Doug Weldon posted that, "it strains belief that the letter was categorically rejected...."

[Guest Tom Scully]

....One final comment not directly related to your review but suggestive of Johnson's complicity: the Douglas Caddy letter to Stephen Trott on behalf of his client Billie Sol Estes implicating LBJ in nine murders. This letter was presented in exchange for immunity for his client. I have not seen the orignal letter that Trott wrote to Caddy. As a former prosecutor it strains belief that the letter was categorically rejected without some negotiation. Obviously LBJ was long deceased but it could have targeted others. Trott was later appointed to be a federal judge.

Best,

Doug Weldon

Doug Weldon, after I read about the background of a federal judge's decision to free Ed Wilson several years ago, it strains belief that any of the federal lawyers who remained silent all those years Wilson was imprisoned, could still be members of the bar in good standing, let alone

promoted by a U.S. president to sit as a judge on a federal appeals court, By the way, the OPR seems to have avoided dealing with this, although it was reported to be investigating. (see article images at the bottom of this post.)

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Investigation/story?id=708779&page=3

'The Most Dangerous Man in America'

Conviction of Former CIA Agent Overturned on False Affidavit (page 3)

April 27, 2005

...Government Lawyers

Hughes, in his ruling, singled out Greenberg, about whom he wrote, "deliberately, knowing the facts, Greenberg ignored the CIA attorneys' requests and used it."

In a statement to Nightline, Greenberg says he was never warned by the CIA that the affidavit was false, that the concerns were about tactics.

Greenberg said he would never file "with the court an affidavit or other document which I knew to be inaccurate or false."

The supervising prosecutor on the case, Larry Barcella, says he cannot recall seeing the affidavit before it was introduced and denies doing anything improper when the issue was raised later. But according to Adler, Barcella participated in the meetings when it was discussed that something might have to be corrected about the affidavit.

Wilson has filed complaints with the Washington, D.C., bar association about Barcella.

"Evil, that's a word I like. Evil," Wilson said about the prosecutors. "They were not just doing their jobs. They were doing it for themselves."

After the guilty verdict, the CIA general counsel, Stanley Sporkin, who had told prosecutors prior to introduction of the affidavit in the trail that it should be amended or not used, again raised a red flag, according to one of the documents Adler and Wilson discovered.

"The CIA drafted up a letter that the agency proposed be sent to Wilson's attorneys disclosing the problem with the affidavit," Adler said. "And again the Justice Department rejected the CIA's suggestion that the letter be sent to Mr. Wilson's lawyer, and so it was never disclosed at that juncture either."

page 4

D. Lowell Jensen was in charge of the criminal division of the Justice Department when the decision was first made. He declined to comment on his role in the Wilson case. Adler said he "found a fair number of memos that were addressed to him, or from him, talking about the problem, talking about the decision to keep quiet about this."

Stephen Trott replaced Jensen as the top Justice Department official at the time. Trott says he recalls a meeting on the Wilson case but none of the details.

The Justice Department has now admitted the affidavit used to convict Wilson was false, an innocent error, its lawyers told Hughes.

As for the CIA, they will only say, "It was Mr. Wilson's decision to sell explosives to Libya, and that's why he was sent to jail."

However, Hughes put it another way. "America will not defeat Libyan terrorism by double-crossing a part-time, informal government agent," he wrote.

Wilson says he lost all he had, his family and his wealth, over the 22 years he was in prison. Now living with his brother in Seattle, he says he simply wants to clear his name.

Vic Walter, Avni Patel and Jessica Wang contributed to this report.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Investigation/story?id=708779&page=1

'The Most Dangerous Man in America'

Conviction of Former CIA Agent Overturned on False Affidavit

by Brian Ross ABC News Chief In vestigative Correspondent

April 27, 2005 — This is the story of a man, a one-time CIA officer, who spent 22 years in prison after being branded a traitor and a threat to the country.

"That was me," Ed Wilson said. "The most dangerous man in America, which is ridiculous."

Wilson, at age 54, was sentenced in 1983 to 52 years in prison. He was convicted on selling weapons and 20 tons of C-4 plastic explosives to Moammar Gadhafi's Libya. He was also convicted of trying to arrange a contract hit on the prosecutors.

Wilson's defense was that he was still working with the CIA and that the agency knew and approved of everything he was doing with Libya, including the shipment of the explosives.

Prosecutor Ted Greenberg said at the time that Wilson was making up his connection to the CIA. "Mr. Wilson did not work for the CIA or any other part of the intelligence community," he said.

In Houston, Texas, Wilson's conviction was overturned by a federal judge, Lynn Hughes, who identified about two dozen government lawyers, including Greenberg, who participated in the use of a false CIA affidavit that sent Wilson to prison and the silence about the affidavit after serious questions were raised about its accuracy. And Hughes minced no words in his opinion.

"In the course of American justice, one would have to work hard to conceive of a more fundamentally unfair process," wrote Hughes, "than the fabrication of false data by the government, under oath by a government official, presented knowingly by the prosecutor in the courtroom with the express approval of his superiors in Washington."

Wilson is a free man now.

The Affidavit

The CIA would not disclose its records but did provide an affidavit in the final days of the trial from a top CIA official that said, with one minor exception, Wilson "was not asked or requested, directly or indirectly, to perform or provide any services, directly or indirectly, for CIA."

It was the lynchpin of the government's case, according to Wilson's current lawyer, David Adler.

"It was read into evidence during the trial," Adler said. "The jury went back to deliberate. After a short time of deliberations, the jurors asked to hear this affidavit again. It was re-read to them, and an hour later they voted guilty on all counts for Mr. Wilson. So I think it was critical to the jury's decision." ....

...It would take 20 years for Wilson to prove that the affidavit was false. From his cell in Marion, Wilson began to seek government documents using the Freedom of Information Act. It was 14 years later that the government turned over an internal Justice Department memo, buried in a large stack of other documents, in which Justice Department officials acknowledge the CIA affidavit was possibly false and discuss what to do about it.

"Somebody slipped up and never intended for Mr. Wilson to see this document," Adler said. "I think they forgot that if you put someone in solitary confinement, that they don't have a lot to do all day other than to pore through these documents, and I think Mr. Wilson paid a lot more attention to the materials than the people who were responsible for releasing them at the Justice Department."

Since then, Adler, a former CIA officer himself who was at first skeptical when assigned the case, has discovered dozens of Justice Department and CIA documents that prove the key affidavit in the Wilson case was false and that many in the government knew it. He said one document revealed at least 80 instances of contact between Wilson providing and the CIA.

"I'm not skeptical anymore," Adler said. "I think the documents are about as clear as they could be that this was an intentional, purposeful effort to conceal the truth from the judge, from the jury, from Mr. Wilson and his defense lawyers and from the public."

And some of those involved in the Wilson case went on to become some of the most prominent men in legal circles today.

"Many careers were greatly enhanced by the successful prosecution of Mr. Wilson back in 1983," Adler said. "I think I've uncovered something that, at the very least, should question whether or not they deserve to have those types of positions."

Government Lawyers

Hughes, in his ruling, singled out Greenberg, about whom he wrote, "deliberately, knowing the facts, Greenberg ignored the CIA attorneys' requests and used it."

In a statement to Nightline, Greenberg says he was never warned by the CIA that the affidavit was false, that their concerns were about tactics.

Greenberg said he would never file "with the court an affidavit or other document which I knew to be inaccurate or false."

The supervising prosecutor on the case, Larry Barcella, says he cannot recall seeing the affidavit before it was introduced and denies doing anything improper when the issue was raised later. But according to Adler, Barcella participated in the meetings when it was discussed that something might have to be corrected about the affidavit.

Wilson has filed complaints with the Washington, D.C., bar association about Barcella.

"Evil, that's a word I like. Evil," Wilson said about the prosecutors. "They were not just doing their jobs. They were doing it for themselves."

After the guilty verdict, the CIA general counsel, Stanley Sporkin, who had told prosecutors prior to introduction of the affidavit in the trail that it should be amended or not used, again raised a red flag, according to one of the documents Adler and Wilson discovered.

"The CIA drafted up a letter that the agency proposed be sent to Wilson's attorneys disclosing the problem with the affidavit," Adler said. "And again the Justice Department rejected the CIA's suggestion that the letter be sent to Mr. Wilson's lawyer, and so it was never disclosed at that juncture either."

D. Lowell Jensen was in charge of the criminal division of the Justice Department when the decision was first made. He declined to comment on his role in the Wilson case. Adler said he "found a fair number of memos that were addressed to him, or from him, talking about the problem, talking about the decision to keep quiet about this."

Documents Related to the Case: http://abcnews.go.com/images/Nightline/wilson3.pdf

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/309675_spy30.html

Last updated March 29, 2007 11:21 p.m. PT

Ex-spy dealt setback in fight to clear name

By TRACY JOHNSON

P-I REPORTER

A notorious former spy living in the Seattle area was dealt a blow Thursday in his efforts to show he was unfairly labeled a traitor, though he will keep fighting to clear his name.

A judge in Houston dismissed Edwin Wilson's lawsuit against seven former federal prosecutors -- including two who are now federal judges -- and a former executive director of the CIA. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal found that even if the officials' behavior was improper when Wilson was sent to prison in the early 1980s, all eight legally have immunity from Wilson's claims of wrongdoing.

"I'm not giving up at all. I'm going all-out to win this thing," Wilson, 78, said Thursday. "This is just a minor setback."

An attorney for former prosecutor Lawrence Barcella, who spent years working to put Wilson in prison and was a target of his lawsuit, said she was pleased.

"The judge did absolutely the right thing," attorney Melinda Sarafa said. "We have felt from the beginning that the claims against the prosecutors would not hold up."

Wilson's attorney, Steve Berman, said he was disappointed for Wilson and will appeal.

"There were lies told before, during and after his trial, and the judge basically said, 'too bad,' " Berman said. "We don't believe they have immunity."...

http://fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson102703.pdf

(page 15)

The court has identified about two dozen government lawyers who actively participated in the original non-disclosure to the defense, the false rebuttal testimony, and the refusal to correct it.

Governmental regularity—due process—requires personal and institutional

integrity. CIA attorneys told Assistant U.S. Attorney Ted Greenberg that the Briggs affidavit should not be used as evidence, as then written, and asked him not introduce it. He did.

CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin advised that, at minimum,the word

“indirectly” should be removed from paragraph four. Deliberately, knowing the

facts, Greenberg ignored the CIA attorneys' requests and used it. (Wilson Mot. to

Vacate, Ex. 98 ¶¶ 3-5.)

Although it admits that it presented false evidence at Wilson’s trial and

now lists solicitations and services he performed post-termination, the

governmentsaysthat Wilson has not proved that the prosecutors knew that it was false. Persistence in this contention reveals that consistency is valued higher than fidelity at the Department of Justice.

First, the government says that the prosecutors meant “taskings related to

the gathering of intelligence” where Briggs’s affidavit reads, “asked or requested directly or indirectly to perform or provide services.” (Gov't Answer at 54.)...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1139812,00.html

Monday, Dec. 12, 2005

A Rogue's Revenge

Disavowed by the CIA and jailed for 22 years, an ex-spy now wants someone to pay

By ADAM ZAGORIN

...Largely using the Freedom of Information Act to compel the government to turn over papers, Wilson has dug up official records of more than 80 contacts he had with CIA officials--many of them high ranking--during the period in question. Those documents show that prosecutors and the CIA officials assisting them were aware of the contacts. The foreman of the jury that found Wilson guilty of selling C-4 to Libya, which was subject to a total U.S. arms embargo at the time, told ABC News earlier this year, "If we had known [of Wilson's CIA links], I could say unequivocally that there would not have been a guilty verdict." It was on the basis of the newfound evidence that District Court Judge Lynn Hughes threw out Wilson's conviction, saying from the bench, "One would have to work hard to conceive of a more fundamentally unfair process ... than the fabrication of false data by the government ... presented knowingly by the prosecutor in the courtroom with the express approval of his superiors in Washington."

That same day a UPI wire service story described the deliberations. "Juror Betty Metzler said the panel was divided 11-1 almost from the start, and one juror was not convinced until Saturday morning by rereading of Briggs' affidavit denying Wilson's actions had anything to do with the CIA."

A week later, on February 10, 1983, Attorney Kim E. Rosenfield in the Attorney General's office sent a memorandum to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard who ran DoJ's Criminal Division. The title of the memorandum was "Duty to Disclose Possibly False Testimony" and the memorandum pulled no punches. It went straight to prevailing case law (then and now) as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and cited two cases known as Brady and Napue. The Napue case held that, "Failure of prosecutor to correct testimony which he knows to be false violates due process, whether the falsehood bears on credibility of witness or guilt of defendant, if it is in any way relevant to the case." In Brady the court ruled that "Suppression of material evidence by the government requires a new trial, irrespective of good or bad faith."

The memorandum continued, "Prosecutor has duty to correct false testimony even if falsehood was inadvertent or caused by another government officer. New trial required if the false testimony could "in any reasonable likelihood have affected the judgement of the jury." ..........

......From the documents in the filing it is apparent that through November of 1983, long after Edwin Wilson had been sentenced to 17 years on the C-4 violations, every lawyer from the Justice Department who became aware of the "inaccuracy" of the Briggs affidavit kept their mouth shut about it. A reading of the law and an easily understandable sense of fair play suggest that this was wrong. That many people were worried about the use of the memorandum is clear. Both Stanley Sporkin and Mark Richard can be seen, in a variety of memoranda and meetings, arguing for disclosure or some remedy. It is apparent that either their consciences or their fears of exposure were very "sensitized."

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/Ed_Wilson_1.html

Ed Wilson's Revenge

The Biggest CIA Scandal in History Has Its Feet in the Starting Blocks in a Houston Court House

by Michael C. Ruppert

.....The Briggs Declaration

Charles A. Briggs was, on February 3, 1983, the third highest-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency. He was one of few men at CIA who could break through the compartments and search anywhere for records. He was the man to solve the problem in Houston. In Langley, Virginia, at 2:23 P.M., Houston time (according to a government teletype), Charles Briggs signed a declaration stating that on November 8th of 1982 he had authorized a search of all records of the CIA "for any material that in any way pertains to Edwin P. Wilson or the various allegations concerning his activities after 28 February 1971, when he resigned from the CIA."

Paragraph 4 of the Briggs Declaration states, "According to CIA records, with one exception while he was employed by Naval Intelligence in 1972, Mr. Edwin P. Wilson was not asked or requested, directly or indirectly, to perform or provide any services, directly or indirectly, for CIA."

At 2:30 P.M., Houston time, CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin certified the affidavit and affixed the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency to it. It was also notarized by a notary public licensed in Fairfax County, Virginia. Harold Fahringer, one of Wilson's attorneys was served with a copy of the affidavit at 3:55 P.M. Houston time - presumably in Houston. According to a partially declassified CIA memorandum, included in Wilson's filings, dated March 15, 1983 (40 days after Wilson's conviction), on the day and evening of February 3, 1983 "CIA attorneys stated to Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Ted Greenberg that the Briggs affidavit should not be admitted into evidence as then written, and requested that Greenberg not introduce the affidavit.

"The signers of the affidavit further state that CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin stated that, at minimum, the word 'indirectly' should be removed from paragraph four of the Briggs affidavit.

The signers of the document further state in the document that AUSA Greenberg decided against complying with the CIA attorneys' requests described above."

Apparently, through the evening of February 3rd, the phone lines between Langley and Houston were smoking. FTW has interviewed a number of people close to the trial and none indicate that Ted Greenberg left Houston to retrieve the declaration. Stanley Sporkin knew that the affidavit was incorrect and so did a great many people at CIA. The Houston time apparently indicates that a copy was telexed to Wilson's lawyer and another copy was placed in the master DoJ case files in Houston. Larry Barcella has "no recollection" of being involved in those phone conversations. No phone logs listing participants in them have, as yet, been disclosed....

...And, on close scrutiny, the remedy that was found does not sit well either. From exhibits filed by Adler on Wilson's behalf it is apparent that Assistant Attorney General Steven Trott, now a Judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, gave permission to the worried lawyers to disclose some "inaccuracies" in the Briggs affidavit in an obscure paragraph in filings to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. This was long after the conviction. If the Appeals court said to do something they would, if not, they were off the hook. Adler's response on this point is clear and compelling. "The problem with the logic is, at least, twofold. The 'disclosure' was made to the appeals court, not the trial court. I don't believe the Supreme Court's prohibition on the government's knowing use of false testimony is rectified by admitting the truth to an entirely different court. The second problem is that telling the truth and admitting a lie has been told are two different statementsÉ It [DoJ's attempt to satisfy disclosure requirements] simply mentioned (in a document only a few select people had access to) that Wilson had provided 'a few services'. The trial court and, more importantly, the jury were never told."

Barcella's position is that a lot of honorable people engaged in a lot of mental effort, that may have "gotten too technical" to protect the integrity of a conviction that doesn't need to be undermined.....

[Doug Weldon]

....One final comment not directly related to your review but suggestive of Johnson's complicity: the Douglas Caddy letter to Stephen Trott on behalf of his client Billie Sol Estes implicating LBJ in nine murders. This letter was presented in exchange for immunity for his client. I have not seen the orignal letter that Trott wrote to Caddy. As a former prosecutor it strains belief that the letter was categorically rejected without some negotiation. Obviously LBJ was long deceased but it could have targeted others. Trott was later appointed to be a federal judge.

Best,

Doug Weldon

Doug Weldon, after I read about the background of a federal judge's decision to free Ed Wilson several years ago, it strains belief that any of the federal lawyers who remained silent all those years Wilson was imprisoned, could still be members of the bar in good standing, let alone

promoted by a U.S. president to sit as a judge on a federal appeals court, By the way, the OPR seems to have avoided dealing with this, although it was reported to be investigating. (see article images at the bottom of this post.)

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Investigation/story?id=708779&page=3

'The Most Dangerous Man in America'

Conviction of Former CIA Agent Overturned on False Affidavit (page 3)

April 27, 2005

...Government Lawyers

Hughes, in his ruling, singled out Greenberg, about whom he wrote, "deliberately, knowing the facts, Greenberg ignored the CIA attorneys' requests and used it."

In a statement to Nightline, Greenberg says he was never warned by the CIA that the affidavit was false, that the concerns were about tactics.

Greenberg said he would never file "with the court an affidavit or other document which I knew to be inaccurate or false."

The supervising prosecutor on the case, Larry Barcella, says he cannot recall seeing the affidavit before it was introduced and denies doing anything improper when the issue was raised later. But according to Adler, Barcella participated in the meetings when it was discussed that something might have to be corrected about the affidavit.

Wilson has filed complaints with the Washington, D.C., bar association about Barcella.

"Evil, that's a word I like. Evil," Wilson said about the prosecutors. "They were not just doing their jobs. They were doing it for themselves."

After the guilty verdict, the CIA general counsel, Stanley Sporkin, who had told prosecutors prior to introduction of the affidavit in the trail that it should be amended or not used, again raised a red flag, according to one of the documents Adler and Wilson discovered.

"The CIA drafted up a letter that the agency proposed be sent to Wilson's attorneys disclosing the problem with the affidavit," Adler said. "And again the Justice Department rejected the CIA's suggestion that the letter be sent to Mr. Wilson's lawyer, and so it was never disclosed at that juncture either."

page 4

D. Lowell Jensen was in charge of the criminal division of the Justice Department when the decision was first made. He declined to comment on his role in the Wilson case. Adler said he "found a fair number of memos that were addressed to him, or from him, talking about the problem, talking about the decision to keep quiet about this."

Stephen Trott replaced Jensen as the top Justice Department official at the time. Trott says he recalls a meeting on the Wilson case but none of the details.

The Justice Department has now admitted the affidavit used to convict Wilson was false, an innocent error, its lawyers told Hughes.

As for the CIA, they will only say, "It was Mr. Wilson's decision to sell explosives to Libya, and that's why he was sent to jail."

However, Hughes put it another way. "America will not defeat Libyan terrorism by double-crossing a part-time, informal government agent," he wrote.

Wilson says he lost all he had, his family and his wealth, over the 22 years he was in prison. Now living with his brother in Seattle, he says he simply wants to clear his name.

Vic Walter, Avni Patel and Jessica Wang contributed to this report.

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/Investigation/story?id=708779&page=1

'The Most Dangerous Man in America'

Conviction of Former CIA Agent Overturned on False Affidavit

by Brian Ross ABC News Chief In vestigative Correspondent

April 27, 2005 — This is the story of a man, a one-time CIA officer, who spent 22 years in prison after being branded a traitor and a threat to the country.

"That was me," Ed Wilson said. "The most dangerous man in America, which is ridiculous."

Wilson, at age 54, was sentenced in 1983 to 52 years in prison. He was convicted on selling weapons and 20 tons of C-4 plastic explosives to Moammar Gadhafi's Libya. He was also convicted of trying to arrange a contract hit on the prosecutors.

Wilson's defense was that he was still working with the CIA and that the agency knew and approved of everything he was doing with Libya, including the shipment of the explosives.

Prosecutor Ted Greenberg said at the time that Wilson was making up his connection to the CIA. "Mr. Wilson did not work for the CIA or any other part of the intelligence community," he said.

In Houston, Texas, Wilson's conviction was overturned by a federal judge, Lynn Hughes, who identified about two dozen government lawyers, including Greenberg, who participated in the use of a false CIA affidavit that sent Wilson to prison and the silence about the affidavit after serious questions were raised about its accuracy. And Hughes minced no words in his opinion.

"In the course of American justice, one would have to work hard to conceive of a more fundamentally unfair process," wrote Hughes, "than the fabrication of false data by the government, under oath by a government official, presented knowingly by the prosecutor in the courtroom with the express approval of his superiors in Washington."

Wilson is a free man now.

The Affidavit

The CIA would not disclose its records but did provide an affidavit in the final days of the trial from a top CIA official that said, with one minor exception, Wilson "was not asked or requested, directly or indirectly, to perform or provide any services, directly or indirectly, for CIA."

It was the lynchpin of the government's case, according to Wilson's current lawyer, David Adler.

"It was read into evidence during the trial," Adler said. "The jury went back to deliberate. After a short time of deliberations, the jurors asked to hear this affidavit again. It was re-read to them, and an hour later they voted guilty on all counts for Mr. Wilson. So I think it was critical to the jury's decision." ....

...It would take 20 years for Wilson to prove that the affidavit was false. From his cell in Marion, Wilson began to seek government documents using the Freedom of Information Act. It was 14 years later that the government turned over an internal Justice Department memo, buried in a large stack of other documents, in which Justice Department officials acknowledge the CIA affidavit was possibly false and discuss what to do about it.

"Somebody slipped up and never intended for Mr. Wilson to see this document," Adler said. "I think they forgot that if you put someone in solitary confinement, that they don't have a lot to do all day other than to pore through these documents, and I think Mr. Wilson paid a lot more attention to the materials than the people who were responsible for releasing them at the Justice Department."

Since then, Adler, a former CIA officer himself who was at first skeptical when assigned the case, has discovered dozens of Justice Department and CIA documents that prove the key affidavit in the Wilson case was false and that many in the government knew it. He said one document revealed at least 80 instances of contact between Wilson providing and the CIA.

"I'm not skeptical anymore," Adler said. "I think the documents are about as clear as they could be that this was an intentional, purposeful effort to conceal the truth from the judge, from the jury, from Mr. Wilson and his defense lawyers and from the public."

And some of those involved in the Wilson case went on to become some of the most prominent men in legal circles today.

"Many careers were greatly enhanced by the successful prosecution of Mr. Wilson back in 1983," Adler said. "I think I've uncovered something that, at the very least, should question whether or not they deserve to have those types of positions."

Government Lawyers

Hughes, in his ruling, singled out Greenberg, about whom he wrote, "deliberately, knowing the facts, Greenberg ignored the CIA attorneys' requests and used it."

In a statement to Nightline, Greenberg says he was never warned by the CIA that the affidavit was false, that their concerns were about tactics.

Greenberg said he would never file "with the court an affidavit or other document which I knew to be inaccurate or false."

The supervising prosecutor on the case, Larry Barcella, says he cannot recall seeing the affidavit before it was introduced and denies doing anything improper when the issue was raised later. But according to Adler, Barcella participated in the meetings when it was discussed that something might have to be corrected about the affidavit.

Wilson has filed complaints with the Washington, D.C., bar association about Barcella.

"Evil, that's a word I like. Evil," Wilson said about the prosecutors. "They were not just doing their jobs. They were doing it for themselves."

After the guilty verdict, the CIA general counsel, Stanley Sporkin, who had told prosecutors prior to introduction of the affidavit in the trail that it should be amended or not used, again raised a red flag, according to one of the documents Adler and Wilson discovered.

"The CIA drafted up a letter that the agency proposed be sent to Wilson's attorneys disclosing the problem with the affidavit," Adler said. "And again the Justice Department rejected the CIA's suggestion that the letter be sent to Mr. Wilson's lawyer, and so it was never disclosed at that juncture either."

D. Lowell Jensen was in charge of the criminal division of the Justice Department when the decision was first made. He declined to comment on his role in the Wilson case. Adler said he "found a fair number of memos that were addressed to him, or from him, talking about the problem, talking about the decision to keep quiet about this."

Documents Related to the Case: http://abcnews.go.com/images/Nightline/wilson3.pdf

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/309675_spy30.html

Last updated March 29, 2007 11:21 p.m. PT

Ex-spy dealt setback in fight to clear name

By TRACY JOHNSON

P-I REPORTER

A notorious former spy living in the Seattle area was dealt a blow Thursday in his efforts to show he was unfairly labeled a traitor, though he will keep fighting to clear his name.

A judge in Houston dismissed Edwin Wilson's lawsuit against seven former federal prosecutors -- including two who are now federal judges -- and a former executive director of the CIA. U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal found that even if the officials' behavior was improper when Wilson was sent to prison in the early 1980s, all eight legally have immunity from Wilson's claims of wrongdoing.

"I'm not giving up at all. I'm going all-out to win this thing," Wilson, 78, said Thursday. "This is just a minor setback."

An attorney for former prosecutor Lawrence Barcella, who spent years working to put Wilson in prison and was a target of his lawsuit, said she was pleased.

"The judge did absolutely the right thing," attorney Melinda Sarafa said. "We have felt from the beginning that the claims against the prosecutors would not hold up."

Wilson's attorney, Steve Berman, said he was disappointed for Wilson and will appeal.

"There were lies told before, during and after his trial, and the judge basically said, 'too bad,' " Berman said. "We don't believe they have immunity."...

http://fas.org/sgp/jud/wilson102703.pdf

(page 15)

The court has identified about two dozen government lawyers who actively participated in the original non-disclosure to the defense, the false rebuttal testimony, and the refusal to correct it.

Governmental regularity—due process—requires personal and institutional

integrity. CIA attorneys told Assistant U.S. Attorney Ted Greenberg that the Briggs affidavit should not be used as evidence, as then written, and asked him not introduce it. He did.

CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin advised that, at minimum,the word

“indirectly” should be removed from paragraph four. Deliberately, knowing the

facts, Greenberg ignored the CIA attorneys' requests and used it. (Wilson Mot. to

Vacate, Ex. 98 ¶¶ 3-5.)

Although it admits that it presented false evidence at Wilson’s trial and

now lists solicitations and services he performed post-termination, the

governmentsaysthat Wilson has not proved that the prosecutors knew that it was false. Persistence in this contention reveals that consistency is valued higher than fidelity at the Department of Justice.

First, the government says that the prosecutors meant “taskings related to

the gathering of intelligence” where Briggs’s affidavit reads, “asked or requested directly or indirectly to perform or provide services.” (Gov't Answer at 54.)...

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/printout/0,8816,1139812,00.html

Monday, Dec. 12, 2005

A Rogue's Revenge

Disavowed by the CIA and jailed for 22 years, an ex-spy now wants someone to pay

By ADAM ZAGORIN

...Largely using the Freedom of Information Act to compel the government to turn over papers, Wilson has dug up official records of more than 80 contacts he had with CIA officials--many of them high ranking--during the period in question. Those documents show that prosecutors and the CIA officials assisting them were aware of the contacts. The foreman of the jury that found Wilson guilty of selling C-4 to Libya, which was subject to a total U.S. arms embargo at the time, told ABC News earlier this year, "If we had known [of Wilson's CIA links], I could say unequivocally that there would not have been a guilty verdict." It was on the basis of the newfound evidence that District Court Judge Lynn Hughes threw out Wilson's conviction, saying from the bench, "One would have to work hard to conceive of a more fundamentally unfair process ... than the fabrication of false data by the government ... presented knowingly by the prosecutor in the courtroom with the express approval of his superiors in Washington."

That same day a UPI wire service story described the deliberations. "Juror Betty Metzler said the panel was divided 11-1 almost from the start, and one juror was not convinced until Saturday morning by rereading of Briggs' affidavit denying Wilson's actions had anything to do with the CIA."

A week later, on February 10, 1983, Attorney Kim E. Rosenfield in the Attorney General's office sent a memorandum to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard who ran DoJ's Criminal Division. The title of the memorandum was "Duty to Disclose Possibly False Testimony" and the memorandum pulled no punches. It went straight to prevailing case law (then and now) as decided by the U.S. Supreme Court and cited two cases known as Brady and Napue. The Napue case held that, "Failure of prosecutor to correct testimony which he knows to be false violates due process, whether the falsehood bears on credibility of witness or guilt of defendant, if it is in any way relevant to the case." In Brady the court ruled that "Suppression of material evidence by the government requires a new trial, irrespective of good or bad faith."

The memorandum continued, "Prosecutor has duty to correct false testimony even if falsehood was inadvertent or caused by another government officer. New trial required if the false testimony could "in any reasonable likelihood have affected the judgement of the jury." ..........

......From the documents in the filing it is apparent that through November of 1983, long after Edwin Wilson had been sentenced to 17 years on the C-4 violations, every lawyer from the Justice Department who became aware of the "inaccuracy" of the Briggs affidavit kept their mouth shut about it. A reading of the law and an easily understandable sense of fair play suggest that this was wrong. That many people were worried about the use of the memorandum is clear. Both Stanley Sporkin and Mark Richard can be seen, in a variety of memoranda and meetings, arguing for disclosure or some remedy. It is apparent that either their consciences or their fears of exposure were very "sensitized."

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ciadrugs/Ed_Wilson_1.html

Ed Wilson's Revenge

The Biggest CIA Scandal in History Has Its Feet in the Starting Blocks in a Houston Court House

by Michael C. Ruppert

.....The Briggs Declaration

Charles A. Briggs was, on February 3, 1983, the third highest-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency. He was one of few men at CIA who could break through the compartments and search anywhere for records. He was the man to solve the problem in Houston. In Langley, Virginia, at 2:23 P.M., Houston time (according to a government teletype), Charles Briggs signed a declaration stating that on November 8th of 1982 he had authorized a search of all records of the CIA "for any material that in any way pertains to Edwin P. Wilson or the various allegations concerning his activities after 28 February 1971, when he resigned from the CIA."

Paragraph 4 of the Briggs Declaration states, "According to CIA records, with one exception while he was employed by Naval Intelligence in 1972, Mr. Edwin P. Wilson was not asked or requested, directly or indirectly, to perform or provide any services, directly or indirectly, for CIA."

At 2:30 P.M., Houston time, CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin certified the affidavit and affixed the seal of the Central Intelligence Agency to it. It was also notarized by a notary public licensed in Fairfax County, Virginia. Harold Fahringer, one of Wilson's attorneys was served with a copy of the affidavit at 3:55 P.M. Houston time - presumably in Houston. According to a partially declassified CIA memorandum, included in Wilson's filings, dated March 15, 1983 (40 days after Wilson's conviction), on the day and evening of February 3, 1983 "CIA attorneys stated to Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Ted Greenberg that the Briggs affidavit should not be admitted into evidence as then written, and requested that Greenberg not introduce the affidavit.

"The signers of the affidavit further state that CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin stated that, at minimum, the word 'indirectly' should be removed from paragraph four of the Briggs affidavit.

The signers of the document further state in the document that AUSA Greenberg decided against complying with the CIA attorneys' requests described above."

Apparently, through the evening of February 3rd, the phone lines between Langley and Houston were smoking. FTW has interviewed a number of people close to the trial and none indicate that Ted Greenberg left Houston to retrieve the declaration. Stanley Sporkin knew that the affidavit was incorrect and so did a great many people at CIA. The Houston time apparently indicates that a copy was telexed to Wilson's lawyer and another copy was placed in the master DoJ case files in Houston. Larry Barcella has "no recollection" of being involved in those phone conversations. No phone logs listing participants in them have, as yet, been disclosed....

...And, on close scrutiny, the remedy that was found does not sit well either. From exhibits filed by Adler on Wilson's behalf it is apparent that Assistant Attorney General Steven Trott, now a Judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, gave permission to the worried lawyers to disclose some "inaccuracies" in the Briggs affidavit in an obscure paragraph in filings to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. This was long after the conviction. If the Appeals court said to do something they would, if not, they were off the hook. Adler's response on this point is clear and compelling. "The problem with the logic is, at least, twofold. The 'disclosure' was made to the appeals court, not the trial court. I don't believe the Supreme Court's prohibition on the government's knowing use of false testimony is rectified by admitting the truth to an entirely different court. The second problem is that telling the truth and admitting a lie has been told are two different statementsÉ It [DoJ's attempt to satisfy disclosure requirements] simply mentioned (in a document only a few select people had access to) that Wilson had provided 'a few services'. The trial court and, more importantly, the jury were never told."

Barcella's position is that a lot of honorable people engaged in a lot of mental effort, that may have "gotten too technical" to protect the integrity of a conviction that doesn't need to be undermined.....

Tom:

I totally agree with you. These prosecutors should be imprisoned, not only disbarred. The true objective of a prosecutor, here the federal prosecutors would be representing the people of the United States, is simple. It is to find truth, in a legally permissible manner. It is not about winning or losing a case or advancing one's career.. I did not know Trott was involved with this case. I had the same concern as to why Cheney and Rove were not indicted on the Valerie Plame case. This is very disturbing.

Doug Weldon

[Guest Tom Scully]

Kind of OT, Doug, but I just read your post, http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=16943&view=findpost&p=212371 over on the "What A Family" thread, and the incident you shared about accidentally prompting your friend to tell you about the information his father had, bumped my memory to ask you a question I wanted to ask you since you posted your reply on this thread.

My question is, do you think the appointment of Henry Crown's personal attorney to the position of Asst. Senior Investigative Counsel was a gross enough breach of ethics or conflict of interests, especially since Albert E. Jenner, Jr. was assigned the task of determining if Oswald and or Ruby were involved in any conspiracy to commit the murders they were accused of committing, to disqualify the overall findings in the WC report?

In October, Albert Jenner, personal attorney of General Dynamics largest stockholder, is defending a suit for his client, a division of General Dynamics, Corp., and just a few months later, Jenner is questioning a General Dynamics employee in a new role as a WC investigative counsel.:

http://www.loislaw.com/advsrny/doclink.htp?alias=ILAPP&cite=44+Ill.+App.2d+198

Stern v. Material Service Corp.,Stern v. Material Service Corp., 194...

Subscription - Appellate Court of Illinois, First... - Fastcase - Oct 23, 1963

Albert E. Jenner, Jr., Benjamin Z. Gould, Kenneth J. Burns, Jr., Chicago, ... [44 Ill.App.2d 200] The plaintiff, Dora Greiver Stern, filed a complaint

http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/russ/testimony/conway.htm

Mr. JENNER - Would you mind rising and being sworn. Do you in the testimony you are about to give swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

Mr. CONWAY - I do....

...Mr. JENNER - And your business, occupation, or profession is what?

Mr. CONWAY - Tool inspector for General Dynamics.

Mr. JENNER - The General Dynamics Corp.?........

http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=evica+jenner+crown&btnG=Search+Books

And We are All Mortal: New Evidence and Analysis in the John F. Kennedy ...‎ - Page 388

by George Michael Evica - 1978 - 465 pages

The Jenner-Henry Crown connection alone should have suggested conflict of interests to those responsible for selecting the Warren , Commission's counsel,...

http://books.google.com/books?um=1&q=evica+jenner+crown&btnG=Search+Books

The Empire State Building: the making of a landmark: Volume 1995 - Page 347

John Tauranac - 1997 - 383 pages - Preview

Escorted by Colonel Crown and his wife, the couple was introduced to the Empire State Building directors and their wives, and, quite inexplicably, to Miss Virginia Warren, daughter of Chief Justice Earl Warren.

Tom Clark knew this; he allegedly, in 1946, told it to Pearson who sat on it the rest of his life, hinting of it in an October, 1963 column, but not naming the names of Crown, Hilton, and Annenberg in the copy he distributed to newspapers.:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=15588&view=findpost&p=185918

..I took the story back to Washington and Attorney General Clark authorized a dozen or so FBI men to check on

Ragen's facts. A couple of weeks later they reported that they were true. They also reported that control of the underworld reached into very high places. Some of the rulers of the underworld had become supposedly respected businessmen and politicians whose names were household words in Chicago. Some of them, it was stated, had reformed. Yet they still controlled the mob....

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&safe=off&biw=1067&bih=706&tbs=bks%3A1&q=%22high+places%22+crown+hotel+chain++&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

Diaries, 1949-1959: Volume 1

Drew Pearson, Tyler Abell - 1974 - 592 pages - Snippet view

Tom Clark told me afterward that it led to very high places. J. Edgar Hoover intimated the same thing. He said the people Ragen pointed to had now reformed. I learned later that it pointed to the Hilton hotel chain, Henry Crown, the big Jewish financier in Chicago, and Walter Annen- berg, publisher of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Not until five years after Drew Pearson' sudden death, did his stepson and editor of his Diaries, Tyler Abell publish the names.:

More background, I can't display it, per forum restrictions to two images per post, so click on it to read it.:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2488/4412628867_dfa8d28d3e_o.jpg

Tyler Abell is alive, his wife Bess worked in the LBJ White House. I think it took courage for him to name the names, and I would like to contact him and get his opinions.

What I think is especially outrageous is that Pearson said that Tom Clark was his source, and Clark happened to appoint Crown's son as his law clerk for a Supreme Court term, and then Jenner happened to bring this same

Crown son into his firm, and then Tom Clark happened to be one of only two names cited by Warren as approving

Jenner for appointment as WC Asst. Senior Counsel.:

http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=jud...391724319249464

Ex-farmer, judge Crown remembered as 'wise, fair'

- Daily Herald - NewsBank - Mar 8, 1997

Crown clerked for US Supreme Court Justice Tom Clark from 1956 to 1959 and ... law at the Chicago firm of Jenner and Block, where he became a partner. ...

John J. Crown, judge, philanthropist

- Chicago Sun-Times - NewsBank - Mar 6, 1997

John J. Crown, 67, a former Cook County Circuit Court judge and youngest son of ... In 1959, he joined the law firm of Jenner & Block. ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=7bl3AAAAM...BJWg&edge=1

http://books.google.com/books?cd=1&q=t...nG=Search+Books

The Kennedy assassination cover-up‎ - Page 96

Donald Gibson - History - 2000 - 306 pages+

In a routine homicide investigation, would Crown have not been a person of interest to investigators?

http://articles.sfgate.com/1996-11-18/business/17787252_1_jfk-s-assassination-construction-firm-federal-contracts

ON ECONOMICS: -- How Kennedy Assassination Affected Some Stock Prices

November 18, 1996|By JONATHAN MARSHALL

One of the first questions any murder investigator asks is cui bono -- who benefits.

In the case of the John F. Kennedy assassination, whose 33rd anniversary falls on Friday, new answers have come from a recent economic study called "Friends in High Places: The Wealth Effects of JFK's Assassination on the Assets of LBJ's Supporters."

The study, by Claremont-McKenna College economist William Brown Jr., was published this year in Public Choice, a leading social science journal. ...

....Of all defense firms, perhaps none had a greater stake in the sudden transfer of power from Kennedy to Johnson than General Dynamics, whose main aircraft plant was located in Fort Worth, Texas.

Its stock climbed from $23.75 on November 22 to $25.13 on November 26, and by February 1964 was up over $30, a jump of around 30 percent in three months.

Shortly before the assassination, General Dynamics was the subject of a major influence peddling investigation by the Senate Government Operations Committee. ...

....The investigation centered around the Pentagon's controversial award of a $7 billion contract in 1962 to General Dynamics for the TFX fighter-bomber, later known as the F-111. It was the largest aerospace contract of its time and rescued the firm from a deep financial hole.

An Air Force financial analyst said General Dynamics' bid was up to $400 million more expensive than the rival bid from Boeing. In addition, Defense Department memos suggested that Boeing's design was "operationally superior."

The Senate investigation turned up the fact that one of the key participants in the selection of General Dynamics was Deputy Defense Secretary Roswell Gilpatrick, who was the firm's special counsel before joining the administration in 1961.

Another key player in the selection was Navy Secretary Fred Korth, who had been president of the Continental National Bank of Fort Worth, a major holder of General Dynamics deposits. Before joining the administration, Korth used his political influence in Washington to promote General Dynamics contracts.

The Senate investigating committee held hearings on the growing TFX scandal on November 20, only two days before the assassination. It planned to return the following week to hear testimony from Korth. But no more hearings were held after Johnson took power.

On November 22, in a separate inquiry into government corruption, another Senate committee heard testimony about an alleged $100,000 cash payoff to Vice President Johnson in connection with the TFX contract. That investigation also went nowhere after the assassination, notes Peter Dale Scott, a professor emeritus at the University of California at Berkeley, in his 1993 book "Deep Politics and the Death of JFK." ...

....But the facts speak tellingly about how accidents of history can affect great fortunes.

A postscript for assassination buffs: No individual stood to lose more from the TFX scandal than Chicago investor Henry Crown, who owned 20 percent of General Dynamics. His personal attorney, Albert Jenner, became a senior staff attorney on the Warren Commission, in charge of investigating the possibility of a conspiracy.

In later years, Jenner also represented Chicago labor racketeer Allen Dorfman. Dorfman's stepfather Paul, a leading figure in the Chicago mob, ran the Waste Handlers Union in Chicago in 1939 with Jack Ruby, Lee Harvey Oswald's future killer.

In 1953, Albert E. Jenner, Jr. represented Frank Darling, business manager of the electrical workers Chicago local at a Senate investigative hearing in DC. Pritzker lawyer Stanford Clinton represented Paul and Allen Dorfman. Frank Darling was the Dorfman's first customer in their new helath insurance racket, and Frank Darling gave sketchy answers as to how and why he moved his large union local's health policy to the Dorfmans, since they had no track record and no experience. Darling claimed, and Jenner reinforced the position that Darling did not know to ask to negotiate what happened to the annual premium surpluses, he simply permitted the Dorfman's to keep whatever amount of the premium not paid out in claims, and the Dorfmans kept a commission for selling the coverage and the whole surplus, instead of something under ten percent. Hoffa testified in the same session, RFK was investigative counsel for the same committee, years later, and the minutes from 1959 show that RFK was familiar with what happened in the 1953 hearings, so we can assume RFK knew who Jenner had represented.

Stanford Clinton also happened to handle the loans for the Teamster Central States pension fund, and it came out in a 1981 State of NJ gaming commission hearing that, when the Pritzkers applied for loans from the Teamsters funds to build new hotels, Stanford Clinton had Jenner's firm stand in for him to approve the Pritzker's loans and represent the Teamsters, to avoid a Clinton conflict of interests.:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=1457&view=findpost&p=187543

By 1970, Jenner was appointed to the General Dynamics board of directors. He was quoted saying this when Crown's son Lester almost lost his security clearance for failing to disclose to DOD that he was an unindicted co-conspirator in a 1970's prosecution of several Illinois legislators who had accepted bribes from executives who worked for Lester Crown.:

http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F50717F83E590C748CDDAB0994DE484D81

THE ORDEAL OF LESTER CROWN - Free Preview - The New York Times

New York Times - Dec 7, 1986

...The family turned to Albert E. Jenner Jr., a lawyer and longtime friend who is on the board of General Dynamics. ''Whenever the kids got into trouble,'' Jenner says, ''they never bothered the old man. They talked to me, and I got them out of trouble.'' In return for his cooperation with the grand jury, Lester Crown was granted immunity from prosecution....

Edited November 19, 2010 by Tom Scully