Separately, they invoked the retroactive classification order on
Congress and this was for the Senate Judiciary committee in May 2004 —
and the way they imposed this gag order — and I have to emphasize that
this gag order was illegal, because in order for them to retroactively
classify congressional investigations, the Attorney General for the
Justice Department had to meet three criteria and he did not. But even
though the gag order was illegal, at that time in May 2004, the Senate
Judiciary committee complied with it, they complied with an illegal gag
order.
But I've never had a gag order placed on me as far as the public
statements, or any other investigative procedures are concerned, but as
you know they have declared everything in my case, including my
languages, and what I did for the FBI, classified. Now the question is
whether this classification that they're using is even legal, or
justified. As you know the executive branch has complete control over
the classification.
Swanson: So you are not allowed to discuss what languages you speak? You're forbidden to say that?
Edmonds: Well — that's what they have ordered, and that's what the
court has actually ruled in their favor — but the interesting this is
if you were to go and just google my name, you will see everywhere that
my language skills are all listed there — because it's public
information. I mean, take a look at the implications of this, based on
this classification, I can't even have my resume out there because when
you put your resume, and you put your language skills, that would be
violating classification. But my resume has been out there, and the
government has not come to me and told me to pull my resume.
They have been playing this game because they can get away with it in
court, and Congress — but as you can see, this information is readily
available — it's public. The same thing is true with my university
degrees — the government specifically declared my Masters degrees, my
undergraduate degrees, and the topics of those studies as classified!
This is the Kafkaesque thing that I have been trying to point out to
people, and we haven't had much media attention on this — when they can
go, in this ridiculous way, in this ludicrous way, to invoke
'privilege' and classification — even on information that is readily
available in public.
Swanson: For those who still don't know what your story is, and what
you did, and why the government would be taking these sorts of actions,
why don't we start at the beginning and just go very briefly, but maybe
if I say a couple of things, tell me if I’m wrong...
You were hired by the FBI just after September 11 when they decided
that it would be a good idea to hire translators who knew foreign
languages — and the foreign languages that you were hired to work on
were Turkish, Farsi, and Azerbaijani. And your background is one of
having lived in Iran, Turkey and the US — and having had struggles in
those previous countries with repressive governments and censorship and
corruption and having thought, somewhat hopefully, about the US when
you came here as being a country of freedom and transparent government.
Am I on the right track?
Edmonds: Absolutely. I was a believer and I took my citizenship oath in
1995, I really took that oath, as you take any oath, seriously, and I
was so proud to become a citizen of this country and have the
constitution, and all the principles, and the bill of rights applying
to me. As you know, those rights are non—existent in countries such as
Turkey and Azerbaijan and Iran — in most places in the world, people
are not even allowed to write about those rights, forget about even
demanding them.
Swanson: What made you inclined to take a job with the FBI as a translator?
Edmonds: There needs to be a brief explanation — three years before I
took that job, I was doing my studies in forensic science and criminal
justice, and I had applied for an internship position with the FBI, not
a full time or permanent job position, and at that point they were
interested in my language skills, but they basically messed it up. I
sent them the application, I took the polygraph test for that
internship position for their language department, and somehow in 1999
they lost all that information — not only mine, but from 150 other
applicants they had for language specialist positions. These documents,
these files were lost within the FBI — or at least that's the
explanation they gave to these applicants.
And then the 911 terrorist event took place and I'd turn on the TV and
kept hearing the Director of the FBI pleading for language specialists
— especially for the languages that I speak — because they were
desperate for language specialists. And at that point it was a duty to
go and say "Look — I have these skills, you need these skills for the
nation, and I'm offering it to you." So I took this position as a
contract language specialist for those languages and my top secret
clearance was issued and I started working five days after 911.
Swanson: And they were in pretty bad shape, right? How many skilled
translators of Turkish materials did they have at that point?
Edmonds: At that point they had no Turkish language specialists... In
fact, they had an unofficial division for years, and they had people
coming, on and off, from DOD, or the State Department on loan, and
working on certain projects, but they did not even have a formal
division for Turkish. They had a small division for Arabic language,
and they also had a large division for Farsi — the language spoken in
Iran.
As you know, because of the Cold War, most of the emphasis was placed
on Russian languages — so they had a very large division for the
Russian language. Since 1991, the need was not as great for those
languages, and they never fortified the other divisions — so they had a
lot of Russian translators, and a lot of Chinese translators, very few
Arabic language specialists, and a mid—size Farsi department.
And more than the size, and this is quantity—vs.—quality, the
department was not even managed, because the solid good working people
(at the FBI) are mainly agents, but the language division is not
managed by the agents — that division, for all these languages, is
managed by administrative people. These people are former language
specialists who have been promoted to supervisory positions who oversee
the language division, and you have no direct involvement from the
agents — so you have this layer of administrative people blocking the
interaction between the agents and the language specialists. The second
reason is that the language division is considered the most classified
and sensitive unit in the entire FBI — so the clearance we had, and the
access we had, was far more sensitive than the agents'. So even when an
agent wanted to come to the division and work for a few minutes with a
particular language specialist, that agent had to be escorted to the
division, and watched, because everything is managed on a
'need—to—know' basis, and let's say an agent is coming to that division
to talk with a Turkish language specialist, he may be exposed to some
other information from, let's say, the Chinese counter—intelligence, or
Arabic, for let's say Saudi Arabia. And they didn't want that to take
place, so there was this great separation between the agents and the
language specialists — and that itself brought a lot of problems with
it — because you had these bureaucratic layers in the middle and the
agents were very frustrated because they wanted to work directly with
the language specialists.
You know, a lot of people consider the language specialists as like a
clerical job, but you need to realize, when the information comes and
you’re looking at all sorts of intelligence, whether it's
counter—intelligence or criminal, related to all these different
languages and countries, the first people exposed to it are the
language specialists. Before that information gets transferred to
agents or analysts, the first person who sees it is the language
specialist in charge of that particular language — and that language
specialist is in a position to decide whether or not, this particular
piece of information, whether it's a wiretap or document, is important
enough to be translated, whether or not it should be translated
verbatim — in detail, or just a summary translation. So by the time
that information goes to an analyst or an agent, it has already gone
through this filter of the language specialist. So not only do they
need to have language skills, linguistic skills, the translators also
need to have training and enough information and knowledge to be able
to make that decision in terms of what is important, and not, what is
urgent, and not urgent.
Swanson: There's a saying in Italian "Traduttore traditore" which means
"The translator is a traitor" — which is something that poets and
authors think — and this gives new meaning to that phrase. If you have
someone in that position who is not doing their job, who has other
interests and loyalties, they're in a position of enormous power
because no—one else has seen, or can understand the information that
has come in.
So you took this job 5 days after 911 and you were not translating
newspapers and public materials, so we can hope that someone at the
State Department was doing that — you were translating wiretapped
calls, transcripts and so forth, and by March of 2002 you were fired.
Why were you fired? What happened in between?
Edmonds: Well — I'll try to answer that briefly, because so much
information is already available on the net, in various publications
that have come out that basically summarize the issues that I reported
Swanson: Ok — what's the best place for people to go?
Edmonds: They can go to my website — <a
href="http://justacitizen.com/">www.justacitizen.com</a> — and
there are plenty of documents there, both official documents and
various interviews etc summarizing the case and there are court
documents there.
But if I were to summarize the 3 or 4 general areas that I reported in
terms of the serious problems... One had to do with, and this took
place almost within the first two months I was there, that had to do
with information related to counter—terrorism division dealing mainly
with the 911 terror attacks — and in order to deal with it, not only
did it deal with information available after 911, but the agents and
the divisions went and actually retrieved a lot of documents and
wiretap conversations — some of them dating back to 1999/2000 — on
various suspects, or people they believed maybe were suspects.
So they wanted to review a lot of things that took place even before
911. So you were not only dealing, after 911, with information that
started coming in, or being obtained after the terrorist attack, but a
lot of information that either was translated — verbatim or in many
cases summary translations — or things that were maybe overlooked that
were retrieved, again from the archives, and this was a decision made
by the higher—ups, and for some of those materials to be reviewed again
to see what was missed, or what was not translated correctly etc.
Swanson: But you clearly came upon things that the FBI did not want to
see made public — would have found embarrassing. Things that you made
public to the extent that you were able, that things were poorly
translated, things were missed, things were done wrong, and you
reported to higher—ups that you had colleagues who were not doing their
work properly.
Edmonds: Correct — and, again, there were two categories involved. In
some cases it was either intentional or unintentional, unintentional
due to incompetence — certain information that was not translated
before 911 or they were translated inaccurately. And I also emphasize
intentional cases that I reported.
The second category (of things that I reported) was other information
that was available and there were significant issues, significant
cases, that were not pursued because of 'certain diplomatic relations'
and this is something that a lot of people have a hard time
understanding, and that is, selective selection of information. That
is, let's say certain information came from, let me give you a
hypothetical example, let's say it came from Iraq, or certain Iraqi
individuals, you can bet that would be processed because of the Axis of
Evil Doctrine by our President
Swanson: Whereas Saudi Arabia is 'less evil', for example?
Edmonds: Absolutely! Or you would have in certain cases, there were
certain cases that you had several individuals or entities from
different nations, let's say, Pakistan, or Turkey, or Israel — and that
information, due to pressure by the State Department, they were not
transferring that information from counter—intelligence (they were
obtained under counter—intelligence, ok) — to the counter—terrorism
division — even though they were relevant, extremely relevant, directly
relevant.
So the agents were very frustrated because, another thing your
listeners hopefully will grasp here, when we say 'the FBI' it's not the
entire FBI. All the agents that I worked with, they were great
individuals, they were patriotic, they were as frustrated as I was —
and they were outraged that these layers from the Pentagon, and the
State Department, that they were interfering with their investigations
— because automatically they had the right, the obligation, to transfer
that information that they obtained from counter—intelligence, let's
say, involving money laundering tied to some terrorist activities, by
let's say, Turkish individuals, or some Pakistani individuals, or
entities here in the US (whether official governmental related
entities, or others) — to counter—terrorism to be pursued because they
considered the relationship with Pakistan and Turkey too sensitive and
they didn't want to mess it up.
Swanson: And so when you ran up against these issues — facts that you
thought important that were being covered over, you went higher and
higher up, correct? And so you spoke with people like Deputy Assistant
Attorney General, or the Director of the FBI — did you ever get
anywhere? And how high did the problem go?
Edmonds: You are right on target, because again, there's this
misconception out there. People think 'OK, a whistleblower sees some
wrongdoing and they just jump out there and go to the media and leak
the information.' I spent 3.5—4 months — first I went to my
supervisors, but they were a part of the problem. Then I went above
them, I went to the division chief, then I went to the FBI
headquarters, I went all the way up to the Director — Director Mueller.
And I filed these issues, and when I filed them, I filed them with the
supporting documents. — it was not me saying 'This is what I think is
happening.' Because it was within the FBI, I was presenting them —
let's say there were certain forms, certain documents — to the FBI
Office of Professional Responsibility — OPR — and the amazing thing
that took place was, immediately I started seeing this reaction to it
towards me.
First, the FBI management accused me of having gone to congress, and
disclosing this information to congress, and I had not done so at that
point. I didn't believe that I needed to go to Congress at that point.
They did not believe me — they said 'we are suspicious that you have
been communicating with congress on these classified issues and doing
this via email communication' — so I had agents coming to my house and
removing my home computer — my husbands computer — without a warrant!
They took it, and then took it to pieces, and they didn’t find anything
— and so I said 'OK — maybe it was a misunderstanding.' Two weeks later
they issued an order for me to take a polygraph test, and the polygraph
test was to determine whether I had gone to Congress. Their fear was
not the classification, the fear was whether this was going outside the
FBI — and I passed the polygraph because I had not gone to congress at
that point. Then they started removing my jobs, and as you know,
finally I was terminated, and during these 3—4 months, I presented them
with these 3 or 4 different categories of very important issues.
The other important case (that I reported on), had to do with certain
public officials, corruption cases, that the FBI had obtained — and
again, this was the operation that was taking place between 1997 and
2002 — and I’m talking about solid evidence. And these officials are
high—profile public officials.
Swanson: People as high as say Congressman Denny Hastert?
Edmonds: Well, that information has been public, with the <a
href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9774.htm">Vanity
Fair article</a>, and he was only one of the people, at least
from the elected officials side — one of several. And they had at least
2 or 3 people in the Pentagon, and they had at least one person in the
State Department — and they had this documented information, evidence,
on these people actually not serving the interests of the United States
— and giving out extremely sensitive information to other...
Swanson: To Turkey.
Edmonds: Well, when you say "Turkey" — not necessarily the government
of Turkey that we consider an ally, but to entities that who are driven
by certain interests — many of them financial interests that have to do
with the military industrial complex — and they had this information,
and those same individuals — not the ones from Congress necessarily,
but the ones from the State Dept and Pentagon.
They were not only doing it with one country — because that operation
was the sister operation of another investigation that dealt with
Israel, but the FBI was not translating these from counter—intelligence
to investigation units, and they were supposed to do that. They were
supposed to transfer and let the counter—espionage unit in the FBI, and
the criminal division handle it. But they were not (transferring these
cases). So this was another case that I reported internally — and I
never got anywhere with it as far as the FBI was concerned — and later,
of course, when Ashcroft came out and invoked the State Secrets
Privilege, Ashcroft himself inadvertently explained it! There is a
sentence there saying "The State Secrets Privilege is being invoked in
order to protect certain sensitive diplomatic relations and business
relations of the US" — this is an exact quote from Ashcroft, explaining
why the State Secrets Privilege was invoked.
Swanson: Right! 'Business relations' as though the US is a business...
It's amazing to me that you put one honest person in the FBI for a few
months and they end up reporting a number of different scandals and
failures, and it makes you wonder what goes on the rest of the time.
And the story of what happened, you sued, and they got it thrown out on
grounds of 'State Secrets' — from what I've read there have been
threats to your family, a suspect colleague of yours has left the
country effectively with the result that they can't be called to
testify, and I guess at least some of the allegations that you've made
have been confirmed, if not made public, by the Inspector General at
the Justice Dept who said that you were basically fired in retaliation
— is that right?
Edmonds: Absolutely, and the most amazing aspect of it is, let's say
you have a Justice Dept and the FBI who is willy—nilly invoking this
privilege to cover—up criminal wrongdoings, but then you have these
judges in the Federal Court, due to this fear of 'Oh, I'm going to be
violating some classification and helping the terrorists' or for
whatever reasons, going along with it, and this happened in the lower
court, it happened in the appellate court.
I don't know if you remember this, but during the appellate court
hearings, these three judges closed the court to the public and the
media, and after we argued our case, when the ACLU was representing my
case before the appellate court, and then it was the government's
attorneys turn to argue their case, they asked us, the plaintiffs — my
attorneys and I — to step out of the courtroom because we couldn’t even
hear what argument the government had! I mean, how can you argue in
court against something that you don't even know what it is? So this is
the Kafkaesque aspect of it, and what our country has come down to.
Swanson: And you're not a prisoner in Guantanamo — you're an employee
of the FBI! Not that they shouldn’t have these rights either. This is
the throwing out of the right to stand and hear the evidence against
you that's been part of American and British justice for hundreds of
years.
Edmonds: It's more than that, David. They are doing it to an American
citizen. What made me really outraged was the fact that nobody in the
media really reported on this. Here is an American citizen, not a
terrorism suspect — and yes, they are misusing that big time, and it's
against all sorts of human—rights principles that we are supposed to
have here — but the fact that they are doing it to an American citizen,
not someone who is a suspect in a criminal case, or terrorism case,
this is an American citizen who is being deprived of her due process
and her Fourth Amendment, and nobody in the media picked it up. The
implications of this, now they are doing it successfully,
unfortunately, to American citizens. What does it say about where we
are today as a nation? And the disregard they have to the Bill of
Rights, and our constitution?
Swanson: And information that the FBI made public, or gave to Congress,
they classified that retroactively right? They went back and decided we
should make this stuff classified after it was out there! Is there any
possible respectable explanation for that kind of secrecy?
Edmonds: Absolutely not. In fact, later on in court, and this is the
Project on Government Oversight — POGO — they sued the Justice Dept and
they said "No. This information was available for two years. More than
30,000 websites have already downloaded it. How could you classify
something that has been out there for two years?" Later, the FBI
conceded and they didn't go through the lawsuit, they said 'Fine — you
can publicize it.'
Despite that fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee, the congress, still
didn't put those documents back online, they are still afraid to put it
out there. That is the part that is so mind—boggling — which brings us
to another important point. I went to Congress, I went to the
appropriate committees, the Senate Judiciary committee and later I went
to Congressman Waxman's committee — that's the Government Reform
Committee — and I observed the classification rules, I went inside the
SCIFs — these are the secured facilities they have where they can
receive classified information where you can present them with
documents, and details, and file numbers etc. Initially, we had Senator
Grassley and Senator Leahy, a Democrat and a Republican — this was in
the summer of 2002. These two senators, together, came out publicly and
they said 'We started investigating this case, we have already
interviewed the FBI officials, they confirmed all her allegations to
us, and she's 100% credible. We need to turn the FBI upside down' — and
this comment that 'We need to turn the FBI upside down' was made by
Senator Grassley on CBS 60 Minutes, with 5+ million people watching.
Swanson: And what was the follow through?
Edmonds: Nothing. Initially, they promised that there would be this
major public hearing, they were going to bring these witnesses —
because I'm not the only witness. Some of these people's names are not
public because they haven't come out to blow the whistle publicly, but
they have to congress and the Justice Dept Inspector General's office
filing exactly the same reports that I filed. They started doing this
in 2002 in April, May.
Swanson: Are some of them still employed?
Edmonds: Some of them are retired — and you're looking at veteran FBI
agents who were in charge of these operations. They want to testify
under oath, they want to testify publicly, and they have filed these
reports. So we got the promise from Congress that there will be a
hearing, these agents will testify, they will bring in the bad guys
from the FBI and have them testify under oath — and then, nothing. A
deafening silence.
Swanson: A lot of Americans expected that of the Republican Congress.
We've now had 2.5 months of a Democratic Congress, with Senator Leahy
now the Chairman. Now Senator Leahy can do more than just write letters
and complain about Senator Grassley — what has the difference been?
What change have you seen?
Edmonds: Well, we are hoping to see the change. Let me first do the
distinction between the Senate and the House. With the Senate, even
though we have had Democrats gaining the Majority, we haven't had
almost any support from almost any Senate offices. Unfortunately,
somebody like Senator Feingold, who I respect tremendously, he's not on
the appropriate committee — but you're looking at Senator Leahy, you're
looking at Senator Akaka, they are still acting as though they are
being repressed there — and they don't want to touch these issues. And
of course, you know, people like Senator Clinton — and there are so
many of them, and again, it's mind—boggling how these people, after
getting the voters who said 'We need change,' they're not doing what
they were asked to do — the reason they got re—elected, or some of them
who got elected.
In the House we have a little bit more positive situation because we
have some great individuals, people who I respect tremendously,
Chairman Conyers, and Chairman Waxman, who have already started fairly
well, and again it remains to be seen with some of the issues. I'm
still hoping that they will do more, but at least we have had some
positive response. We’ve got a hearing for whistleblowers through
congressman Waxman's office and congressman Waxman's committee — the
Government Reform Committee — introduced one of the best, I would say
the only good legislation to protect whistleblowers which will include
national security whistleblowers — from the agencies like the FBI, NSA,
CIA etc. We are so thankful for that — but when it comes to my case,
because it is so controversial, because it is so packed with damning
information, they have not been willing — and this is specifically
congressman Waxman's office — the Government Reform Committee — to come
out publicly and commit to this hearing.
And there is nothing, David, nothing that stops them — they have
subpoena power, they don't even need to use it a lot because there are
so many agents, and I have their names, and they are willing to go and
testify under oath. We have been asking congressman Waxman to come out
publicly and say 'We are going to hold this public hearing' — and I’m
going to emphasize the word 'public' — I have had closed hearings which
act like these black holes — you go there and you give the information
and nothing happens. This information belongs to the American public
and until that happens we won't find out about some unbelievable
criminal activities that are taking place within our government
agencies.
So last week
we started this public action that you're aware of, and I'm very thankful to your website
because you published that and you have been one of the supporters and
you have signed on to
this petition.
We have 30 organizations — and this is transpartisan, David. We have
the ACLU, OMB Watch, Project on Government Oversight, GAP (Government
Accountability Project), National Coalition against Censorship,
OpenTheGovernment.org — we have people from the right, we have
libertarian organizations like Liberty Coalition, we have People For
the American Way, your organization. Thirty major organizations have
come together and put together this petition, serving congressman
Waxman and his committee — and this happened last week — saying 'We
want you to have open, public hearings on this case' — not about the
whistleblower being fired — about what were the issues that were being
covered up, and are still covered up, and (calling) other agents and
other witnesses to testify so we can take this information to the
American public and we'll see some accountability.
And so far we have received no response, David. We have 15000 citizens
who have signed this <a
href="http://nswbc.org/Reports%20—%20Documents/Petition—StateSecrets.htm">petition</a>,
we have 30 major organizations, we have had hundreds if not thousands
of people calling in the past few days, and we are still waiting to
hear from Chairman Waxman's office to publicly say that 'Yes, we are
going to hold these public hearings,' and have these witnesses, these
veteran agents, these high level FBI people who are willing to testify,
to testify. We want to introduce these documents that have no
information that is 'state secrets' or that will hurt our national
security — but information that will let the public know that here we
have appointed officials and elected officials who are out there
engaged in treason!
Now, some people may consider the way I'm characterizing this as maybe
outrageous, or an exaggeration, but I don't know what else to call it,
David. When you have people, for greed, for money, selling out
information, covering up cases, giving out our true State Secrets
information to entities — whether or not they're allies, Israel or
Turkey or Pakistan — these people are engaged in treason.
And these cases are documented, the files, the wiretaps, go back to
1997, 1998. They are documented, there are documents, there are
witnesses and we need to expose these people and we need to see
criminal indictments against these people — and it will (happen). All
we need is for this hearing to take place, for people to testify, and
for the documents to be introduced, then you're going to see criminal
indictments against these people.
Swanson: That's extremely well said, and I think it's exactly right.
This is the purpose that Congress serves — to hold public hearings, not
to issue reports quietly from friendly witnesses, but to use the power
of the subpoena, and putting people under oath, and in front of cameras
— and this congress has not done this on the fraud that took us into
this war, and has not done it on the mis—steps that allowed 911 to
occur, and this is what we put a Democratic majority in the there for
in hope of, and we have yet to see it.
If people want to get involved and help push for this to happen with your case, how can they do that?
Edmonds: The best thing they can do, and the time to do it is right now
because we just released this petition, they were just served last week
with this petition signed by 15,000 people and signed by 30
organizations, is for all your listeners to call Congressman Waxman's
office, both the <a
href="http://oversight.house.gov/contact.asp">committee's
office</a> and his <a
href="http://www.henrywaxman.house.gov/contact.htm">personal
office</a>, and demand — send letters, call, because calling is
effective, send letters and emails, and say 'We want you to come out
publicly and commit to his hearing, and have this public hearing take
place' because they listen.
Unfortunately we don't have a good, independent mainstream media —
otherwise we wouldn't be in this position in the first place, David.
You mentioned Iraq, and the illegal war — with all these cases,
unfortunately, our mainstream media acted as enablers. They sit in the
middle there and they didn’t do what they were supposed to do, they're
still not doing it, and they're leaving the public in the dark. So
because we don't have the mainstream media we have people like you. We
have websites like yours, we have some of these great organizations who
are doing it on behalf of the public.
Swanson: And we have some very talented film—makers, I haven’t seen it
yet, but who have made a
documentary of your story, right?
Edmonds: Yes David — and it's ironic, because here it took these French
producers, coming from France, on behalf of this Channel2 French
network to put together for a year and a half, these directors and the
producers worked on this case to document it. And they also did a lot
of investigative work — but they had to come from France to put it in
place here on a case, on an issue that implicates US officials, and has
implications for the American public. And the Vanity Fair article that
you mentioned, that was done by this great reporter, David Rose, who is
British, he lives in England — he had to come and do a one year
investigation to that piece out, and I don't know what our mainstream
media reporters are doing, but we are depending on foreign nations, and
other countries, to do what our own mainstream media should be doing
here.
And again, as I said, that's why it's up to these organizations,
activists like you and your listeners to take that two minutes, maybe
less than two minutes, and call Chairman Waxman, and remind him that
he's the Chairman, there's no obstacle.
This case is not allegation, it's not a case that needs to be
investigated, that has already been done. Even the Dept of Justice's
own Inspector General's Office has put out a report vindicating the
case. We have had bipartisan congressional statements saying that this
is credible, and absolutely confirming it. So this is not taking
something that is unknown. He's the Chairman, he has the power, there's
nothing that stands in his way, this is a confirmed case, let's see
some justice and accountability.
I don't want anything my job, about why I was fired, about why they did
these wrongdoings — yes, they did it to me, that is me personally being
affected, and it also sends a chilling message to other whistleblowers
— but that is secondary. The most important thing is there are
individuals who are engaged in acts of treason, okay. People from the
State Dept, people from the Pentagon — some of these individuals are
already under some quasi—investigations. I mean, we hear things about
Douglas Feith, we are hearing things about Richard Perle, but trust me,
they are not putting everything that there is out there. Because when
you are looking at organizations like the American Turkish Council
here, and you see the sister organization is AIPAC. AIPAC helped form
the American Turkish Council — look at the board members, look at the
people. You will see the same people involved in both fronts, because
it is the same operation. And you come across the same individuals over
and over again. You know, I don't understand how the case only ended up
stopping with Larry Franklin — and I still can't believe that the
evidence that they had from the parallel investigation didn't get its
way into the court. You need to look at individuals like Richard Perle,
Douglas Feith, Marc Grossman, Dennis Hastert, and others. And
documented evidence they have collected on these people. What are they
doing with this information?
Swanson: It's an excellent question. All of those people and more need
to be subpoenaed and put under oath, and on camera, and we need to get
some information to the public, without which we're not going to have a
democracy. So I would encourage everyone to take your suggestion, and
call Congressman Henry Waxman, and ask for open, public hearings on
this issue. And go to where? The
National Security Whistleblowers
Coalition website?
Edmonds: If you could publish the information — Luke Ryland has put
together an action
campaign
page with all of that information with Congressman Waxman's
office phone number, fax information, email etc. It's a very good
website done by Luke Ryland, and I would appreciate it if you would add
that information so your listeners
can go to that
website and also the phone numbers for Chairman Waxman so
that they can call and contact, that would be great (see contact
details below).
Swanson: We will do that, no question. Thank you very much for taking
this time to open some eyes to what still needs to be looked into.
Edmonds: Thank you David, and thank you for everything you have been
doing, because as I said, our only basically is you people, us, and
those of us who are saying 'Let's defend our country against all
enemies — not foreign,, but also domestic' — and that's what you have
been doing so we are thankful for everything you have been doing. Thank
you.
———————————————————————
Contact Information
Congressman Henry Waxman
contact page
In Washington, D.C.
2204 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225—3976 (phone)
(202) 225—4099 (fax)
Ask for Michelle Ash (
Michelle.Ash@mail.house.gov ) & David Rapallo (
David.Rapallo@mail.house.gov )
In Los Angeles
8436 West Third Street, Suite 600
Los Angeles, CA 90048
(323) 651—1040 (phone)
(818) 878—7400 (phone)
(310) 652—3095 (phone)
(323) 655—0502 (fax)
By Mail or Phone:House Government Reform Committee (
contact page)
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
2157 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225—5051
Please also contact
Congressman John Conyers, asking him to support hearings by Chairman Waxman.
Email: John.Conyers@mail.house.gov
Washington, DC
2426 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225—5126
(202) 225—0072 Fax
Ask for Elliot Mintzberg.
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