Ellsberg, Assange. Some parallels. Some ruminations.

[Smarmie Doofus]

The events of the weekend in Sweden put me in mind of Ellsberg's travails not so long ago.

People like Ellsberg , Assange and Manning make certain other people NUTS. In a twisted "code of honor", covering up governmental malfeasance and thereby deceiving the citizenry, trumps, for some people, any obligation to any higher constitutional principle. So.... what sort of things might folks trembling with that sort of righteous ( AND GROSSLY MISGUIDED) indignation be capable of? The not so distant past provides a few clues.

Snippets from Ellsberg's bio on wiki:


>>>>>As a response to the leaks, the Nixon administration began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally.<17> Aides Egil Krogh and David Young under John Ehrlichman's supervision created the "White House Plumbers", which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries.
Fielding break-iN>>>>>


1. COMMISSION OF CRIMINAL ACTS.



In August 1971, Krogh and Young met with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt in a basement office in the Old Executive Office Building. Hunt and Liddy recommended a "covert operation" to get a "mother lode" of information about Ellsberg's mental state to discredit him.>>>> Krogh and Young sent a memo to Ehrlichman seeking his approval for a "covert operation be undertaken to examine all of the medical files still held by Ellsberg’s psychiatrist." Ehrlichman approved under the condition that it be "done under your assurance that it is not traceable."<18>>>>>>

2. DISCREDITING THE PERSON'S 'MENTAL STATE'.



l

>>>On June 28, 1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers,<4> Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:
I felt that as an American citizen>>>

>>>>>, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision<4>
He and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Their trial commenced in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, presided over by U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr.>>>>



On April 26, the break-in of Fielding's office was revealed to the court in a memo to Judge Byrne, who then ordered it to be shared with the defense.<19><20>
On May 9, further evidence of illegal wiretapping against Ellsberg was revealed in court. The FBI had recorded numerous conversations between Morton Halperin and Ellsberg without a court order, and furthermore the prosecution had failed to share this evidence with the defense.<21><22>
During the trial, Byrne also revealed that he personally met twice with John Ehrlichman, who offered him directorship of the FBI. Byrne said he refused to consider the offer while the Ellsberg case was pending, though he was criticized for even agreeing to meet with Ehrlichman during the case.<20>>>>>>>>>

3. BRIBING THE FEDERAL JUDGE WHO WOULD BE HEARING THE SUBJECT'S CASE.


Due to the gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering, and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo on May 11, 1973 after the government claimed it had "lost" records of wiretapping against Ellsberg. Byrne ruled: "The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice. The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case."<20>

4 COMMITTING ILLEGAL WIRETAPPING OF SUBJECT AND THEN "LOSING" THE TAPES OF SAME.




>>>>Ellsberg later claimed that after his trial ended, Watergate prosecutor William H. Merrill informed him of an aborted plot by Liddy and the "plumbers>>>>
" to have 12 Cuban-Americans who had previously worked for the CIA to "totally incapacitate" Ellsberg as he appeared at a public rally, though it is unclear whether that meant to assassinate Ellsberg or merely to hospitalize him.<25><26>>>>>>>>[br />
5. MURDER? OR SIMPLY POISONING?



And remember: these are tactics employed or at least contemplated BY PEOPLE ACTING IN AND AROUND THE WHITE HOUSE. People who were NOT anonymous. People who were not operating safely within the bowels of the military intelligence, the CIA, and all the other nooks and crannies of the national security state ( where presumably Mr. Assange's antagonists are now operating.) And who were working overtime to DESTROY a fellow US gov't , D of C employee.