindauer told him of her specific concerns about an attack on the United States. She told him that a "massive" attack would occur in the southern part of Manhattan, involving airplanes and possibly a nuclear weapon. The witness said that she mentioned this in the year 2000, which coincided with the Lockerbie trial. And then in 2001, Lindauer also mentioned the anticipated attack in the spring, 2001 and then August 2001. Godfrey said, at that time, Lindauer thought an attack was "imminent" and that it would complete what was started in the 1993 bombing (the original World Trade Center bombing)." "Scoop" Independent News, Michael Collins, June 18, 2008

The Associated Press covered the 9/11 portion of the testimony but not the New York Times.

The New York Times coverage of this story opens with an inflammatory personal attack verified only by the reporter - the claim that Lindauer stuck her tongue out. It ends with a quotation clearly out of context leading to a negative view of Lindauer's coherence. Combined, the two inflammatory aspersions have the effect of presenting an unstable individual. Is the reporter qualified to make this assessment from the gallery? Is this some new form of remote diagnosis?

The story erred by ignoring Mukasey's highly significant "opinion and order" that denied the government the ability to physically force drugs on the defendant. The reporter jettisoned the facts by claiming that Mukasey simply passed that issue along to Lindauer's current judge, a factually incorrect statement.

The story ignored mental health reports that are the crux of the competency issue and favorable to Lindauer's claim, instead relying solely on the prosecutor's characterization of the government's evidence.

The New York Times blithely extended the personal attack on Lindauer to her witnesses by calling their testimony "suggestively odd." Both witnesses presented calm, considered demeanor, described relevant information, and gave every appearance, in my opinion, of being open and cooperative with the hearing process.

What is the New York Times up to? Was this just the product of a bad day by a reporter who preferred to be somewhere else? Is the New York Times entering a new realm of coverage that includes highly subjective personal attacks? Are we seeing the birth of a new deductive journalism in which the facts are tailored to create a story that the paper prefers?

These are the people who brought us Judith Miller's fatal distortions and covered up George Bush's illegal surveillance activities from consideration in the 2004 election.

They continued that tradition in the article on the Lindauer competency hearing by inflammatory claims that would lead uninformed readers to a significant bias against the defendant and factual errors about the history of the case that are less than helpful.

The reporter from the New York Times characterized Lindauer in a derisive and mocking tone. If he truly believed the prosecutor's experts with regard to Lindauer's mental state, he would be guilty of behavior that is simply not acceptable in almost any circle. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt and presume that he had another motive for his characterizations.

Stories like this are not only unbalanced and biased. They promote injustice to citizens who deserve an opportunity to achieve justice through a fair trial.

END

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0806/S00332.htm

This material may be reproduced in whole or part with attribution of authorship, a link to this article, and acknowledgment of image use information.

[Bolo Boffin]

11. Just what I thought.

The byline on that "New York Times Magazine" story is David Samuels, Autorank.

This David Samuels:
Wiki link

Got some poison to throw down that well?

ETA: Fuisz speaks!

"I'd put it this way," Fuisz explained, cupping his palms like a collector presenting a rare species for inspection. "She's daft enough that we could be sitting here, like we are now, and she might see a parrot fly in the window, flap its wings and land right here on the table," he said. "But she's also smart enough not to necessarily say anything about it."

When I asked whether, in his opinion, Lindauer could have been recruited by an intelligence service, he paused for a long time before he responded. "I would say that's a hard question to answer. If you're looking at it from the standpoint of an intelligent intelligence agency, absolutely not. She'd be the worst person you could ever recruit. If you're looking at it from the standpoint of my knowledge of Mideast intelligence services, are they dumb enough to recruit her, the answer is yes."

EATA: I see that your response to this post was to edit your post and add the entire story, not just a quote. Always the self-promoter, right? I don't see anything in that article that implicates David Samuels, a contributing editor of Harper's, in the perfidy surrounding Judith Miller. Try again.