EXTREME PREJUDICE:
THE TERRIFYING STORY OF
THE PATRIOT ACT & THE
COVER UPS OF 911 AND IRAQ
BY SUSAN LINDAUER
CHAPTER 31:
AMERICAN
CASSANDRA
“Apologies must be made,
O Athenian men!”
—Plato, on the death of
Socrates
I wasn’t supposed to
rise from the dead. I was
supposed to know that I was
beaten and disgraced.
Obviously they didn’t
understand me very well.
The Justice Department
profiling couldn’t have been
more off the mark. I dare
say it lacked any insight to
my character whatsoever.
Unhappily for Republican
leaders, I am nothing if not
resilient.
Oh they’d smashed me
up pretty good. They beat
my heart with two by fours,
and trashed my reputation. I would carry some ugly
eggplant bruises on my soul
for a very long time.
Despite all of that
hurting, I began to rally. I
played a lot of Miranda
Lambert songs. The lyrics
for “Gunpowder and Lead”
got blasted all over the CIA
in my own counter-protest
psy-op. “He wants a fight,
well, now he’s got one. He
ain’t seen me crazy yet. I’m
going to show him what
little girl’s are made of.
Gunpowder and Lead.”
Really I’d fought so
hard to defend myself as an Asset that I forgot I’m an
activist first and foremost!
I’m a fighter to the end.
Now a life-time of
experience kicked in. Just as
Assets know how to run a
blockade, so activists know
how to nurture a cause from
the position of an underdog.
So in a sense, after
recuperating from Carswell,
I returned to my natural
starting position. I got up
off the floor and checked for
broken bones. Then I got
ready to rumble.
Only now I was fighting
mad. And thanks to JB
Fields and Janet Phelan
rallying for my cause while
I was locked up, I was no
longer standing alone. Word
of my ugly nightmare on the
Patriot Act had reached the
blogs and alternative radio
audiences, piquing the
curiosity of independent
thinking Americans.
Alternative radio hosts
like Greg Syzmanski and
Derek Gilbert made the
winning difference to my
freedom. While I was
locked up, JB Fields talked
about Republic, Liberty and
Oracle Broadcasting like life-lines. What they lack in
size, they make up with
heart. They have passion for
America’s traditions of
freedom, and the urgency to
protect those values. Their
rallying has pricked the
walls of silence on many
issues. During my fight,
they stirred enough of a
gale-force to incite
blowback on the Justice
Department, so that my
grievances could not be
ignored. When I got out, I
was astonished by who had
heard of the abuse I was
suffering, thanks to these
cutting edge blogs and
internet radio networks.
Whoever says one
person’s voice can’t make a
difference should turn on
the radio.
My all time favorite
radio host, Michael Herzog,
championed my cause on
Oracle Broadcasting and
Republic, when I renewed
my fight for a trial.
He asked the best
opening question on-air of
all time: “So tell us, Susan
Lindauer, why are you still
alive?”
To which I replied: “I refuse to die until I get my
trial. At this rate I will
probably live forever!”
Every show with
Herzog was lively and fun,
just a delight for guests.
Mike’s an extremely sharp
and versatile host on a wide
front of issues, and he
brings all of that perspective
to each show. He’s
incredibly dynamic. During
my legal drama, he proved
that he’s got rapid timing, I
mean, lightning speed. If Pretrial Services
threatened to revoke my bail
in the morning, Mike would
rework his radio schedule
and get me on air that
afternoon. That’s what it
took to save me, and Herzog
and Phelan made it happen.
They refused to back down.
Up to that point, I must
confess that America was
looking kind of shabby to
me. By now, I was pretty
disgusted with the corporate
media. I had to question if
the American people were
getting exactly what they
deserve.
Herzog and Phelan and
Dr. Shirley Moore—and all
the other blogs and alternative radio shows—
got me feeling empowered
again, like a revolution was
starting to take back our
country. And their
audiences had front row
seats.
Those radio hosts have amazing tentacles of knowledge, reaching deep below the surface on many different issues. They have the depth that I’d been aching for, and missing so much in the mainstream media. I’d pretty much given up hope of finding it. And all of a sudden, there it was— Vigilant, awake and free.
Most importantly, JB Fields and the “New Media, ” as everybody called it, gave me the confidence, and the hope, to tell my story again. They championed my cause with such enthusiasm that I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Like a lot of Americans, I started looking for America in some different places.
That’s when I found a blog journalist who proves that the New Media possesses every bit as much “class” and journalistic quality as the old media. And a darn sight more curiosity and devotion to investigative reporting.
It was Michael Collins, one of the truly cutting edge blog journalists today. 587 I call him the Johnny Depp of blog journalism, because of his amazing versatility.
Michael Collins changed the whole dynamic of my fight.
Judge Mukasey retired from the bench the day of my release. Now he got nominated to become U.S. Attorney General, taking over from Alberto Gonzales, author of the infamous torture memos and the Guantanamo prison concept. Michael Collins published a round up of Judge Mukasey’s formidable career on the bench. Pointing to Mukasey’s final decision saving me from forcible drugging, Collins argued that Mukasey appeared to have a soft spot for the underdog in a fight. He might turn out to be a strong defender of individual liberties, a breath of integrity after the corruption of Alberto Gonzales’ cabal of anti-Constitutionalists.
Well, the subtlety of Collins’ understanding impressed me. I read his article on SmirkingChimp.com,, and decided to approach him through Jeff Tiedrich, publisher of the blog.
Michael Collins did me the favor of responding immediately. He wanted to know what the hell was going on. Like Brian Shaughnessy, he smelled a rat.
He took the time to find out. We sat down for three lengthy interviews at a Lebanese bistro near my home in Maryland. Collins took special care to analyze my history as an Asset overall, starting with Lockerbie. And he was the first journalist who asked to see my 11 letters to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, resulting in my indictment. He was aghast at the evidence that was supposed to convict me.
Collins nicknamed me “American Cassandra” for my tragic prophecies about the outcome of this War. 588 The lack of illegal weapons in Iraq. The rise of Iran. The rise of Islamic fundamentalists through democracy. The $1.6 trillion war budget that would rob domestic programs and throw Wall Street and the Middle Classes into a downward tailspin. The emergence of charismatic terrorist cells inside Iraq to fight the Infidel Occupation. The Iraqi people’s bitter hatred of the U.S. for the misery of sanctions.
Like Cassandra, I foretold it all with clarity.
And like Cassandra, I suffered the contempt of our leaders, who did not wish to hear the truths that I forecast—
When Michael Collins got hold of my story— finally—a critically thinking journalist connected the dots, linking my indictment to events on Capitol Hill. He recognized the aspects of a major cover up immediately. 589
Collins cried foul on the Justice Department for protecting Republicans from the hellacious fall out of poor decision making before the War. He was doubly appalled when he read the Andy Card letters, and saw what I’d actually done.
Collins had the integrity to be outraged.
By now, I’d lived under the storm of indictment for three and a half bitter years. I’d spent a year in prison. And all of a sudden, there was sunshine on my story Where the New York Times had botched it so badly, the “New Media” now excelled. Truly it felt like a changing of the guard. It was exciting to be part of that.
Michael Collins took my story to “Scoop” Independent News, Op-Ed News, Atlantic Free Press, American Politics Journal, Intelligence Daily, Smirking Chimp, and the Agonist, to name a few of the provocative, cutting edge blogs that have established themselves as a vital source of information for the public.
His articles reach 400 blogs in a typical week, and my story posted on all of them.
With a single key stroke, Michael Collins obliterated the corporate media black out. And he proved the pen is still mightier than the sword when it comes to championing the rights of democracy and freedom.
For my own esteem, it was God-sent.
As the months rolled on, Phelan and Herzog’s radio shows and Michael Collins’ blog articles flagged all the breaking developments in my case, blow by blow. 590 It would be a battle to the last day. Only now, thanks to the New Media, blog readers and radio audiences started to get some facts. And wouldn’t you know, those facts contradicted everything they’d been sold — not only about my life, but also about Iraq and 9/11 and the weakness of U.S. anti-terrorism policy. As the Presidential election fight heated up, Americans started asking some tough questions.
There was still confusion, as people had to absorb the vast differences of how the Justice Department portrayed me versus new revelations about the horrific abuses that I suffered on the Patriot Act. But I was no longer standing alone in the dock. Michael Collins, Michael Herzog and Janet Phelan showed me that America cared.
Thinking people cared.
“Awake” people cared. That strengthened my confidence to face down the insults from my opponents, as I pushed forward with Brian Shaughnessy and Tom Mattingly towards a trial.
Those insults— and threats on my freedom— got much worse, not better. Republicans had me in a box. And they did not want me coming out of that box. My enemies camped out on Wikipedia, a useful tool for COINTEL propaganda that bastardized me every chance they got. Some of the mistakes were comical and stupid. Despite multiple corrections, for a couple of years Wikipedia insisted on giving me the wrong name, the wrong age and birthday. And they wrongly identified the allegations against me, upping my crimes to espionage. It went downhill from there.
Happily, notoriety does not scare me. I’ve got incredibly tough skin. I’m a big believer that you can tell a lot about a person by the strength of (her) enemies. Mine included Dick Cheney John McCain, Andy Card, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell and Alberto Gonzales. So maybe I’m not so bad after all!
Hey, they’re big and I’m small. That doesn’t make them right.
Above all, the White House was in play. And my prime arch enemy, John McCain was running for President. His staff desperately wanted to keep me silent.
Unfortunately, as McCain’s poll numbers got tighter in the race with Barak Obama, there were constant threats to take me into custody. Several times Pretrial Services in New York threatened to revoke my bail, because, on my attorney’s advice, I phoned after hours to avoid ugly confrontations between us. 591 I taped every phone call to Pretrial Services for my own protection. 592
It was incredibly dirty. I was not some ex-convict, violating my probation. Three and a half years had passed, and I was still demanding my rights to a trial. By now, I had another year’s worth of psych observations from Counseling Plus, documenting that nothing was wrong with me. 593 I hardly qualified as a flight risk, since I’d already surrendered to prison once. I’m not a drug user, who indulged in substance abuse. In five years I never committed any crime, which could justified bail revocation.
This was more like high stakes poker. Shaughnessy and I kept agitating for a trial, so we could shoot down the allegations. My very mediocre public attorney was gone. The Prosecutor squirmed with dread that he would have to play his cards, and show his lack of evidence to the Court. O’Callaghan would be forced to admit that he had knowingly concealed the facts of my identity. He would get busted for prosecutorial misconduct that resulted in the false imprisonment of a known Asset , with threats of forcible drugging to shut me up. Clearly O’Callaghan did not relish that confession.
I used to joke that the Judge should post a $500,000 bond on O’Callaghan’s house— identical to mine—so that the Defense could require him to come to Court. 594 He was the one avoiding the Judge, not me. I used to taunt Pretrial Services that I was ready. Just name the day, and I’d be happy to kick the Justice Department’s ass.
Ominously for me, polls showed voter support for Republicans was sinking fast. Fighting to keep a death grip on power, the GOP’s worst nightmare was now coming true: I was talking on the radio about the real facts of Iraq, 9/11 and the weakness of GOP performance against - terrorism.
And some independent minded Americans were starting to listen. The Justice Department let me know they would not stand for it.
In September, October, November and December 2007, Pretrial Services mounted an aggressive effort to revoke my bail and ship me back to Carswell, with a series of false complaints. 595
In one court deception, I was astonished when PreTrial Services accused me of “bursting in on another individual’s session at Counseling Plus.” 596
It was a flagrant, audacious lie. Aggravating the ridiculousness of the accusation, I despise psychology so much that I would never dream of interrupting anybody else’s session. I was always happy to sit in the lobby, if Burton was running late. I had nothing to say to the woman. The longer I waited, the less time I would have to waste in her office, while she surfed the internet scheduling entertainments with her daughter, or shopping for clothes.
The upshot was that somebody else wearing a blue coat, similar to mine, “burst” into her office, while she finished up with another client. Heavens, I was probably entering a stage of brain death at that very moment, tucked in a corner of the lobby. Astonishingly, Pretrial Services never bothered to check with Burton before reporting this incident to Judge Preska. They hauled me to New York for an emergency appearance, and argued vigorously that I should get shipped back to Carswell that very night. When I scorned the suggestion, given my contempt for psychology, Pretrial Services had to back down. Even the Judge had to acknowledge it sounded preposterous. 597
Unhappily for O’Callaghan, this was a new game book! Shaughnessy didn’t play. He confronted my Pre-Trial Supervisor in Greenbelt, and demanded a retraction.
When they got caught, do you think Pretrial Services had the integrity to admit to Judge Preska they made a false report? Hardly. They pulled something else from their bag of dirty tricks. Something really dirty, even for these guys.
It got so bad that in December, 2007, Pretrial Services forced me to appear in Court without Shaughnessy— in the company of my former attorney, Sam Talkin, while the Feds fought to revoke my bail. 598 This occurred after I paid Shaughnessy’s legal fees, and the Court was fully informed that he had taken my case. The court meeting was scheduled on the only day that entire week that Shaughnessy could not travel to New York. It was particularly outrageous, since the court meeting was scheduled for 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and Shaughnessy offered to appear by 8 o’clock the next morning. He offered to travel overnight for the appearance.
Talkin—who’d been replaced by this point— seized the opportunity to make one final pitch disputing my competence. He swore that he would agree to whatever O’Callaghan wanted to do with me. He declared in open court that if he had his way, I would never be declared competent until O’Callaghan said so! 599
Much worse, Talkin argued that I should be forced to undergo a 3 day in-patient psych evaluation, in lieu of going back to Carswell, as a requirement for challenging the competency finding. 600 Never mind that a year’s worth of session notes from Counseling Plus recorded that nothing was wrong with me, 601 and I suffered no personal crises in Maryland —something a faithful attorney would have underscored in Court to preserve my freedom.
Not Talkin! Knowing Shaughnessy was proceeding in a totally different direction, Talkin tried to inflict as much damage as possible on his way, even to the point of costing me my freedom. 602 Thankfully, Brian Shaughnessy got Talkin’s request overturned. He went the extra mile, soliciting opinions from the chief psychiatrists at Georgetown University, George Washington University and the Washington Psychiatric Institute, the last whom he tracked down on vacation in Israel. All swore my competency evaluation could be handled on an outpatient basis, and that hospitalization should be strictly limited to individuals in crisis. To their credit, every one of those Psychiatry Departments refused to admit me, or submit to being pawns of political leaders. They flat out refused. 603
Instead, Shaughnessy arranged for a leading Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Ratner to do the evaluation for our competency challenge at his private office.
But Talkin’s behavior struck us as shocking misconduct. I was compelled to declare for the court record that I had no attorney present, insisting to his shame that Talkin no longer represented me, and my real attorney,Shaughnessy had to be absent, because of other Court commitments in Washington. I scoffed that anything in my life justified a 3 day in-patient evaluation for a competency review, insisting there was a huge disconnect between PreTrial Services’ fanciful inventions and the real facts of my life in Maryland— which was going very well, thank you. 604
Looking back, it’s difficult to believe anybody could have tried to do this. But the threat was quite real. Every time we headed to New York, Shaughnessy would tell me honestly that he had no idea if I would make it home that night, or if the Judge would take me into custody.
One thing probably saved me. Shaughnessy warned that if the Court took me into custody, we would file an emergency appeal to the 2nd Circuit Appellate Court challenging the procedures by which my incompetence had been accepted. Then we would push for trial. 605
The fear that Shaughnessy would use any bail revocation to force a trial probably saved me, especially since Shaughnessy freely declared my capacity to assist him.
An emergency appeal was ready to go if U.S. Marshals ever grabbed me. And we expected to win.
Does that sound like I don’t know the law? That I’m stumped in court? Hardly.
My case was non-stop legal fraud—a reflection on Washington’s desperation to silence me. They succeeded for so long because of the Patriot Act, and because I had no attorney willing to fight for me—except for my marvelous uncle, Ted Lindauer and the brilliant Brian Shaughnessy, after Carswell.
Alas, the Patriot Act handicapped even the most senior attorneys.
The Patriot Act changed the equation of power in the courtroom, such that all transparency in the proceedings got erased. It emboldened the Prosecutor to misrepresent the caliber of evidence against me, when the charges should have been dropped as frivolous. As time went on, protecting the lies invented on Capitol Hill required yet more abuse of my rights, and more deceptions to safeguard Republican officials from exposure.
It’s why I call the Patriot Act the foundation for all future dictatorship in the United States. It’s a very dangerous law. My case demonstrates several critical reasons why the Patriot Act should be repealed immediately. Every leader who supported the Patriot Act should be removed from power, Democrat or Republican, without exception. The Patriot Act should be a litmus test for judging who’s qualified to protect the best traditions of democracy in our country, and who’s unfit for leadership. It’s that bad.
Through every blow, Collins, Herzog and Phelan stayed right by my side. Many times, we’d end a radio show with a reminder that I might get carted back to prison in the next few days. That’s no exaggeration, unfortunately. For several months, I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to get seized and shipped back to Carswell at any moment.
It got so bad that U.S. Marshals phoned Shaughnessy two to three weeks before the November elections, warning of my impending seizure, as the battle hardened between Barak Obama and John McCain. Those sorts of phone calls almost always pre-indicate a defendant is about to get grabbed. Sure enough, that warning coincided with a heavy round of radio interviews, telling listeners the truth about our 9/11 warning and Pre-War Intelligence.
To his great credit, Shaughnessy backed me a hundred percent, and never cautioned me or Michael Collins to back down. He told us to keep fighting, and fight harder!
That’s where my opponents hit a wall.
Republican loyalists inside the Justice Department could deny me a trial on the most frivolous and absurd grounds. But they could not stop me from demanding my day in court to prove my innocence.
They could scorn my “incompetence.” But for all their speechifying, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill could not reinvent my contributions to Pre-War Intelligence, or the reality of my team’s 9/11 warning throughout the summer of 2001.
They faced a serious quandary that John McCain played a leadership role in both the 9/11 investigation and the Iraq Investigation— and both reports contained outrageous inaccuracies that McCain spoon fed to the American people, as key spokesperson for both Commissions.
If McCain had won the Presidency, I would have fought for his impeachment from his first day in office. He would have deserved it, too.
Some Americans have taken hard blows for questioning the official version of events about 9/11. They have possibly speculated in some wrong directions. But they are quite correct that a substantial body of facts has been concealed from the public, like the essential truth that the U.S. Intelligence Community urgently anticipated a 9/11 style of attack, with uncanny accuracy as to the method, target and timing of the attack, described as “imminent” in August, 2001. Or that urgent requests for intra-agency cooperation to pre-empt the strike were made in August, 2001 to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private staff and— at their suggestion— the Office of Counter-Terrorism.
I made some of those calls myself. And I was not the only alarmist.
Finally, the 9/11 Truth community is absolutely correct that the 9/11 Commission was a whitewash. Can anybody blame them for being angry and frustrated? I don’t.
Some things really are unforgivable in a democracy. Allowing thousands of your own citizens to suffer horrible deaths, in order to rationalize an unnecessary War against an innocent country should be judged the most terrible crime of all.
Most Americans still can’t believe that Republican leaders did that to all of us. But it’s true.
The people around John McCain understood exactly what it would mean if my story exposed those deceptions at election time. McCain’s entire campaign platform on national security would have crashed to the ground.
All of that explains why, after Carswell, the louder I spoke out, the more furiously the Justice Department tried to send me back to prison.
The attacks never stopped until Barak Obama’s historic triumph over McCain at the voting booth.
When McCain lost the White House, the attacks ended overnight.
If that doesn’t demonstrate the power of democracy and the voting booth to thwart tyranny, I don’t know what could. Vote, people! [His election might have helped her situation,cannot think of much else he did to stop tyranny,all I can see with him is Libya, Syria,the rise of ISIS and the continued ripping away of our rights DC]
My fight was definitely not for light hearts or weak stomachs.
Only now I had a powerful and effective attorney who cared what happened to me. Shaughnessy stayed ahead of the curve at all times, so that my defense would be ready whatever happened next. Tom Mattingly assumed the role of paralegal, and together they developed a strategy for managing all avenues of the case.
Fellow activist, Karin Anderson of Takoma Park, agreed to pony up my legal fees from her savings. This grandmotherly animal rescue activist finds a penny on every street corner, and always stops to pick it up because it reads: “In God we trust.”
It was many thanks to Karin that my home and beloved pets had been safe, while I was locked up at Carswell. Now, thanks again to Karin, I could carry on my legal battle.
Alas, my beloved friend, JB Fields was suffering a mysterious illness that would prove to be lymphoma cancer. Shortly after my release from M.C.C, he started experiencing bouts of extreme exhaustion. Many months would go by before doctors discovered that his body had stopped producing blood platelets of any type.
JB Fields died in April, 2008—two days after the Court granted our demand for the hearing he fought so passionately for. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a worthy resting place for a proud Navy man, who trawled the ocean floor on naval submarines, a man who dedicated his life to protecting the rights of Americans under the Constitution.
Without the devotion of JB Fields, and his efforts to expose my travesty at Carswell, my legal resurrection would have been unthinkable. JB’s commitment to protecting the freedoms of ordinary Americans is one military tradition that the United States cannot afford to lose.
Sadly, though he never lived to see my vindication or the dismissal of the charges, But JB understood what was coming. Thanks to the planning skills of Shaughnessy and Mattingly, everything was in place when we launched our counter-attack on the Justice Department.
Now the battle resumed in earnest. Only a whole new dynamic was in play.
Thanks to blog journalist Michael Collins, the “New Media” on the internet tracked my case intensely. Front page coverage in “Scoop, ” American Politics Journal, Op-Ed News and Intelligence Daily, guaranteed the Justice Department could no longer foist its defamation of my competence on unquestioning Americans.
Shaughnessy was like a new Sheriff in town, a congenial fellow with a South County Rhode Island drawl, and the confidence and ease of a life-time practicing law at extremely high altitudes. He swore that he had never heard of any case during his career, in which a defendant had been declared “incompetent” over the objections of her own attorney.
Shaughnessy took the fight straight to the Prosecutor. If Judge Preska wanted proof of my story, Shaughnessy promised that we would have no difficulty delivering it.
The Court hemmed and hawed for months. Clearly they wanted to avoid a positive finding that would force a trial before the presidential election. They wanted to keep McCain and the Republicans safe through November.
No matter! The stage was set. My supporters had an under-dog mentality for this fight.
The way I saw it, they were big, but we were small. They were bulky, trapped by their deceptions. We were nimble, protected by our honesty.
And woe to the wicked!
Like Assets, we peace activists never surrender!
On a lovely day in June 2008, the Court could delay no longer. Judge Preska was forced to grant our demand for a hearing to challenge the bogus finding of incompetence.
This would be my first and only evidentiary hearing in the four years since my arrest. Ostensibly it would determine my “fitness” to stand trial— almost two years after my release from prison.
My Defense would be allowed to present just two witnesses, who could authenticate key parts of my story during one morning of testimony. At trial, there would be a dozen witnesses. But for this pre-trial hearing, the Court forced us to strip it down. The Prosecutor fought to block these participatory witnesses as well.
For all those constraints, Shaughnessy and I believed that we chose wisely.
Our first witness, Kelly O’Meara spent 17 years on Capitol Hill, rising to become Chief of Staff for Rep. Andrew Forbes of Long Island, New York. She played a lead role in the congressional investigation of the mysterious crash of TWA 800 over Long Island Sound. It was O’Meara who cranked up the heat until the Pentagon finally admitted that three submarines, performing a training exercise off the coast of Long Island that night, might have fired upon the airplane accidentally. 606
After Capitol Hill, O’Meara turned to investigative journalism, and published a book on psychiatry, “Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Invents Mental Illness and Pushes Pills that Kill.” Her book examines the correlation between the use of antidepressants, like Prozac, and shooting rampages by teenagers and adults. 607
Finally, O’Meara had known my intelligence handler, Paul Hoven, for more than 20 years. Like me, she was introduced to Hoven by Pat Wait, chief of staff for Rep. Helen Bentley, (GOP- Maryland). She was also a regular at the Hunan for several years. 608
O’MEARA: “I met Paul when I was investigating the death of Irana San Salvador, who was a U.S. embassy guard in San Salvador. Anyway he was killed, and I was investigating. I was telling this friend of mine, this chief of staff about it, and she said, oh, you need to meet Paul Hoven. He can probably help you with that. So I met Paul.”
“He’s a likeable fellow. We became friends. Paul’s the one that first took me to the Hunan, or told me I should come over to the Hunan on Thursday nights, because it is a group of Capitol Hill staffers. Some Pentagon people showed up every now and then. Some lobbyists. Basically it was just you know, after work, have a drink and talk shop.”
Shaughnessy was determined to prove that Hoven had longstanding relationships within the intelligence community, whether he chose to acknowledge formal ties to the Defense Intelligence Agency or not. He had an iron grip on the shadow nature of intelligence work. And so, very astutely, Shaughnessy guided O’Meara to describe the quirky habits of the intelligence community. As conversation, O’Meara’s insights would have been fascinating. In this context, it was frightening.
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did you learn, as the years went along, what sorts of things he did for a living?”
O’MEARA: “I didn’t know what Paul did as far as a living. I never knew Paul to have a job like everybody else. I mean, I never saw him get up and go to work, nine to five, at least when I knew him. I know beforehand, apparently, he was involved in military things on the Hill. But when I knew him, I didn’t know him to have a job.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Now, did there come a time when you met a fellow named Joe Harvey?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “How did you meet him, and what did your relationship become with Harvey?”
O’MEARA: “I was the lead investigator for TWA 800, the crash off of Long Island [in July, 1996] for Congressman Forbes. Anyway, Paul Hoven knew I was investigating that crash. And he said, “Oh, you need to talk to Joe Harvey.” So he introduced me to Joe Harvey because Joe was a former Navy SEAL. That was what I was told. I met Joe. He’s a very nice guy, and we had about a four- year friendship, you know.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Was there a particular term that Mr. Hoven used with respect to your relationship with Joe Harvey?”
O’MEARA: “Well, that came at the end of the relationship. During the whole time I knew Joe, even when I left the Hill and became an investigative reporter [at the Washington Times], Paul never said anything to me. It was after I was working on a story on the Oklahoma City bombing. And I remember Joe gave me some information, and I wasn’t clear on it, so I e-mailed him and asked him to clarify something.”
O’MEARA: “Joe Harvey wrote back, and said, “I don’t ever want to talk to you again.”
THE COURT: “Never?”
O’MEARA: “I never want to talk to you again.” I didn’t know why. I was kind of shocked because I always thought we were just really good friends. And I didn’t understand what had happened.”
“So anyway, when I saw Paul, I told him, and I showed Paul the e-mail. And Paul looked at me, and he goes, “Well, he’s not your handler anymore, Kelly.” Which kind of upset me, because Paul was the one that introduced me to Joe. And I had no idea that I had a handler.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What did you take the term “handler” to be?”
O’MEARA: “Well, what do you take it to be?”
SHAUGHNESSY: “You have to say.”
O’MEARA: “OK. Somebody who kept an eye on me, passed information that I might have given to him, you know.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “To whom?”
O’MEARA: “Intelligence. That’s what I thought. I could be wrong, but that’s what I thought.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “With respect to Mr. Hoven, did you understand in any way that he was involved in intelligence work?”
O’MEARA: “This is just an opinion, OK.
SHAUGHNESSY: “Yes. Did you believe Mr. Hoven to be a member, or involved with intelligence?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Why?”
O’MEARA: “Because I always thought from the time I met Paul, that Paul was an information passer. For people who don’t live in Washington, or aren’t involved in investigations and stuff, maybe you don’t understand that. But Paul always had interesting information. He was always asking you about what you knew. I know that I told him something once on TWA 800 that actually ended up in a newspaper the very next day.”
“I always just felt Paul passed information. Add that with all of the people he introduced me to, the fact that he never had a job that I knew of, I thought that’s what he did.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Do you know a gentleman named Dr. Richard Fuisz?”
O’MEARA: “I have met Dr. Fuisz.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “How did you meet Dr. Fuisz?”
O’MEARA: “Through Paul Hoven.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Would you please explain what happened?”
O’MEARA: “Paul wanted me to meet his good friend, Dr. Fuisz, and we drove out to Dr. Fuisz’s office. I was sick the day that we drove out there, so Paul ended up driving my car. I thought it was in Vienna, Virginia, but I understand now it’s actually in Chantilly. Anyway, we went to his office and kind of just chit chatted for a while. I wasn’t impressed.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did you later find out whether or not Dr. Fuisz had any relationship to the intelligence community?”
O’MEARA: “I was told by Paul Hoven. And this is what actually got me hooked up with Susan after all these years. I read her Lockerbie deposition.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What does that mean, Lockerbie deposition?”
O’MEARA: “She wrote a deposition for the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie trial.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What was the nub of the deposition that caught your attention?”
O’MEARA: “Her deposition was actually almost to the letter what Paul Hoven told me about Lockerbie.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What was that?”
O’MEARA: “That it wasn’t the Libyans that shot it down. It was the Syrians. And Dr. Fuisz was there. He knew. There was supposed to be some secret meeting that was set up between a member of Congress in Switzerland, but something happened where it didn’t work out. So the Syrians were going to take the – I mean the Libyans were going to take the fall for this.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “All right.”
O’MEARA: “When I saw Susan’s deposition on Google– I didn’t even know she did a deposition until just recently. That’s when I called her. I said, Susan, I had no idea that Paul had told you the same thing that he told me.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “How was Dr. Fuisz related to this?”
O’MEARA: “Paul said that Dr. Fuisz was there. He knew.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “There? Where?”
O’MEARA: “I assumed it was in Syria. He was in Syria.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “He knew what?”
O’MEARA: “That it was the Syrians, and not the Libyans.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “That is essentially what the –”
O’MEARA: “That’s what Susan wrote in her deposition, and I was very, very shocked to see it, because I didn’t know she had wrote a deposition, and I had no idea that anybody had told her the same thing that Paul had told me.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “When did this come in relation to your meeting Dr. Fuisz?”
O’MEARA: “I don’t remember the dates. I have been away from the Hill since ‘97.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Was it after or before your meeting with Dr. Fuisz?”
O’MEARA: “It was after my meeting with Dr. Fuisz.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “And have you met Dr. Fuisz again?”
O’MEARA: “Yes. Paul contacted me, asking me to do an article (when I was a reporter) for Dr. Fuisz, about some contractor trouble he was having with a house he was building. I didn’t do the article, because they never gave me the documentation that I needed.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Getting back to the deposition concerning Lockerbie and Libya, were you present, or did you observe conversations between Hoven and Susan?”
O’MEARA: “All the time.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “All right.”
O’MEARA: “At least every Thursday at Hunan, when I was at Hunan. I mean, sometimes you know, you have hearings or whatever, and you are not able to make it. When Susan was there and Paul was there, they were talking.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did they talk about Lockerbie with some frequency?”
O’MEARA: “I don’t know. I have no idea. I didn’t go and listen to their conversations. I just know that when they were there together, they were talking to each other. And I heard about Susan all the time from Paul.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What did you hear?”
O’MEARA: “You name it. I mean, I’m sorry to say I’m embarrassed. I used to get tired of hearing about Susan frankly.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did he speak well of her?”
O’MEARA: “Yes. Sure. I mean, I think this has already been in the press, but Paul nicknamed Susan “Snowflake, ” and he used do say she was dingy.”
THE COURT: “She was what?”
O’MEARA: “Dingy. I never thought much of it, but Paul spoke about Susan a lot to me. I met with Paul I would say three or four times a month, you know, for years, dinners—”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did he explain sometimes what she was doing, and –”
O’MEARA: “Sometimes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “And what was that?”
O’MEARA: “I just listened to Paul tell me the stuff.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “All right. Did you talk with Paul Hoven at about the time he was interviewed by the FBI?”
O’MEARA: “I got a call from Paul after the FBI interviewed him. Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did he talk with you about the substance of the interview?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What was the substance according to Paul?”
O’MEARA: “It was a strange phone call. I hadn’t talked to Paul for awhile. Paul left town – again, I’m guessing – I think it was right after Susan was arrested. It was very quickly. Paul left town and went back to Minnesota.” “Anyway, so I was angry at Paul for not saying goodbye to me, because I knew him for so long. So then, when I got this call, that he had been interviewed by the FBI, that was kind of interesting that he took the time to call me.”
“Basically he was saying to me in Paul’s fashion—Oh, Susan said I am defense intelligence and she’s f’ing crazy and she doesn’t f’ing know what she’s talking about. I mean, that’s the way Paul talks.” “I said, Paul, I said, you know, Susan was always kind of ditzy, but I never thought she was crazy. It was just this really intense phone call. I have to say that I had a feeling Paul wanted me to agree with him that she was crazy, and I couldn’t. I said, Paul, I don’t think she’s crazy.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Well, did Paul say that Susan was incorrect or inaccurate when she described him as being intelligence, or did he say she’s crazy for having said it? What was your impression?”
O’MEARA: “Paul never denied during the telephone call that he was defense intelligence, or whatever she was claiming. But he just kept saying, oh, she’s crazy.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “All right. Had he ever expressed the notion that Susan was crazy before this?”
O’MEARA: “No. Not to me.”
On cross examination, O’Callaghan, my prosecutor, sprung a huge surprise on O’Meara.
According to O’Callaghan, Paul Hoven told the FBI he hardly knows O’Meara at all. Hoven claimed that he only met her “a couple of times.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Thank you. Now, you talked about the meetings that you had at this Hunan restaurant in Washington, D.C., correct?”
O’MEARA: “Right.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “How long did these dinner meetings or dinner get togethers take place? How many years?”
O’MEARA: “Years. I did it for years. Ten – I won’t say ten. Five. Five years.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Five to ten years?”
O’MEARA: “I think I did. I mean, it was a long time that we were there. I think I was involved in it maybe five years, and I was like late to the group, I think. All I know is I went to them for a long time.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Was Paul Hoven at some of these dinner get-togethers that you described?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Do you think you met Mr. Hoven at these dinners quite frequently?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Would it surprise you if Mr. Hoven told the FBI that he only met you once or twice at these dinner get-togethers?”
O’MEARA: “I would be insulted to hear that.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “So it would surprise you?”
O’MEARA: “Very surprising.”
It was a stunning moment, a whopper of a lie that caused O’Meara to shake visibly in front of the Judge.
O’CALLAGHAN: “Now, you testified that you came to know Paul Hoven through these dinner get togethers and conversations with him fairly well, correct?”
O’MEARA: “I knew Paul before those dinners, years before those dinners.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “So, years before the dinners and then through the dinners, you got to know him through the beginning of the 1990s?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “You never came to know what Paul Hoven did for a living, however?”
O’MEARA: “No. As I said, I never knew Paul to have a nine-to-five job or – I knew that he tinkered with voice recognition. But I didn’t ever really – I was never told that he was getting paid for that, or it was a job. It was something he kind of tinkered with.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “So you never came to find out that Mr. Hoven acted as a press agent for ABC News, is that right?”
O’MEARA: “While I knew Paul? Never.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “And that he did freelance press work for 60 Minutes?”
O’MEARA: “That was before I met Paul. That was years before. He did a Panama story and got sick [with a heart virus]. He told me about that. I never knew Paul to do any press work while I knew him.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “OK. Now, Paul Hoven never told you, did he? That he ever worked for the CIA?”
O’MEARA: “No.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “He never told you that he worked for the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, correct?”
O’MEARA: “That’s correct. I mean nobody comes out and says they’re a spook.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “If I could set your time frame from 1999 to 2003, OK? Are you with me?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Do you know where you were working at about approximately during those years?”
O’MEARA: “1999 to 2003, I was at the Washington Times.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “How often during ‘99 and 2003 would you speak with Paul Hoven?”
O’MEARA: “All the time. I mean, Paul and I were friends. I considered Paul a friend.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “As a friend, approximately how many times a month do you think you would talk to him?”
O’MEARA: “At least once a week.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “This was generally telephone conversations?”
O’MEARA: “Sometimes we went out to dinner.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Now, during those years, 1999 to 2003, did Paul Hoven ever discuss with you Susan Lindauer?”
O’MEARA: “I’m sure he did.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Do you recall any specific times that Paul Hoven discussed Susan Lindauer?”
O’MEARA: “Paul talked about Susan all the time.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “I’m specifically asking you from 1999 to 2003. Did Paul Hoven’s discussion about Susan Lindauer diminish in comparison to the early to mid 1990s?”
O’MEARA: “No. I would say it was more.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “During the times that you did speak with Susan Lindauer, did you ever get the impression that she was exaggerating her base of information, with respect to what she was talking about? In the 1990s. Whenever you spoke to Susan, did you have a sense that she was exaggerating her role?”
O’MEARA: “No.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Have you ever had concerns about Ms. Lindauer’s mental health?”
O’MEARA: “No.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Do you think you’re qualified to express any opinion about her mental health?”
THE COURT: “Are you able to answer the question, as it’s phrased, ma’am?”
O’MEARA: I think I’m qualified insomuch as I can, you know, read the DSM [diagnostic symptoms manual] just like any psychiatrist, and look at a list of behaviors.”
O’MEARA: “As somebody who knows Susan for many, many years, not as a good friend, but as an acquaintance at meetings, at the Hunan, and from hearing about her from Paul, I never got a sense in all that time that Susan was mentally unstable.”
On redirect with Shaughnessy, for the Defense:
SHAUGHNESSY: “With respect to Mr. Hoven, this fellow who maybe met you “a couple of times, ” approximately how many times did you meet with him from, let’s say the mid ‘90s to the present?”
O’MEARA: “I haven’t seen him in a couple of years since he went back to Minnesota, but Paul was a regular fixture in my life. I considered him a close friend. He had dinner at my family’s homes many, many times. I mean, I met with Paul a lot.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Just a moment. Where does your family live?”
O’MEARA: “In northern Virginia.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Would he come over to dinner at your family’s house?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “About how many times?”
O’MEARA: “Well, he was very welcome at my sister’s home. He used to love – he thought it was from Better Homes and Gardens. He went swimming in the pool there. He was you know, he was part of my life. He was a good friend. I considered him a very good friend. And we met often for dinner, talked on the phone all the time.”
“In fact, Paul threatened a reporter one day for being rude to me when I was on the Hill. He called me, and told me. I told him I would kill him if he ever did that again. I mean Paul. We were very close friends.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “So when he says he maybe met you a couple of times –”
O’MEARA: “He’s lying.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Have you recently had brought to your attention, writings or matters that relate Paul to the intelligence community?”
O’MEARA: “Yes. I started doing some research on Google, and Paul is very evident in a blog. I actually printed out his responses. They are on my chair over there. He’s responding to other people asking questions about other spooks, or other intelligence-type people like Gene Wheaton [one of the key figures who exposed Oliver North and the Iran-Contra Scandal] and Ed Wilson [a covert CIA operative who served 27 years in prison for running a black operation in Libya].” “Paul is going into some explanation about some of these people. How Paul knew them, and so forth and so on.”
“Paul also introduced me to Bill Weisenberger and Alice Weisenberger. And Bill is former CIA [heavily engaged with Ed Wilson in former CIA operations involving Libya]. I used to go shooting with Paul at Bill’s farm. Paul would take me there, shooting guns.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Paul Hoven?”
O’MEARA: “Paul Hoven took me there. We used to call them Big Bill and Alice. And we would go to dinner a lot with Big Bill and his wife, Alice.”
“So, I mean, is it in the realm that Paul knew people in intelligence? Yes. Certainly Bill Weisenberger was in the CIA, and it’s written about all over Google. You can read it. I mean, he doesn’t deny that he was in the CIA.”
From the defendant’s chair, I let out a long sigh. A deep breath that I’d been holding inside me for four years, anticipating this moment. Did Paul Hoven have deep affiliations inside the murky world of intelligence? Gracious, yes! And did he have strong ties with me? For many years?
Gracious, yes!
And did he have strong ties with me? For many years?
Indisputably.
Imagine that moment for me, as the “accused Iraqi agent.” For four years, I had begged and pleaded for this one simple pretrial evidentiary hearing, so that independent sources like Kelly O’Meara could authenticate these relationships. All of my requests got denied.
Instead, I had been incarcerated for one year in prison on a Texas military base. Scorned as “incompetent.” Threatened with needle injections of Haldol to “cure me” of believing the truth of my own life. I had to listen to crazy psychiatrists argue as to whether my relationship with Hoven and Dr. Fuisz existed at all.
At one point at Carswell, the psych crowd speculated that these men might not be real people! Maybe I invented them!
It got that crazy!
The difference was that now I had a superior attorney who wanted to defend me. That’s what changed the dynamic of my legal battle. One attorney’s determination to advocate for the rights of his client.
The outcome was a stunning reversal. From the opening moments of Kelly O’Meara’s testimony, all that speculative conjecture of the psychological evaluations crashed down in the Courtroom. Like a demolition, it collapsed in minutes flat.
Psychiatry failed the reality test.
Consider the irony— Psychiatry had sworn that Courts have no need for participatory witnesses. The “medical insight” of psychiatry was sufficient to know the “truth” about my activities and relationships. Participatory witnesses would be superfluous and confusing.
Except the lunatic psychiatrists got it all wrong.
That single morning of testimony proved psychiatry had been vainglorious and empty of insight exactly as I told Judge Mukasey two years earlier, when I pleaded against forcible drugging. The “diagnosis” had been fraudulent and devoid of reality contact.
Sadly, for the first time, Shaughnessy and I confronted hard evidence that some of Hoven’s statements to the FBI must have been dishonest— like telling the FBI that Hoven only met Kelly O’Meara “a couple of times, ” when they were incredibly close friends for 20 years. Hoven was a close friend of mine for 9 years.
One has to wonder if Hoven scrubbed O’Meara from his life just like he scrubbed me. He no longer needed us anymore. So he obliterated us both, erasing all the warm memories and exciting adventures that we shared together.
O’Meara and I are baffled by it
But those who watch the intelligence community should recognize familiar patterns in his behavior. Just like Joe Harvey dumped O’Meara after four years of close contact, once his responsibility as her handler finished, so Hoven cut me off, too. We were used up as sources. He moved on.
Intelligence watchers would also recognize the familiarity of the lifestyle. Intelligence folk frequently appear to have no formal occupation. Dr. Fuisz used to joke that there would be “no business cards” at his meetings. Another joke around Washington is that neighbors can identify the spooks next door, according to who’s mowing the lawn or heading to the beach on a glorious Tuesday afternoon, when everybody else is tied down at an office.
My neighbors gossiped about me, too. It’s part and parcel of the culture.
Hoven would often hide behind his heart disease and disability retirement to avoid questions about his employment. In truth, his heart ailment never interfered with supervising my contacts with Libya and Iraq. He was my handler, and both of us stayed active and busy.
And I could never forget that Hoven showed up at my door knowing I warned the Tunisian Embassy about the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
My closest friends and family were completely ignorant of that extraordinary event. Yet Hoven had been fully debriefed in all particulars. At the beginning of our relationship, he frequently berated me that we would have no contact at all, on account of the wild differences in our political perspectives, except for the government’s desire to keep an eye on me after that attack.
Yes, he called me “goofy.” Hoven was a hard right conservative, who attended “Soldier of Fortune” soirees in Washington. I was a progressive democrat and peace activist. We were an odd couple, for sure. We had very different motivations for doing this work. And yet Hoven was one of my closest friends for a decade. I called him my “big brother.” I described Richard Fuisz as “my uncle.” I loved these men, and I considered it a privilege to share adventures with them. I had the best life I could have hoped for.
Sometimes I have wondered if perhaps Hoven and Dr. Fuisz wrongly imagined that I complained to these crazy psychiatrists about our past. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I spoke very highly about our relationships.
And what about his link to the Defense Intelligence Agency, as a double blind? Hoven was adamant that our projects in New York broke no laws against CIA operations or surveillance inside the United States. He always stipulated that Defense Intelligence had authorization from Congress to run domestic counterterrorism operations. Hoven portrayed his ability to liaison with Defense Intelligence as critical for the legitimacy of our work in New York. Though officially retired on disability, Hoven always insisted that our team’s actions were entirely legal, because he kept Defense Intelligence in the loop. That was a big deal.
At trial, other witnesses like Ian Ferguson, a Scottish journalist and investigator for the Lockerbie Appeals, would testify that other Intelligence officers identified Hoven as the Defense Intelligence liaison for Lockerbie. And it was true.
When it came to identifying fellow travelers and spooks that I might encounter on my path, Hoven said it best.
“Susan, if it waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
“But Paul!” I’d say. “How can I be sure?”
“Susan, ” he’d say, laughing. “It’s a duck.”
After four years waiting for my day in Court, I heard O’Meara’s testimony with a satisfied heart. We had one shot before trial at proving the authenticity of my relationship with Hoven and his wide intelligence contacts.
O’Meara knocked it out of the ball park.
But my defense wasn’t finished yet. Shaughnessy was determined to validate our team’s 9/11 warning, as well. We intended to prove the FBI, the U.S Attorneys Office and the Bureau of Prisons had always known the truth throughout the debate on forcible drugging, while I was locked up at Carswell and M.C.C.
That would force the question of prosecutorial misconduct out in the open. It would also keep open the question of whether Hoven lied, as O’Callaghan argued most adamantly to Judge Preska. We could not be sure if O’Callaghan was relying on Hoven’s absence from the courtroom to mislead the proceedings again. That remained a distinct possibility, given all that had come before.
Either way, validating my 9/11 warning would prove O’Callaghan told a terrible lie to Judge Mukasey, when he denied the independent confirmation of my team’s warnings during the awful debate on forcible drugging. That deception officially made my story one of the most savage government cover ups in the last decade.
Again, my Defense chose wisely.
Parke Godfrey is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at York University in Toronto, Canada’s third largest university. A scientist and mathematician, who does calculus algorithms for fun, like a game, Godfrey presents a calm, studied demeanor. He’s a precise and methodical thinker who chooses his words carefully. During difficult court questioning, he would pause to give an accurate, thoughtful response.
The two of us had become close friends in 1990, while Godfrey worked on his PhD in artificial intelligence and deductive databases at the University of Maryland in College Park. He has taught at York University since 1999, with a two year sabbatical at William and Mary College in Virginia. 609
Godfrey and I met through an old friend from Smith College, my alma mater in Northampton, Massachusetts, shortly after I arrived in Washington.
SHAUGHNESSY: “With what frequency did you see Susan?”
GODFREY: “Until I moved to Toronto in ‘99, I probably saw Susan on an average of twice a week. I probably spoke with her on an average of two to three times a week.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “So you came to know her pretty well, is that correct?
GODFREY: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Now, were you aware that she was concerned with, perhaps, antiwar activity and peace-type activity?”
GODFREY: “Yes. I was.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did she speak with you about certain activities that she had become aware of, that is, certain dangers that she believed were facing us?”
GODFREY: “She did, yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Would you please describe them?”
GODFREY: “The first way I found that she was quite an antiwar activist is probably early on. We and other friends went to a number of the demonstrations that were happening in the early ‘90s downtown. The marches and such.”
“One, if I’m remembering correctly, was an antiwar rally during the Gulf War, and a couple of others were rallies for abortion rights.”
“Then, in the mid 90s, I was aware that she was involved in a number of things that she described as peace activism. She also did quite a bit of extracurricular activity and traveling to New York to talk with different groups, in particular, always, with a very keen interest in Middle Eastern problems.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did there come a time when she was concerned about a possible attack on the United States?”
GODFREY: “She had described that.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What did she describe?”
GODFREY: “In particular, she warned me when I was job hunting and considering potential work in New York, because I liked New York City, that New York City was dangerous, and in particular she was predicting that there was going to be a massive attack here. In particular in southern Manhattan. This was before 9/11.”
“So when I was looking for the job at William and Mary, which was late 2000 – I was at York University, but was looking at other universities – she warned [me] not to consider New York because she thought an attack was imminent here.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Continue, please.”
GODFREY: “I asked her about the nature of it. She said that she thought it would be something very, very big. I asked her, “Well, what do you mean?” She said that it would involve airplanes and possibly a nuclear weapon. She said that what was started in ‘93, she thought was going to come back.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What was that she referenced as having started in ‘93?”
GODFREY: “Well, the attempt on the World Trade Centers at the time.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did she believe, or was she telling you that very shortly there was likely to be another attack of that nature?”
GODFREY: “She did. She said that it would complete the cycle of that attack. And she said that there would be an attack in late summer, early fall.” “In August, she told me that she thought it was some time imminent.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Now, did you know any of the things that she was doing that might have given her access to information, that might lead to a prediction of that nature?”
GODFREY: “Well, I had known that she was active in trying to prevent escalation with what turned out to be the war in Iraq. She had been making trips to New York to talk to people there. But nothing in my mind ever connected that she would have any access to information or intelligence that would give any indication of an attack.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “You said she was visiting New York periodically. Do you know who, not necessarily the names, but the nature of the people she visited in New York City?”
GODFREY: “I don’t know directly, no. Only afterwards have I found out – well, I have learned that she supposedly was talking with people at the Iraqi consulate, although she had always described that she was meeting with consulate folks with different Middle Eastern countries.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did she mention any of those countries?”
GODFREY: “Not directly, no. Not to me.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Now, sir, did she ever mention a person named Paul Hoven?”
GODFREY: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “In what respect?”
GODFREY: “Our socializing was with a group of friends. We all lived in Maryland. And in particular, it’s hard to live in the Washington, D.C. area and not be somewhat political. And we were quite a tight group of Democrats. Very often a lot of our socializing revolved around some political issue or another.”
“I remember a party we had at our place, the time of the [Democratic] convention, where Bill Clinton was nominated. When I talked to Susan about other things that she did, and other socializing she did, she described a group that she got together with on a weekly basis, down on Capitol Hill, and other times down on the Virginia side.”
“And she used to laugh and say it was about as opposite from our social group as possible. A lot of these people were very, very much Republican. And also that these people that she knew, and talked with quite a bit, were involved in policy, and in particular in the Intelligence Communities.”
“One of the persons that she described as being a member of that group, who was a good friend of hers, was Paul Hoven.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did she explain anything that she may have done with Paul Hoven, or was it simply as part of the group there?”
GODFREY: “Not anything, to my knowledge, as to her political activism or peace activism. I think he was one of the first people she met in that group. As best I knew, that group was primarily a social group. They invited her in, because she had become friends with Paul Hoven, and also because of the connections with her father, who is a Republican, who had run at one point for governor of Alaska.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did there seem to be any hostility, acrimony, hard feelings or anything of that nature between her and Paul Hoven?”
GODFREY: “Not that I am aware of, no.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “You talked about Susan going up to meet with Middle Eastern, people from the Middle East, in the embassies, or whatever. Did she mention any particular countries that stand out in your mind that she went to see?”
GODFREY: “Actually, no. Whenever she did speak of such things, she always spoke of those activities in a vague way, and told me on purpose. These were activities that she was doing, to my understanding and I fully believe, as part of her peace activism. But it wasn’t something that I was involved with. And she said, a lot of these talks that I am having and all, well, she just felt it was better not to go into the details.”
Godfrey’s exchange with the Prosecutor on 9/11 amused me. The Prosecutor tried to dismiss my 9/11 warning as “a premonition.” Godfrey adamantly corrected him that it was “a prediction— not a premonition.” And he stuck by it, never deviating from the word.
For the sake of further clarity, he submitted an affidavit on the 9/11 warning, 610 which cuts through the Prosecutor’s attempts to deflect the impact of my warning. (See Appendix)
GODFREY: “Ms. Lindauer’s original warning to me in 2000 was somewhat vague, describing her opinion that a terrorist attack would occur in New York City. I recall that by the spring and summer of 2001, her warning became much more emphatic and explicit. She got much more agitated about the likelihood of the attack.”
“Ms. Lindauer confided in me on several occasions her concern that the next terrorist attack would involve airplane hijackings and/or airplane bombings.”
“In the spring and summer of 2001, on several occasions, Lindauer expressed heightened concern that a terrorist attack was in the works that would strike the southern part of Manhattan. She claimed it would reprise the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. She described the attack as completing the cycle started in that first attack.”
“She definitely tied the threat of airplane hijackings to, what she said, would be some sort of strike on the World Trade Center. That’s what she was predicting.”
“In August, 2001, Ms. Lindauer told me the attack was “imminent. She warned me to stay out of New York City. She told me the situation was very dangerous, and that a lot of people would get killed in this attack. She expected heavy casualties.”
GODFREY: “In September, 2004— I was interviewed by the FBI in Mississauga (adjacent to Toronto), in the presence of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP insisted on this, as the interview was in Canada, and I was a Canadian resident. I spoke with FBI special agent Suzan LeTourneau.” [That was four years before the hearing in New York and 12 months before I got incarcerated at Carswell]
“While the interview focused on mundane details of Ms. Lindauer’s life and acquaintances, the conversation did touch on her indictment and her predictions. I told [FBI Special Agent] LeTourneau that Ms. Lindauer had predicted the 9/11 attack throughout the spring and summer of 2001, and that her prediction was very specific. It involved airplane hijackings and a strike on the World Trade Center.”
At the defendant’s table, I experienced a grim satisfaction of triumph. My mind flashed back to those terrified nights at M.C.C, writing desperate letters to Judge Mukasey, frantic and tearful at 2 in the morning, begging for the right to call witnesses, so I could prove myself.
Everything I said was truthful always. Within a few months of my arrest, the FBI, the US Attorneys Office—and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police— were fully aware that a private citizen outside the Intelligence Community stood ready to authenticate my 9/11 warning in a Court of Law.
Notably, Godfrey’s testimony could not be suppressed by secrecy laws. His revelations would have created serious blowback for Congress, which in September 2004, was getting ready to publish the 9/11 Commission Report. The 9/11 Commission strongly denounced “conspiracy theorists” who believed action should have been possible to prevent the strike, or substantially cripple its impact.
The 9/11 Commission Report would have been exposed as an egregious public fraud. And the truth would be out in the open.
That provided a strong motivation for the Justice Department to fight my demands for a trial.
The FBI was not the only agency at the Justice Department to speak with Godfrey, either. In his affidavit, Godfrey discussed how he spoke with Dr. Shadduck at Carswell about my 9/11 warning, too. 611
GODFREY: “In early December 2005, I believe, a few months after Ms. Lindauer had been sent to Carswell Prison, I spoke with the psychologist handling her competence evaluation for the Court. During our conversation, I attempted to confirm with him that Ms. Lindauer had made predictions of a terrorist attack in Manhattan to me and others prior to the 9/11 attack. He seemed to have no interest in hearing this. Our conversation was brief.”
“While she was still detained in prison, I offered to travel from Toronto and testify at any competency hearing, as a character witness, on her mental competence, on what I knew of her political activities before her indictment, about warnings of terrorist attacks, and any other aspects for which the Court might be interested.”
“I attended the hearing on forcible drugging in May, 2006. I offered to testify on that day. In fact, I arrived at the Court, assuming that I was to testify. However, her attorney, Mr. Sam Talkin, did not call me. In conversation that day, I told him that she had made warnings of a terrorist attack to me and others, in advance of 9/11. I told him that I was mortified by what the Court seemed to be doing.”
No one can doubt that Godfrey made tremendous efforts to authenticate my 9/11 warning— in interviews with the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons, my Uncle Ted Lindauer and other Defense attorneys. Nevertheless, I continued to suffer taunts in Court for years that I was “delusional” for suggesting I gave advance warning about 9/11.
If not for Judge Mukasey’s superior vigilance, the deception would have succeeded. I would have been “detained indefinitely” under the Patriot Act, and shot full of Haldol—until whatever time I could be reformed and persuaded to recant the facts of my life, which intersect so tragically with the truth about 9/11 and Iraq.
It was grotesquely corrupt. And legally fraudulent. Godfrey discussed it further in his affidavit. 612
GODFREY: “I consider Ms. Lindauer fully competent in all ways, and devoid of any mental illness or instability.” “Ms. Lindauer has an artistic and mercurial temperament. She is passionate as an activist supporting her causes. She is a creative writer and former journalist. I have never observed mental instability or mental illness in her behavior.”
He expressed concern for the legal competence of my attorney, Mr. Talkin as well.
GODFREY: “I made myself available to speak with the investigator working for her defense attorney. I was prepared for a lengthy conversation, including a discussion of Ms. Lindauer’s 9/11 warning. I was surprised when the defense investigator cut short the conversation after only five to ten minutes. His questions seemed far inadequate for the scope of the indictment against Ms. Lindauer, and for what I felt I had to share with her Defense Attorney.”
GODFREY: “Several months later, I contacted Ms. Lindauer’s uncle, Ted Lindauer, and spoke with him at greater length about several issues in her case. I can verify that Ms. Lindauer felt compelled to seek her uncle’s assistance interviewing witnesses for her case, before she got sent to Carswell.”
In conclusion, Godfrey disputed the notion of my incompetence wholeheartedly, and roundly castigated the Justice Department.
GODFREY: “In my opinion, contrary to the Justice Department lawyers, Ms. Lindauer is now, and always was, competent to stand trial. The decision to accuse her of incompetence was baffling to myself and many others. I was forced to conclude that it was likely politically motivated to block her request for a trial.”
“Throughout this entire ordeal, Susan Lindauer has suffered harassment. She faced inexcusable delays in setting a trial date, (or in dropping the charges). She was repeatedly questioned in court over the reliability of her terrorist warnings, despite that they had been corroborated by me and by many others in affidavits, and under oath in spoken testimony. She was incarcerated in a mental facility, within a federal prison for 7 months, 1,300 miles from her home for supposed observation. And then held in confinement for months afterwards.”
“The FBI and the US Attorneys Office’s behavior in Ms. Lindauer’s case were abhorrent. It is quite clear that much more was going on.”
Until I read the New York Times. The article by Alan Feuer, 613 buried in the Metropolitan Section, made no mention of Godfrey’s explosive revelations of my 9/11 warning, nor any mention of Kelly O’Meara’s confirmation of my lengthy relationship with Hoven or his noted intelligence ties. It offered nothing about my claims to have worked as a U.S. Intelligence Asset, covering Iraq at the United Nations before the War.
Ground Zero stood 1,000 yards from the Federal Courthouse on Pearl Street where my hearing took place. But the New York Times apparently saw no reason to enlighten readers in New York City that the Justice Department was fighting to block an American citizen’s Constitutional Right to a Trial, in order to withhold critical information about 9/11 from the American people.
Instead, in his opening lead, New York Times journalist, Alan Feuer, falsely declared that I “stuck my tongue out at the Prosecutor.” 614 [Feuer likely an agency asset himself,because Mockingbird never went anywhere. D.C]
I had to read it several times. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was an outrageous lie, not even close to the mark. I practically wept.
I never stuck my tongue at children in the 3rd grade. That’s not my style. I might have flipped the guy a finger! Oh yes, with great satisfaction! But I had a broken molar tooth that day, which scraped my tongue painfully. Sticking out my tongue at O’Callaghan was simply not possible.
Feuer could not see my face anyway. I was seated directly in front of him, facing the Judge. The invention was disgraceful, a gross lack of journalistic integrity. Real tabloid trash. Yet because the New York Times printed it, ordinary people would believe it.
Why did Feuer do it? I felt so betrayed. Here I had waited four years for a chance to tell my story to the people of New York. All I got was one morning and the chance to present two outstanding witnesses. The gravitas of the occasion was most evident. I could not smile at my witnesses, because the consequence of the occasion was so severe.
And this was how the New York Times reported my story?
Ah, but America has come a long way since the days when the New York Times served up the only source of hard news for the people.
Robert Redford would have shared my disappointment in this bitter sequel to “Three Days of the Condor.” But like me, Redford would have saluted his champions in the New Media on the internet.
Because in fact, the blogs carried the day! They were on the ball, ready to expose the corruption that the New York Times tried to bury from the public, for whatever reasons.
Thank heavens for the blogs!
One of the best investigative journalists today, Michael Collins had traveled to New York for my hearing that morning. He was in the courtroom, and caught it all for posterity, with careful attention to details and nuance. He reported it all. My 9/11 warning. The validation of my relationship to Hoven and his murky ties to U.S. Intelligence.
That truth was not lost, though the “gray haired lady” of journalism clearly suffered dementia not to print it.
It was blog journalist, Michael Collins who sat up and paid attention. Collins who alerted the blogging community. Collins who told America: “9/11 Prediction Revealed at Susan Lindauer Hearing on Competence.” 615
That felt so sweet and so good. Collins posted my 9/11 warning dead center for the changing of the media guard, the rise of a new watch dog for the people.
And what about Feuer, that New York Times’ hack? He got flamed on the blogs.
Damning headlines all over the internet taunted: “From the People Who Brought Us Judith Miller: The NYT “Covers” Susan Lindauer hearing.” 616 A friendly reminder of the dishonesty of the New York Times’ reporting on PreWar Intelligence and its unchecked “facts.”
It was a good lesson for the Times’ editors in New York. They can’t pull this sort of crap on the people and get away with it. Not anymore. It won’t be tolerated.
Like everything else, it was bittersweet validation, after so many years of harassment.
There was another surprise coming that would blow us away.
A few short weeks after Godfrey’s and O’Meara’s testimony, O’Callaghan left the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.
O’Callaghan joined the upper echelon of John McCain’s Presidential Campaign, 617 as part of the top circle of advisers. He was assigned to Sarah Palin’s campaign in Alaska, handling “Troopergate.” That’s right. The man who despised spirituality as evidence of “mental defect” took over the reins of Sarah Palin’s Vice Presidential Campaign!
It was enough to know that O’Callaghan was on McCain’s payroll.
This was a political hit, like I’d always sworn it was. All the players were politically motivated. And the outcome was fixed.
I rest my case.
next
OFF WITH HER HEAD, ” THE RED QUEEN SAID2766
notes
CHAPTER 31
587. Michael Collins hosts ElectionFraudNews.com His articles run on 400 blogs. 588. American Cassandra: Susan Lindauer’s Story. Michael Collins. “Scoop” Independent News, Oct. 17, 2007. Republished by permission of the author.
589: “American Cassandra Series:” Michael Collins. “Scoop” Independent News.
590. Ibid. “American Cassandra Series:” Michael Collins. “Scoop” Independent News.
591. Court Transcripts. September, October, November and December 2007. Major fight to force me back to Carswell. Judge Preska, presiding, after I refused to continue psych meetings at Counseling Plus. Thomas Marino, Jr. Pretrial Services, New York. Randy Canal, Pretrial Services, Greenbelt.
592. Tape Recordings of phone calls to PreTrial Services, documenting reporting.
593. Session notes from Counseling Plus. Burton. U.S. vs. Lindauer October, 2006 through August, 2007.
594. Bail Bond U.S. vs. Lindauer set at $500,000. March 11, 2004 through Jan 15, 2009. 595. Ibid. Court Transcripts. September, October, November and December 2007. Major fight to force me back to Carswell. Judge Preska, presiding, after I refused to continue psych meetings at Counseling Plus. Thomas Marino, Jr. Pretrial Services, New York. Randy Canal, Pretrial Services, Greenbelt.
596. Ibid. Court Transcripts. September through December, 2007. U.S. vs. Lindauer. Judge Preska, presiding
597. Ibid. Court Transcripts. September through December, 2007. U.S. vs. Lindauer. Judge Preska, presiding
598. Court Transcripts. PreTrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
599. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
600. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
601. Ibid. Session notes from Counseling Plus. Burton–Lindauer Oct, 2006 through Aug, 2007.
602. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
603. Court filing. Brian Shaughnessy. U.S. vs. Lindauer. Judge Preska, Jan, 2008.
604. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
605. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. September through December, 2007. U.S. vs. Lindauer. Judge Preska, presiding
CHAPTER 32
606. Court Testimony by Patricia Kelly O’Meara. Hearing on Competence, Judge Loretta Preska presiding.. U.S. vs. Lindauer, June 2008.
607. Ibid. Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Invents Mental Illness and Pushes Pills that Kill, ” by Patricia Kelly O’Meara. Author House. 2006.
608. Ibid. Court Testimony by Patricia Kelly O’Meara. Hearing on Competence, Judge Preska presiding.. U.S. vs. Lindauer, June 2008.
609. Court Testimony by Dr. Parke Godfrey, Hearing on Competence, Judge Preska presiding.. U.S. vs. Lindauer, June 2008.
610. Ibid. Affidavit by Parke Godfrey on 9/11 warning and the question of Lindauer’s Competence.
611. Ibid. Affidavit by Dr. Parke Godfrey on 9/11 warning and the question of Lindauer’s Competence.
612. Ibid. Affidavit by Dr. Parke Godfrey on 9/11 warning and the question of Lindauer’s Competence.
613. Anti War Activist Returns to Court for Iraq Spy Case, by Alan Feuer, New York Times. June 18, 2008
614. Ibid. Anti War Activist Returns to Court, by Alan Feuer, New York Times. June 18, 2008
615. 9/11 Prediction Revealed at Susan Lindauer Hearing on Competence. By Michael Collins. “Scoop” Independent News. June 18, 2008
616. New York Times Covers Susan Lindauer Hearing, By Michael Collins “Scoop” Independent News, ” June 25, 2008.
617. Biography of Edward O’Callaghan. Law Firm of Peabody, Nixon. 2010
Those radio hosts have amazing tentacles of knowledge, reaching deep below the surface on many different issues. They have the depth that I’d been aching for, and missing so much in the mainstream media. I’d pretty much given up hope of finding it. And all of a sudden, there it was— Vigilant, awake and free.
Most importantly, JB Fields and the “New Media, ” as everybody called it, gave me the confidence, and the hope, to tell my story again. They championed my cause with such enthusiasm that I felt like a phoenix rising from the ashes.
Like a lot of Americans, I started looking for America in some different places.
That’s when I found a blog journalist who proves that the New Media possesses every bit as much “class” and journalistic quality as the old media. And a darn sight more curiosity and devotion to investigative reporting.
It was Michael Collins, one of the truly cutting edge blog journalists today. 587 I call him the Johnny Depp of blog journalism, because of his amazing versatility.
Michael Collins changed the whole dynamic of my fight.
Judge Mukasey retired from the bench the day of my release. Now he got nominated to become U.S. Attorney General, taking over from Alberto Gonzales, author of the infamous torture memos and the Guantanamo prison concept. Michael Collins published a round up of Judge Mukasey’s formidable career on the bench. Pointing to Mukasey’s final decision saving me from forcible drugging, Collins argued that Mukasey appeared to have a soft spot for the underdog in a fight. He might turn out to be a strong defender of individual liberties, a breath of integrity after the corruption of Alberto Gonzales’ cabal of anti-Constitutionalists.
Well, the subtlety of Collins’ understanding impressed me. I read his article on SmirkingChimp.com,, and decided to approach him through Jeff Tiedrich, publisher of the blog.
Michael Collins did me the favor of responding immediately. He wanted to know what the hell was going on. Like Brian Shaughnessy, he smelled a rat.
He took the time to find out. We sat down for three lengthy interviews at a Lebanese bistro near my home in Maryland. Collins took special care to analyze my history as an Asset overall, starting with Lockerbie. And he was the first journalist who asked to see my 11 letters to White House Chief of Staff Andy Card, resulting in my indictment. He was aghast at the evidence that was supposed to convict me.
Collins nicknamed me “American Cassandra” for my tragic prophecies about the outcome of this War. 588 The lack of illegal weapons in Iraq. The rise of Iran. The rise of Islamic fundamentalists through democracy. The $1.6 trillion war budget that would rob domestic programs and throw Wall Street and the Middle Classes into a downward tailspin. The emergence of charismatic terrorist cells inside Iraq to fight the Infidel Occupation. The Iraqi people’s bitter hatred of the U.S. for the misery of sanctions.
Like Cassandra, I foretold it all with clarity.
And like Cassandra, I suffered the contempt of our leaders, who did not wish to hear the truths that I forecast—
When Michael Collins got hold of my story— finally—a critically thinking journalist connected the dots, linking my indictment to events on Capitol Hill. He recognized the aspects of a major cover up immediately. 589
Collins cried foul on the Justice Department for protecting Republicans from the hellacious fall out of poor decision making before the War. He was doubly appalled when he read the Andy Card letters, and saw what I’d actually done.
Collins had the integrity to be outraged.
By now, I’d lived under the storm of indictment for three and a half bitter years. I’d spent a year in prison. And all of a sudden, there was sunshine on my story Where the New York Times had botched it so badly, the “New Media” now excelled. Truly it felt like a changing of the guard. It was exciting to be part of that.
Michael Collins took my story to “Scoop” Independent News, Op-Ed News, Atlantic Free Press, American Politics Journal, Intelligence Daily, Smirking Chimp, and the Agonist, to name a few of the provocative, cutting edge blogs that have established themselves as a vital source of information for the public.
His articles reach 400 blogs in a typical week, and my story posted on all of them.
With a single key stroke, Michael Collins obliterated the corporate media black out. And he proved the pen is still mightier than the sword when it comes to championing the rights of democracy and freedom.
For my own esteem, it was God-sent.
As the months rolled on, Phelan and Herzog’s radio shows and Michael Collins’ blog articles flagged all the breaking developments in my case, blow by blow. 590 It would be a battle to the last day. Only now, thanks to the New Media, blog readers and radio audiences started to get some facts. And wouldn’t you know, those facts contradicted everything they’d been sold — not only about my life, but also about Iraq and 9/11 and the weakness of U.S. anti-terrorism policy. As the Presidential election fight heated up, Americans started asking some tough questions.
There was still confusion, as people had to absorb the vast differences of how the Justice Department portrayed me versus new revelations about the horrific abuses that I suffered on the Patriot Act. But I was no longer standing alone in the dock. Michael Collins, Michael Herzog and Janet Phelan showed me that America cared.
Thinking people cared.
“Awake” people cared. That strengthened my confidence to face down the insults from my opponents, as I pushed forward with Brian Shaughnessy and Tom Mattingly towards a trial.
Those insults— and threats on my freedom— got much worse, not better. Republicans had me in a box. And they did not want me coming out of that box. My enemies camped out on Wikipedia, a useful tool for COINTEL propaganda that bastardized me every chance they got. Some of the mistakes were comical and stupid. Despite multiple corrections, for a couple of years Wikipedia insisted on giving me the wrong name, the wrong age and birthday. And they wrongly identified the allegations against me, upping my crimes to espionage. It went downhill from there.
Happily, notoriety does not scare me. I’ve got incredibly tough skin. I’m a big believer that you can tell a lot about a person by the strength of (her) enemies. Mine included Dick Cheney John McCain, Andy Card, John Ashcroft, Colin Powell and Alberto Gonzales. So maybe I’m not so bad after all!
Hey, they’re big and I’m small. That doesn’t make them right.
Above all, the White House was in play. And my prime arch enemy, John McCain was running for President. His staff desperately wanted to keep me silent.
Unfortunately, as McCain’s poll numbers got tighter in the race with Barak Obama, there were constant threats to take me into custody. Several times Pretrial Services in New York threatened to revoke my bail, because, on my attorney’s advice, I phoned after hours to avoid ugly confrontations between us. 591 I taped every phone call to Pretrial Services for my own protection. 592
It was incredibly dirty. I was not some ex-convict, violating my probation. Three and a half years had passed, and I was still demanding my rights to a trial. By now, I had another year’s worth of psych observations from Counseling Plus, documenting that nothing was wrong with me. 593 I hardly qualified as a flight risk, since I’d already surrendered to prison once. I’m not a drug user, who indulged in substance abuse. In five years I never committed any crime, which could justified bail revocation.
This was more like high stakes poker. Shaughnessy and I kept agitating for a trial, so we could shoot down the allegations. My very mediocre public attorney was gone. The Prosecutor squirmed with dread that he would have to play his cards, and show his lack of evidence to the Court. O’Callaghan would be forced to admit that he had knowingly concealed the facts of my identity. He would get busted for prosecutorial misconduct that resulted in the false imprisonment of a known Asset , with threats of forcible drugging to shut me up. Clearly O’Callaghan did not relish that confession.
I used to joke that the Judge should post a $500,000 bond on O’Callaghan’s house— identical to mine—so that the Defense could require him to come to Court. 594 He was the one avoiding the Judge, not me. I used to taunt Pretrial Services that I was ready. Just name the day, and I’d be happy to kick the Justice Department’s ass.
Ominously for me, polls showed voter support for Republicans was sinking fast. Fighting to keep a death grip on power, the GOP’s worst nightmare was now coming true: I was talking on the radio about the real facts of Iraq, 9/11 and the weakness of GOP performance against - terrorism.
And some independent minded Americans were starting to listen. The Justice Department let me know they would not stand for it.
In September, October, November and December 2007, Pretrial Services mounted an aggressive effort to revoke my bail and ship me back to Carswell, with a series of false complaints. 595
In one court deception, I was astonished when PreTrial Services accused me of “bursting in on another individual’s session at Counseling Plus.” 596
It was a flagrant, audacious lie. Aggravating the ridiculousness of the accusation, I despise psychology so much that I would never dream of interrupting anybody else’s session. I was always happy to sit in the lobby, if Burton was running late. I had nothing to say to the woman. The longer I waited, the less time I would have to waste in her office, while she surfed the internet scheduling entertainments with her daughter, or shopping for clothes.
The upshot was that somebody else wearing a blue coat, similar to mine, “burst” into her office, while she finished up with another client. Heavens, I was probably entering a stage of brain death at that very moment, tucked in a corner of the lobby. Astonishingly, Pretrial Services never bothered to check with Burton before reporting this incident to Judge Preska. They hauled me to New York for an emergency appearance, and argued vigorously that I should get shipped back to Carswell that very night. When I scorned the suggestion, given my contempt for psychology, Pretrial Services had to back down. Even the Judge had to acknowledge it sounded preposterous. 597
Unhappily for O’Callaghan, this was a new game book! Shaughnessy didn’t play. He confronted my Pre-Trial Supervisor in Greenbelt, and demanded a retraction.
When they got caught, do you think Pretrial Services had the integrity to admit to Judge Preska they made a false report? Hardly. They pulled something else from their bag of dirty tricks. Something really dirty, even for these guys.
It got so bad that in December, 2007, Pretrial Services forced me to appear in Court without Shaughnessy— in the company of my former attorney, Sam Talkin, while the Feds fought to revoke my bail. 598 This occurred after I paid Shaughnessy’s legal fees, and the Court was fully informed that he had taken my case. The court meeting was scheduled on the only day that entire week that Shaughnessy could not travel to New York. It was particularly outrageous, since the court meeting was scheduled for 5 o’clock in the afternoon, and Shaughnessy offered to appear by 8 o’clock the next morning. He offered to travel overnight for the appearance.
Talkin—who’d been replaced by this point— seized the opportunity to make one final pitch disputing my competence. He swore that he would agree to whatever O’Callaghan wanted to do with me. He declared in open court that if he had his way, I would never be declared competent until O’Callaghan said so! 599
Much worse, Talkin argued that I should be forced to undergo a 3 day in-patient psych evaluation, in lieu of going back to Carswell, as a requirement for challenging the competency finding. 600 Never mind that a year’s worth of session notes from Counseling Plus recorded that nothing was wrong with me, 601 and I suffered no personal crises in Maryland —something a faithful attorney would have underscored in Court to preserve my freedom.
Not Talkin! Knowing Shaughnessy was proceeding in a totally different direction, Talkin tried to inflict as much damage as possible on his way, even to the point of costing me my freedom. 602 Thankfully, Brian Shaughnessy got Talkin’s request overturned. He went the extra mile, soliciting opinions from the chief psychiatrists at Georgetown University, George Washington University and the Washington Psychiatric Institute, the last whom he tracked down on vacation in Israel. All swore my competency evaluation could be handled on an outpatient basis, and that hospitalization should be strictly limited to individuals in crisis. To their credit, every one of those Psychiatry Departments refused to admit me, or submit to being pawns of political leaders. They flat out refused. 603
Instead, Shaughnessy arranged for a leading Washington psychiatrist, Dr. Richard Ratner to do the evaluation for our competency challenge at his private office.
But Talkin’s behavior struck us as shocking misconduct. I was compelled to declare for the court record that I had no attorney present, insisting to his shame that Talkin no longer represented me, and my real attorney,Shaughnessy had to be absent, because of other Court commitments in Washington. I scoffed that anything in my life justified a 3 day in-patient evaluation for a competency review, insisting there was a huge disconnect between PreTrial Services’ fanciful inventions and the real facts of my life in Maryland— which was going very well, thank you. 604
Looking back, it’s difficult to believe anybody could have tried to do this. But the threat was quite real. Every time we headed to New York, Shaughnessy would tell me honestly that he had no idea if I would make it home that night, or if the Judge would take me into custody.
One thing probably saved me. Shaughnessy warned that if the Court took me into custody, we would file an emergency appeal to the 2nd Circuit Appellate Court challenging the procedures by which my incompetence had been accepted. Then we would push for trial. 605
The fear that Shaughnessy would use any bail revocation to force a trial probably saved me, especially since Shaughnessy freely declared my capacity to assist him.
An emergency appeal was ready to go if U.S. Marshals ever grabbed me. And we expected to win.
Does that sound like I don’t know the law? That I’m stumped in court? Hardly.
My case was non-stop legal fraud—a reflection on Washington’s desperation to silence me. They succeeded for so long because of the Patriot Act, and because I had no attorney willing to fight for me—except for my marvelous uncle, Ted Lindauer and the brilliant Brian Shaughnessy, after Carswell.
Alas, the Patriot Act handicapped even the most senior attorneys.
The Patriot Act changed the equation of power in the courtroom, such that all transparency in the proceedings got erased. It emboldened the Prosecutor to misrepresent the caliber of evidence against me, when the charges should have been dropped as frivolous. As time went on, protecting the lies invented on Capitol Hill required yet more abuse of my rights, and more deceptions to safeguard Republican officials from exposure.
It’s why I call the Patriot Act the foundation for all future dictatorship in the United States. It’s a very dangerous law. My case demonstrates several critical reasons why the Patriot Act should be repealed immediately. Every leader who supported the Patriot Act should be removed from power, Democrat or Republican, without exception. The Patriot Act should be a litmus test for judging who’s qualified to protect the best traditions of democracy in our country, and who’s unfit for leadership. It’s that bad.
Through every blow, Collins, Herzog and Phelan stayed right by my side. Many times, we’d end a radio show with a reminder that I might get carted back to prison in the next few days. That’s no exaggeration, unfortunately. For several months, I prepared myself mentally and emotionally to get seized and shipped back to Carswell at any moment.
It got so bad that U.S. Marshals phoned Shaughnessy two to three weeks before the November elections, warning of my impending seizure, as the battle hardened between Barak Obama and John McCain. Those sorts of phone calls almost always pre-indicate a defendant is about to get grabbed. Sure enough, that warning coincided with a heavy round of radio interviews, telling listeners the truth about our 9/11 warning and Pre-War Intelligence.
To his great credit, Shaughnessy backed me a hundred percent, and never cautioned me or Michael Collins to back down. He told us to keep fighting, and fight harder!
That’s where my opponents hit a wall.
Republican loyalists inside the Justice Department could deny me a trial on the most frivolous and absurd grounds. But they could not stop me from demanding my day in court to prove my innocence.
They could scorn my “incompetence.” But for all their speechifying, Republican leaders on Capitol Hill could not reinvent my contributions to Pre-War Intelligence, or the reality of my team’s 9/11 warning throughout the summer of 2001.
They faced a serious quandary that John McCain played a leadership role in both the 9/11 investigation and the Iraq Investigation— and both reports contained outrageous inaccuracies that McCain spoon fed to the American people, as key spokesperson for both Commissions.
If McCain had won the Presidency, I would have fought for his impeachment from his first day in office. He would have deserved it, too.
Some Americans have taken hard blows for questioning the official version of events about 9/11. They have possibly speculated in some wrong directions. But they are quite correct that a substantial body of facts has been concealed from the public, like the essential truth that the U.S. Intelligence Community urgently anticipated a 9/11 style of attack, with uncanny accuracy as to the method, target and timing of the attack, described as “imminent” in August, 2001. Or that urgent requests for intra-agency cooperation to pre-empt the strike were made in August, 2001 to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft’s private staff and— at their suggestion— the Office of Counter-Terrorism.
I made some of those calls myself. And I was not the only alarmist.
Finally, the 9/11 Truth community is absolutely correct that the 9/11 Commission was a whitewash. Can anybody blame them for being angry and frustrated? I don’t.
Some things really are unforgivable in a democracy. Allowing thousands of your own citizens to suffer horrible deaths, in order to rationalize an unnecessary War against an innocent country should be judged the most terrible crime of all.
Most Americans still can’t believe that Republican leaders did that to all of us. But it’s true.
The people around John McCain understood exactly what it would mean if my story exposed those deceptions at election time. McCain’s entire campaign platform on national security would have crashed to the ground.
All of that explains why, after Carswell, the louder I spoke out, the more furiously the Justice Department tried to send me back to prison.
The attacks never stopped until Barak Obama’s historic triumph over McCain at the voting booth.
When McCain lost the White House, the attacks ended overnight.
If that doesn’t demonstrate the power of democracy and the voting booth to thwart tyranny, I don’t know what could. Vote, people! [His election might have helped her situation,cannot think of much else he did to stop tyranny,all I can see with him is Libya, Syria,the rise of ISIS and the continued ripping away of our rights DC]
My fight was definitely not for light hearts or weak stomachs.
Only now I had a powerful and effective attorney who cared what happened to me. Shaughnessy stayed ahead of the curve at all times, so that my defense would be ready whatever happened next. Tom Mattingly assumed the role of paralegal, and together they developed a strategy for managing all avenues of the case.
Fellow activist, Karin Anderson of Takoma Park, agreed to pony up my legal fees from her savings. This grandmotherly animal rescue activist finds a penny on every street corner, and always stops to pick it up because it reads: “In God we trust.”
It was many thanks to Karin that my home and beloved pets had been safe, while I was locked up at Carswell. Now, thanks again to Karin, I could carry on my legal battle.
Alas, my beloved friend, JB Fields was suffering a mysterious illness that would prove to be lymphoma cancer. Shortly after my release from M.C.C, he started experiencing bouts of extreme exhaustion. Many months would go by before doctors discovered that his body had stopped producing blood platelets of any type.
JB Fields died in April, 2008—two days after the Court granted our demand for the hearing he fought so passionately for. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a worthy resting place for a proud Navy man, who trawled the ocean floor on naval submarines, a man who dedicated his life to protecting the rights of Americans under the Constitution.
Without the devotion of JB Fields, and his efforts to expose my travesty at Carswell, my legal resurrection would have been unthinkable. JB’s commitment to protecting the freedoms of ordinary Americans is one military tradition that the United States cannot afford to lose.
Sadly, though he never lived to see my vindication or the dismissal of the charges, But JB understood what was coming. Thanks to the planning skills of Shaughnessy and Mattingly, everything was in place when we launched our counter-attack on the Justice Department.
Now the battle resumed in earnest. Only a whole new dynamic was in play.
Thanks to blog journalist Michael Collins, the “New Media” on the internet tracked my case intensely. Front page coverage in “Scoop, ” American Politics Journal, Op-Ed News and Intelligence Daily, guaranteed the Justice Department could no longer foist its defamation of my competence on unquestioning Americans.
Shaughnessy was like a new Sheriff in town, a congenial fellow with a South County Rhode Island drawl, and the confidence and ease of a life-time practicing law at extremely high altitudes. He swore that he had never heard of any case during his career, in which a defendant had been declared “incompetent” over the objections of her own attorney.
Shaughnessy took the fight straight to the Prosecutor. If Judge Preska wanted proof of my story, Shaughnessy promised that we would have no difficulty delivering it.
The Court hemmed and hawed for months. Clearly they wanted to avoid a positive finding that would force a trial before the presidential election. They wanted to keep McCain and the Republicans safe through November.
No matter! The stage was set. My supporters had an under-dog mentality for this fight.
The way I saw it, they were big, but we were small. They were bulky, trapped by their deceptions. We were nimble, protected by our honesty.
And woe to the wicked!
Like Assets, we peace activists never surrender!
CHAPTER 32:
VINDICATION
Veritas vos Liberabit.
Trust in truth, for truth
will set you free.— Or
maybe not. On a lovely day in June 2008, the Court could delay no longer. Judge Preska was forced to grant our demand for a hearing to challenge the bogus finding of incompetence.
This would be my first and only evidentiary hearing in the four years since my arrest. Ostensibly it would determine my “fitness” to stand trial— almost two years after my release from prison.
My Defense would be allowed to present just two witnesses, who could authenticate key parts of my story during one morning of testimony. At trial, there would be a dozen witnesses. But for this pre-trial hearing, the Court forced us to strip it down. The Prosecutor fought to block these participatory witnesses as well.
For all those constraints, Shaughnessy and I believed that we chose wisely.
Our first witness, Kelly O’Meara spent 17 years on Capitol Hill, rising to become Chief of Staff for Rep. Andrew Forbes of Long Island, New York. She played a lead role in the congressional investigation of the mysterious crash of TWA 800 over Long Island Sound. It was O’Meara who cranked up the heat until the Pentagon finally admitted that three submarines, performing a training exercise off the coast of Long Island that night, might have fired upon the airplane accidentally. 606
After Capitol Hill, O’Meara turned to investigative journalism, and published a book on psychiatry, “Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Invents Mental Illness and Pushes Pills that Kill.” Her book examines the correlation between the use of antidepressants, like Prozac, and shooting rampages by teenagers and adults. 607
Finally, O’Meara had known my intelligence handler, Paul Hoven, for more than 20 years. Like me, she was introduced to Hoven by Pat Wait, chief of staff for Rep. Helen Bentley, (GOP- Maryland). She was also a regular at the Hunan for several years. 608
O’MEARA: “I met Paul when I was investigating the death of Irana San Salvador, who was a U.S. embassy guard in San Salvador. Anyway he was killed, and I was investigating. I was telling this friend of mine, this chief of staff about it, and she said, oh, you need to meet Paul Hoven. He can probably help you with that. So I met Paul.”
“He’s a likeable fellow. We became friends. Paul’s the one that first took me to the Hunan, or told me I should come over to the Hunan on Thursday nights, because it is a group of Capitol Hill staffers. Some Pentagon people showed up every now and then. Some lobbyists. Basically it was just you know, after work, have a drink and talk shop.”
Shaughnessy was determined to prove that Hoven had longstanding relationships within the intelligence community, whether he chose to acknowledge formal ties to the Defense Intelligence Agency or not. He had an iron grip on the shadow nature of intelligence work. And so, very astutely, Shaughnessy guided O’Meara to describe the quirky habits of the intelligence community. As conversation, O’Meara’s insights would have been fascinating. In this context, it was frightening.
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did you learn, as the years went along, what sorts of things he did for a living?”
O’MEARA: “I didn’t know what Paul did as far as a living. I never knew Paul to have a job like everybody else. I mean, I never saw him get up and go to work, nine to five, at least when I knew him. I know beforehand, apparently, he was involved in military things on the Hill. But when I knew him, I didn’t know him to have a job.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Now, did there come a time when you met a fellow named Joe Harvey?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “How did you meet him, and what did your relationship become with Harvey?”
O’MEARA: “I was the lead investigator for TWA 800, the crash off of Long Island [in July, 1996] for Congressman Forbes. Anyway, Paul Hoven knew I was investigating that crash. And he said, “Oh, you need to talk to Joe Harvey.” So he introduced me to Joe Harvey because Joe was a former Navy SEAL. That was what I was told. I met Joe. He’s a very nice guy, and we had about a four- year friendship, you know.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Was there a particular term that Mr. Hoven used with respect to your relationship with Joe Harvey?”
O’MEARA: “Well, that came at the end of the relationship. During the whole time I knew Joe, even when I left the Hill and became an investigative reporter [at the Washington Times], Paul never said anything to me. It was after I was working on a story on the Oklahoma City bombing. And I remember Joe gave me some information, and I wasn’t clear on it, so I e-mailed him and asked him to clarify something.”
O’MEARA: “Joe Harvey wrote back, and said, “I don’t ever want to talk to you again.”
THE COURT: “Never?”
O’MEARA: “I never want to talk to you again.” I didn’t know why. I was kind of shocked because I always thought we were just really good friends. And I didn’t understand what had happened.”
“So anyway, when I saw Paul, I told him, and I showed Paul the e-mail. And Paul looked at me, and he goes, “Well, he’s not your handler anymore, Kelly.” Which kind of upset me, because Paul was the one that introduced me to Joe. And I had no idea that I had a handler.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What did you take the term “handler” to be?”
O’MEARA: “Well, what do you take it to be?”
SHAUGHNESSY: “You have to say.”
O’MEARA: “OK. Somebody who kept an eye on me, passed information that I might have given to him, you know.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “To whom?”
O’MEARA: “Intelligence. That’s what I thought. I could be wrong, but that’s what I thought.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “With respect to Mr. Hoven, did you understand in any way that he was involved in intelligence work?”
O’MEARA: “This is just an opinion, OK.
SHAUGHNESSY: “Yes. Did you believe Mr. Hoven to be a member, or involved with intelligence?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Why?”
O’MEARA: “Because I always thought from the time I met Paul, that Paul was an information passer. For people who don’t live in Washington, or aren’t involved in investigations and stuff, maybe you don’t understand that. But Paul always had interesting information. He was always asking you about what you knew. I know that I told him something once on TWA 800 that actually ended up in a newspaper the very next day.”
“I always just felt Paul passed information. Add that with all of the people he introduced me to, the fact that he never had a job that I knew of, I thought that’s what he did.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Do you know a gentleman named Dr. Richard Fuisz?”
O’MEARA: “I have met Dr. Fuisz.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “How did you meet Dr. Fuisz?”
O’MEARA: “Through Paul Hoven.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Would you please explain what happened?”
O’MEARA: “Paul wanted me to meet his good friend, Dr. Fuisz, and we drove out to Dr. Fuisz’s office. I was sick the day that we drove out there, so Paul ended up driving my car. I thought it was in Vienna, Virginia, but I understand now it’s actually in Chantilly. Anyway, we went to his office and kind of just chit chatted for a while. I wasn’t impressed.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did you later find out whether or not Dr. Fuisz had any relationship to the intelligence community?”
O’MEARA: “I was told by Paul Hoven. And this is what actually got me hooked up with Susan after all these years. I read her Lockerbie deposition.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What does that mean, Lockerbie deposition?”
O’MEARA: “She wrote a deposition for the Pan Am 103 Lockerbie trial.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What was the nub of the deposition that caught your attention?”
O’MEARA: “Her deposition was actually almost to the letter what Paul Hoven told me about Lockerbie.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What was that?”
O’MEARA: “That it wasn’t the Libyans that shot it down. It was the Syrians. And Dr. Fuisz was there. He knew. There was supposed to be some secret meeting that was set up between a member of Congress in Switzerland, but something happened where it didn’t work out. So the Syrians were going to take the – I mean the Libyans were going to take the fall for this.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “All right.”
O’MEARA: “When I saw Susan’s deposition on Google– I didn’t even know she did a deposition until just recently. That’s when I called her. I said, Susan, I had no idea that Paul had told you the same thing that he told me.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “How was Dr. Fuisz related to this?”
O’MEARA: “Paul said that Dr. Fuisz was there. He knew.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “There? Where?”
O’MEARA: “I assumed it was in Syria. He was in Syria.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “He knew what?”
O’MEARA: “That it was the Syrians, and not the Libyans.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “That is essentially what the –”
O’MEARA: “That’s what Susan wrote in her deposition, and I was very, very shocked to see it, because I didn’t know she had wrote a deposition, and I had no idea that anybody had told her the same thing that Paul had told me.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “When did this come in relation to your meeting Dr. Fuisz?”
O’MEARA: “I don’t remember the dates. I have been away from the Hill since ‘97.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Was it after or before your meeting with Dr. Fuisz?”
O’MEARA: “It was after my meeting with Dr. Fuisz.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “And have you met Dr. Fuisz again?”
O’MEARA: “Yes. Paul contacted me, asking me to do an article (when I was a reporter) for Dr. Fuisz, about some contractor trouble he was having with a house he was building. I didn’t do the article, because they never gave me the documentation that I needed.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Getting back to the deposition concerning Lockerbie and Libya, were you present, or did you observe conversations between Hoven and Susan?”
O’MEARA: “All the time.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “All right.”
O’MEARA: “At least every Thursday at Hunan, when I was at Hunan. I mean, sometimes you know, you have hearings or whatever, and you are not able to make it. When Susan was there and Paul was there, they were talking.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did they talk about Lockerbie with some frequency?”
O’MEARA: “I don’t know. I have no idea. I didn’t go and listen to their conversations. I just know that when they were there together, they were talking to each other. And I heard about Susan all the time from Paul.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What did you hear?”
O’MEARA: “You name it. I mean, I’m sorry to say I’m embarrassed. I used to get tired of hearing about Susan frankly.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did he speak well of her?”
O’MEARA: “Yes. Sure. I mean, I think this has already been in the press, but Paul nicknamed Susan “Snowflake, ” and he used do say she was dingy.”
THE COURT: “She was what?”
O’MEARA: “Dingy. I never thought much of it, but Paul spoke about Susan a lot to me. I met with Paul I would say three or four times a month, you know, for years, dinners—”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did he explain sometimes what she was doing, and –”
O’MEARA: “Sometimes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “And what was that?”
O’MEARA: “I just listened to Paul tell me the stuff.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “All right. Did you talk with Paul Hoven at about the time he was interviewed by the FBI?”
O’MEARA: “I got a call from Paul after the FBI interviewed him. Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did he talk with you about the substance of the interview?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What was the substance according to Paul?”
O’MEARA: “It was a strange phone call. I hadn’t talked to Paul for awhile. Paul left town – again, I’m guessing – I think it was right after Susan was arrested. It was very quickly. Paul left town and went back to Minnesota.” “Anyway, so I was angry at Paul for not saying goodbye to me, because I knew him for so long. So then, when I got this call, that he had been interviewed by the FBI, that was kind of interesting that he took the time to call me.”
“Basically he was saying to me in Paul’s fashion—Oh, Susan said I am defense intelligence and she’s f’ing crazy and she doesn’t f’ing know what she’s talking about. I mean, that’s the way Paul talks.” “I said, Paul, I said, you know, Susan was always kind of ditzy, but I never thought she was crazy. It was just this really intense phone call. I have to say that I had a feeling Paul wanted me to agree with him that she was crazy, and I couldn’t. I said, Paul, I don’t think she’s crazy.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Well, did Paul say that Susan was incorrect or inaccurate when she described him as being intelligence, or did he say she’s crazy for having said it? What was your impression?”
O’MEARA: “Paul never denied during the telephone call that he was defense intelligence, or whatever she was claiming. But he just kept saying, oh, she’s crazy.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “All right. Had he ever expressed the notion that Susan was crazy before this?”
O’MEARA: “No. Not to me.”
On cross examination, O’Callaghan, my prosecutor, sprung a huge surprise on O’Meara.
According to O’Callaghan, Paul Hoven told the FBI he hardly knows O’Meara at all. Hoven claimed that he only met her “a couple of times.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Thank you. Now, you talked about the meetings that you had at this Hunan restaurant in Washington, D.C., correct?”
O’MEARA: “Right.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “How long did these dinner meetings or dinner get togethers take place? How many years?”
O’MEARA: “Years. I did it for years. Ten – I won’t say ten. Five. Five years.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Five to ten years?”
O’MEARA: “I think I did. I mean, it was a long time that we were there. I think I was involved in it maybe five years, and I was like late to the group, I think. All I know is I went to them for a long time.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Was Paul Hoven at some of these dinner get-togethers that you described?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Do you think you met Mr. Hoven at these dinners quite frequently?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Would it surprise you if Mr. Hoven told the FBI that he only met you once or twice at these dinner get-togethers?”
O’MEARA: “I would be insulted to hear that.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “So it would surprise you?”
O’MEARA: “Very surprising.”
It was a stunning moment, a whopper of a lie that caused O’Meara to shake visibly in front of the Judge.
O’CALLAGHAN: “Now, you testified that you came to know Paul Hoven through these dinner get togethers and conversations with him fairly well, correct?”
O’MEARA: “I knew Paul before those dinners, years before those dinners.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “So, years before the dinners and then through the dinners, you got to know him through the beginning of the 1990s?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “You never came to know what Paul Hoven did for a living, however?”
O’MEARA: “No. As I said, I never knew Paul to have a nine-to-five job or – I knew that he tinkered with voice recognition. But I didn’t ever really – I was never told that he was getting paid for that, or it was a job. It was something he kind of tinkered with.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “So you never came to find out that Mr. Hoven acted as a press agent for ABC News, is that right?”
O’MEARA: “While I knew Paul? Never.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “And that he did freelance press work for 60 Minutes?”
O’MEARA: “That was before I met Paul. That was years before. He did a Panama story and got sick [with a heart virus]. He told me about that. I never knew Paul to do any press work while I knew him.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “OK. Now, Paul Hoven never told you, did he? That he ever worked for the CIA?”
O’MEARA: “No.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “He never told you that he worked for the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, correct?”
O’MEARA: “That’s correct. I mean nobody comes out and says they’re a spook.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “If I could set your time frame from 1999 to 2003, OK? Are you with me?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Do you know where you were working at about approximately during those years?”
O’MEARA: “1999 to 2003, I was at the Washington Times.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “How often during ‘99 and 2003 would you speak with Paul Hoven?”
O’MEARA: “All the time. I mean, Paul and I were friends. I considered Paul a friend.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “As a friend, approximately how many times a month do you think you would talk to him?”
O’MEARA: “At least once a week.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “This was generally telephone conversations?”
O’MEARA: “Sometimes we went out to dinner.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Now, during those years, 1999 to 2003, did Paul Hoven ever discuss with you Susan Lindauer?”
O’MEARA: “I’m sure he did.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Do you recall any specific times that Paul Hoven discussed Susan Lindauer?”
O’MEARA: “Paul talked about Susan all the time.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “I’m specifically asking you from 1999 to 2003. Did Paul Hoven’s discussion about Susan Lindauer diminish in comparison to the early to mid 1990s?”
O’MEARA: “No. I would say it was more.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “During the times that you did speak with Susan Lindauer, did you ever get the impression that she was exaggerating her base of information, with respect to what she was talking about? In the 1990s. Whenever you spoke to Susan, did you have a sense that she was exaggerating her role?”
O’MEARA: “No.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Have you ever had concerns about Ms. Lindauer’s mental health?”
O’MEARA: “No.”
O’CALLAGHAN: “Do you think you’re qualified to express any opinion about her mental health?”
THE COURT: “Are you able to answer the question, as it’s phrased, ma’am?”
O’MEARA: I think I’m qualified insomuch as I can, you know, read the DSM [diagnostic symptoms manual] just like any psychiatrist, and look at a list of behaviors.”
O’MEARA: “As somebody who knows Susan for many, many years, not as a good friend, but as an acquaintance at meetings, at the Hunan, and from hearing about her from Paul, I never got a sense in all that time that Susan was mentally unstable.”
On redirect with Shaughnessy, for the Defense:
SHAUGHNESSY: “With respect to Mr. Hoven, this fellow who maybe met you “a couple of times, ” approximately how many times did you meet with him from, let’s say the mid ‘90s to the present?”
O’MEARA: “I haven’t seen him in a couple of years since he went back to Minnesota, but Paul was a regular fixture in my life. I considered him a close friend. He had dinner at my family’s homes many, many times. I mean, I met with Paul a lot.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Just a moment. Where does your family live?”
O’MEARA: “In northern Virginia.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Would he come over to dinner at your family’s house?”
O’MEARA: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “About how many times?”
O’MEARA: “Well, he was very welcome at my sister’s home. He used to love – he thought it was from Better Homes and Gardens. He went swimming in the pool there. He was you know, he was part of my life. He was a good friend. I considered him a very good friend. And we met often for dinner, talked on the phone all the time.”
“In fact, Paul threatened a reporter one day for being rude to me when I was on the Hill. He called me, and told me. I told him I would kill him if he ever did that again. I mean Paul. We were very close friends.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “So when he says he maybe met you a couple of times –”
O’MEARA: “He’s lying.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Have you recently had brought to your attention, writings or matters that relate Paul to the intelligence community?”
O’MEARA: “Yes. I started doing some research on Google, and Paul is very evident in a blog. I actually printed out his responses. They are on my chair over there. He’s responding to other people asking questions about other spooks, or other intelligence-type people like Gene Wheaton [one of the key figures who exposed Oliver North and the Iran-Contra Scandal] and Ed Wilson [a covert CIA operative who served 27 years in prison for running a black operation in Libya].” “Paul is going into some explanation about some of these people. How Paul knew them, and so forth and so on.”
“Paul also introduced me to Bill Weisenberger and Alice Weisenberger. And Bill is former CIA [heavily engaged with Ed Wilson in former CIA operations involving Libya]. I used to go shooting with Paul at Bill’s farm. Paul would take me there, shooting guns.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Paul Hoven?”
O’MEARA: “Paul Hoven took me there. We used to call them Big Bill and Alice. And we would go to dinner a lot with Big Bill and his wife, Alice.”
“So, I mean, is it in the realm that Paul knew people in intelligence? Yes. Certainly Bill Weisenberger was in the CIA, and it’s written about all over Google. You can read it. I mean, he doesn’t deny that he was in the CIA.”
From the defendant’s chair, I let out a long sigh. A deep breath that I’d been holding inside me for four years, anticipating this moment. Did Paul Hoven have deep affiliations inside the murky world of intelligence? Gracious, yes! And did he have strong ties with me? For many years?
Gracious, yes!
And did he have strong ties with me? For many years?
Indisputably.
Imagine that moment for me, as the “accused Iraqi agent.” For four years, I had begged and pleaded for this one simple pretrial evidentiary hearing, so that independent sources like Kelly O’Meara could authenticate these relationships. All of my requests got denied.
Instead, I had been incarcerated for one year in prison on a Texas military base. Scorned as “incompetent.” Threatened with needle injections of Haldol to “cure me” of believing the truth of my own life. I had to listen to crazy psychiatrists argue as to whether my relationship with Hoven and Dr. Fuisz existed at all.
At one point at Carswell, the psych crowd speculated that these men might not be real people! Maybe I invented them!
It got that crazy!
The difference was that now I had a superior attorney who wanted to defend me. That’s what changed the dynamic of my legal battle. One attorney’s determination to advocate for the rights of his client.
The outcome was a stunning reversal. From the opening moments of Kelly O’Meara’s testimony, all that speculative conjecture of the psychological evaluations crashed down in the Courtroom. Like a demolition, it collapsed in minutes flat.
Psychiatry failed the reality test.
Consider the irony— Psychiatry had sworn that Courts have no need for participatory witnesses. The “medical insight” of psychiatry was sufficient to know the “truth” about my activities and relationships. Participatory witnesses would be superfluous and confusing.
Except the lunatic psychiatrists got it all wrong.
That single morning of testimony proved psychiatry had been vainglorious and empty of insight exactly as I told Judge Mukasey two years earlier, when I pleaded against forcible drugging. The “diagnosis” had been fraudulent and devoid of reality contact.
Sadly, for the first time, Shaughnessy and I confronted hard evidence that some of Hoven’s statements to the FBI must have been dishonest— like telling the FBI that Hoven only met Kelly O’Meara “a couple of times, ” when they were incredibly close friends for 20 years. Hoven was a close friend of mine for 9 years.
One has to wonder if Hoven scrubbed O’Meara from his life just like he scrubbed me. He no longer needed us anymore. So he obliterated us both, erasing all the warm memories and exciting adventures that we shared together.
O’Meara and I are baffled by it
But those who watch the intelligence community should recognize familiar patterns in his behavior. Just like Joe Harvey dumped O’Meara after four years of close contact, once his responsibility as her handler finished, so Hoven cut me off, too. We were used up as sources. He moved on.
Intelligence watchers would also recognize the familiarity of the lifestyle. Intelligence folk frequently appear to have no formal occupation. Dr. Fuisz used to joke that there would be “no business cards” at his meetings. Another joke around Washington is that neighbors can identify the spooks next door, according to who’s mowing the lawn or heading to the beach on a glorious Tuesday afternoon, when everybody else is tied down at an office.
My neighbors gossiped about me, too. It’s part and parcel of the culture.
Hoven would often hide behind his heart disease and disability retirement to avoid questions about his employment. In truth, his heart ailment never interfered with supervising my contacts with Libya and Iraq. He was my handler, and both of us stayed active and busy.
And I could never forget that Hoven showed up at my door knowing I warned the Tunisian Embassy about the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.
My closest friends and family were completely ignorant of that extraordinary event. Yet Hoven had been fully debriefed in all particulars. At the beginning of our relationship, he frequently berated me that we would have no contact at all, on account of the wild differences in our political perspectives, except for the government’s desire to keep an eye on me after that attack.
Yes, he called me “goofy.” Hoven was a hard right conservative, who attended “Soldier of Fortune” soirees in Washington. I was a progressive democrat and peace activist. We were an odd couple, for sure. We had very different motivations for doing this work. And yet Hoven was one of my closest friends for a decade. I called him my “big brother.” I described Richard Fuisz as “my uncle.” I loved these men, and I considered it a privilege to share adventures with them. I had the best life I could have hoped for.
Sometimes I have wondered if perhaps Hoven and Dr. Fuisz wrongly imagined that I complained to these crazy psychiatrists about our past. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I spoke very highly about our relationships.
And what about his link to the Defense Intelligence Agency, as a double blind? Hoven was adamant that our projects in New York broke no laws against CIA operations or surveillance inside the United States. He always stipulated that Defense Intelligence had authorization from Congress to run domestic counterterrorism operations. Hoven portrayed his ability to liaison with Defense Intelligence as critical for the legitimacy of our work in New York. Though officially retired on disability, Hoven always insisted that our team’s actions were entirely legal, because he kept Defense Intelligence in the loop. That was a big deal.
At trial, other witnesses like Ian Ferguson, a Scottish journalist and investigator for the Lockerbie Appeals, would testify that other Intelligence officers identified Hoven as the Defense Intelligence liaison for Lockerbie. And it was true.
When it came to identifying fellow travelers and spooks that I might encounter on my path, Hoven said it best.
“Susan, if it waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”
“But Paul!” I’d say. “How can I be sure?”
“Susan, ” he’d say, laughing. “It’s a duck.”
After four years waiting for my day in Court, I heard O’Meara’s testimony with a satisfied heart. We had one shot before trial at proving the authenticity of my relationship with Hoven and his wide intelligence contacts.
O’Meara knocked it out of the ball park.
But my defense wasn’t finished yet. Shaughnessy was determined to validate our team’s 9/11 warning, as well. We intended to prove the FBI, the U.S Attorneys Office and the Bureau of Prisons had always known the truth throughout the debate on forcible drugging, while I was locked up at Carswell and M.C.C.
That would force the question of prosecutorial misconduct out in the open. It would also keep open the question of whether Hoven lied, as O’Callaghan argued most adamantly to Judge Preska. We could not be sure if O’Callaghan was relying on Hoven’s absence from the courtroom to mislead the proceedings again. That remained a distinct possibility, given all that had come before.
Either way, validating my 9/11 warning would prove O’Callaghan told a terrible lie to Judge Mukasey, when he denied the independent confirmation of my team’s warnings during the awful debate on forcible drugging. That deception officially made my story one of the most savage government cover ups in the last decade.
Again, my Defense chose wisely.
Parke Godfrey is a Professor of Computer Science and Engineering at York University in Toronto, Canada’s third largest university. A scientist and mathematician, who does calculus algorithms for fun, like a game, Godfrey presents a calm, studied demeanor. He’s a precise and methodical thinker who chooses his words carefully. During difficult court questioning, he would pause to give an accurate, thoughtful response.
The two of us had become close friends in 1990, while Godfrey worked on his PhD in artificial intelligence and deductive databases at the University of Maryland in College Park. He has taught at York University since 1999, with a two year sabbatical at William and Mary College in Virginia. 609
Godfrey and I met through an old friend from Smith College, my alma mater in Northampton, Massachusetts, shortly after I arrived in Washington.
SHAUGHNESSY: “With what frequency did you see Susan?”
GODFREY: “Until I moved to Toronto in ‘99, I probably saw Susan on an average of twice a week. I probably spoke with her on an average of two to three times a week.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “So you came to know her pretty well, is that correct?
GODFREY: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Now, were you aware that she was concerned with, perhaps, antiwar activity and peace-type activity?”
GODFREY: “Yes. I was.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did she speak with you about certain activities that she had become aware of, that is, certain dangers that she believed were facing us?”
GODFREY: “She did, yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Would you please describe them?”
GODFREY: “The first way I found that she was quite an antiwar activist is probably early on. We and other friends went to a number of the demonstrations that were happening in the early ‘90s downtown. The marches and such.”
“One, if I’m remembering correctly, was an antiwar rally during the Gulf War, and a couple of others were rallies for abortion rights.”
“Then, in the mid 90s, I was aware that she was involved in a number of things that she described as peace activism. She also did quite a bit of extracurricular activity and traveling to New York to talk with different groups, in particular, always, with a very keen interest in Middle Eastern problems.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did there come a time when she was concerned about a possible attack on the United States?”
GODFREY: “She had described that.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What did she describe?”
GODFREY: “In particular, she warned me when I was job hunting and considering potential work in New York, because I liked New York City, that New York City was dangerous, and in particular she was predicting that there was going to be a massive attack here. In particular in southern Manhattan. This was before 9/11.”
“So when I was looking for the job at William and Mary, which was late 2000 – I was at York University, but was looking at other universities – she warned [me] not to consider New York because she thought an attack was imminent here.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Continue, please.”
GODFREY: “I asked her about the nature of it. She said that she thought it would be something very, very big. I asked her, “Well, what do you mean?” She said that it would involve airplanes and possibly a nuclear weapon. She said that what was started in ‘93, she thought was going to come back.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “What was that she referenced as having started in ‘93?”
GODFREY: “Well, the attempt on the World Trade Centers at the time.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did she believe, or was she telling you that very shortly there was likely to be another attack of that nature?”
GODFREY: “She did. She said that it would complete the cycle of that attack. And she said that there would be an attack in late summer, early fall.” “In August, she told me that she thought it was some time imminent.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Now, did you know any of the things that she was doing that might have given her access to information, that might lead to a prediction of that nature?”
GODFREY: “Well, I had known that she was active in trying to prevent escalation with what turned out to be the war in Iraq. She had been making trips to New York to talk to people there. But nothing in my mind ever connected that she would have any access to information or intelligence that would give any indication of an attack.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “You said she was visiting New York periodically. Do you know who, not necessarily the names, but the nature of the people she visited in New York City?”
GODFREY: “I don’t know directly, no. Only afterwards have I found out – well, I have learned that she supposedly was talking with people at the Iraqi consulate, although she had always described that she was meeting with consulate folks with different Middle Eastern countries.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did she mention any of those countries?”
GODFREY: “Not directly, no. Not to me.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Now, sir, did she ever mention a person named Paul Hoven?”
GODFREY: “Yes.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “In what respect?”
GODFREY: “Our socializing was with a group of friends. We all lived in Maryland. And in particular, it’s hard to live in the Washington, D.C. area and not be somewhat political. And we were quite a tight group of Democrats. Very often a lot of our socializing revolved around some political issue or another.”
“I remember a party we had at our place, the time of the [Democratic] convention, where Bill Clinton was nominated. When I talked to Susan about other things that she did, and other socializing she did, she described a group that she got together with on a weekly basis, down on Capitol Hill, and other times down on the Virginia side.”
“And she used to laugh and say it was about as opposite from our social group as possible. A lot of these people were very, very much Republican. And also that these people that she knew, and talked with quite a bit, were involved in policy, and in particular in the Intelligence Communities.”
“One of the persons that she described as being a member of that group, who was a good friend of hers, was Paul Hoven.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did she explain anything that she may have done with Paul Hoven, or was it simply as part of the group there?”
GODFREY: “Not anything, to my knowledge, as to her political activism or peace activism. I think he was one of the first people she met in that group. As best I knew, that group was primarily a social group. They invited her in, because she had become friends with Paul Hoven, and also because of the connections with her father, who is a Republican, who had run at one point for governor of Alaska.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “Did there seem to be any hostility, acrimony, hard feelings or anything of that nature between her and Paul Hoven?”
GODFREY: “Not that I am aware of, no.”
SHAUGHNESSY: “You talked about Susan going up to meet with Middle Eastern, people from the Middle East, in the embassies, or whatever. Did she mention any particular countries that stand out in your mind that she went to see?”
GODFREY: “Actually, no. Whenever she did speak of such things, she always spoke of those activities in a vague way, and told me on purpose. These were activities that she was doing, to my understanding and I fully believe, as part of her peace activism. But it wasn’t something that I was involved with. And she said, a lot of these talks that I am having and all, well, she just felt it was better not to go into the details.”
Godfrey’s exchange with the Prosecutor on 9/11 amused me. The Prosecutor tried to dismiss my 9/11 warning as “a premonition.” Godfrey adamantly corrected him that it was “a prediction— not a premonition.” And he stuck by it, never deviating from the word.
For the sake of further clarity, he submitted an affidavit on the 9/11 warning, 610 which cuts through the Prosecutor’s attempts to deflect the impact of my warning. (See Appendix)
GODFREY: “Ms. Lindauer’s original warning to me in 2000 was somewhat vague, describing her opinion that a terrorist attack would occur in New York City. I recall that by the spring and summer of 2001, her warning became much more emphatic and explicit. She got much more agitated about the likelihood of the attack.”
“Ms. Lindauer confided in me on several occasions her concern that the next terrorist attack would involve airplane hijackings and/or airplane bombings.”
“In the spring and summer of 2001, on several occasions, Lindauer expressed heightened concern that a terrorist attack was in the works that would strike the southern part of Manhattan. She claimed it would reprise the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. She described the attack as completing the cycle started in that first attack.”
“She definitely tied the threat of airplane hijackings to, what she said, would be some sort of strike on the World Trade Center. That’s what she was predicting.”
“In August, 2001, Ms. Lindauer told me the attack was “imminent. She warned me to stay out of New York City. She told me the situation was very dangerous, and that a lot of people would get killed in this attack. She expected heavy casualties.”
GODFREY: “In September, 2004— I was interviewed by the FBI in Mississauga (adjacent to Toronto), in the presence of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The RCMP insisted on this, as the interview was in Canada, and I was a Canadian resident. I spoke with FBI special agent Suzan LeTourneau.” [That was four years before the hearing in New York and 12 months before I got incarcerated at Carswell]
“While the interview focused on mundane details of Ms. Lindauer’s life and acquaintances, the conversation did touch on her indictment and her predictions. I told [FBI Special Agent] LeTourneau that Ms. Lindauer had predicted the 9/11 attack throughout the spring and summer of 2001, and that her prediction was very specific. It involved airplane hijackings and a strike on the World Trade Center.”
At the defendant’s table, I experienced a grim satisfaction of triumph. My mind flashed back to those terrified nights at M.C.C, writing desperate letters to Judge Mukasey, frantic and tearful at 2 in the morning, begging for the right to call witnesses, so I could prove myself.
Everything I said was truthful always. Within a few months of my arrest, the FBI, the US Attorneys Office—and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police— were fully aware that a private citizen outside the Intelligence Community stood ready to authenticate my 9/11 warning in a Court of Law.
Notably, Godfrey’s testimony could not be suppressed by secrecy laws. His revelations would have created serious blowback for Congress, which in September 2004, was getting ready to publish the 9/11 Commission Report. The 9/11 Commission strongly denounced “conspiracy theorists” who believed action should have been possible to prevent the strike, or substantially cripple its impact.
The 9/11 Commission Report would have been exposed as an egregious public fraud. And the truth would be out in the open.
That provided a strong motivation for the Justice Department to fight my demands for a trial.
The FBI was not the only agency at the Justice Department to speak with Godfrey, either. In his affidavit, Godfrey discussed how he spoke with Dr. Shadduck at Carswell about my 9/11 warning, too. 611
GODFREY: “In early December 2005, I believe, a few months after Ms. Lindauer had been sent to Carswell Prison, I spoke with the psychologist handling her competence evaluation for the Court. During our conversation, I attempted to confirm with him that Ms. Lindauer had made predictions of a terrorist attack in Manhattan to me and others prior to the 9/11 attack. He seemed to have no interest in hearing this. Our conversation was brief.”
“While she was still detained in prison, I offered to travel from Toronto and testify at any competency hearing, as a character witness, on her mental competence, on what I knew of her political activities before her indictment, about warnings of terrorist attacks, and any other aspects for which the Court might be interested.”
“I attended the hearing on forcible drugging in May, 2006. I offered to testify on that day. In fact, I arrived at the Court, assuming that I was to testify. However, her attorney, Mr. Sam Talkin, did not call me. In conversation that day, I told him that she had made warnings of a terrorist attack to me and others, in advance of 9/11. I told him that I was mortified by what the Court seemed to be doing.”
No one can doubt that Godfrey made tremendous efforts to authenticate my 9/11 warning— in interviews with the FBI and the Bureau of Prisons, my Uncle Ted Lindauer and other Defense attorneys. Nevertheless, I continued to suffer taunts in Court for years that I was “delusional” for suggesting I gave advance warning about 9/11.
If not for Judge Mukasey’s superior vigilance, the deception would have succeeded. I would have been “detained indefinitely” under the Patriot Act, and shot full of Haldol—until whatever time I could be reformed and persuaded to recant the facts of my life, which intersect so tragically with the truth about 9/11 and Iraq.
It was grotesquely corrupt. And legally fraudulent. Godfrey discussed it further in his affidavit. 612
GODFREY: “I consider Ms. Lindauer fully competent in all ways, and devoid of any mental illness or instability.” “Ms. Lindauer has an artistic and mercurial temperament. She is passionate as an activist supporting her causes. She is a creative writer and former journalist. I have never observed mental instability or mental illness in her behavior.”
He expressed concern for the legal competence of my attorney, Mr. Talkin as well.
GODFREY: “I made myself available to speak with the investigator working for her defense attorney. I was prepared for a lengthy conversation, including a discussion of Ms. Lindauer’s 9/11 warning. I was surprised when the defense investigator cut short the conversation after only five to ten minutes. His questions seemed far inadequate for the scope of the indictment against Ms. Lindauer, and for what I felt I had to share with her Defense Attorney.”
GODFREY: “Several months later, I contacted Ms. Lindauer’s uncle, Ted Lindauer, and spoke with him at greater length about several issues in her case. I can verify that Ms. Lindauer felt compelled to seek her uncle’s assistance interviewing witnesses for her case, before she got sent to Carswell.”
In conclusion, Godfrey disputed the notion of my incompetence wholeheartedly, and roundly castigated the Justice Department.
GODFREY: “In my opinion, contrary to the Justice Department lawyers, Ms. Lindauer is now, and always was, competent to stand trial. The decision to accuse her of incompetence was baffling to myself and many others. I was forced to conclude that it was likely politically motivated to block her request for a trial.”
“Throughout this entire ordeal, Susan Lindauer has suffered harassment. She faced inexcusable delays in setting a trial date, (or in dropping the charges). She was repeatedly questioned in court over the reliability of her terrorist warnings, despite that they had been corroborated by me and by many others in affidavits, and under oath in spoken testimony. She was incarcerated in a mental facility, within a federal prison for 7 months, 1,300 miles from her home for supposed observation. And then held in confinement for months afterwards.”
“The FBI and the US Attorneys Office’s behavior in Ms. Lindauer’s case were abhorrent. It is quite clear that much more was going on.”
❃❃❃❃❃❃❃
The Old Gray Haired
Lady
Suffers Dementia
Well, I was elated by
our success. I thought we’d
won the day. Until I read the New York Times. The article by Alan Feuer, 613 buried in the Metropolitan Section, made no mention of Godfrey’s explosive revelations of my 9/11 warning, nor any mention of Kelly O’Meara’s confirmation of my lengthy relationship with Hoven or his noted intelligence ties. It offered nothing about my claims to have worked as a U.S. Intelligence Asset, covering Iraq at the United Nations before the War.
Ground Zero stood 1,000 yards from the Federal Courthouse on Pearl Street where my hearing took place. But the New York Times apparently saw no reason to enlighten readers in New York City that the Justice Department was fighting to block an American citizen’s Constitutional Right to a Trial, in order to withhold critical information about 9/11 from the American people.
Instead, in his opening lead, New York Times journalist, Alan Feuer, falsely declared that I “stuck my tongue out at the Prosecutor.” 614 [Feuer likely an agency asset himself,because Mockingbird never went anywhere. D.C]
I had to read it several times. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was an outrageous lie, not even close to the mark. I practically wept.
I never stuck my tongue at children in the 3rd grade. That’s not my style. I might have flipped the guy a finger! Oh yes, with great satisfaction! But I had a broken molar tooth that day, which scraped my tongue painfully. Sticking out my tongue at O’Callaghan was simply not possible.
Feuer could not see my face anyway. I was seated directly in front of him, facing the Judge. The invention was disgraceful, a gross lack of journalistic integrity. Real tabloid trash. Yet because the New York Times printed it, ordinary people would believe it.
Why did Feuer do it? I felt so betrayed. Here I had waited four years for a chance to tell my story to the people of New York. All I got was one morning and the chance to present two outstanding witnesses. The gravitas of the occasion was most evident. I could not smile at my witnesses, because the consequence of the occasion was so severe.
And this was how the New York Times reported my story?
Ah, but America has come a long way since the days when the New York Times served up the only source of hard news for the people.
Robert Redford would have shared my disappointment in this bitter sequel to “Three Days of the Condor.” But like me, Redford would have saluted his champions in the New Media on the internet.
Because in fact, the blogs carried the day! They were on the ball, ready to expose the corruption that the New York Times tried to bury from the public, for whatever reasons.
Thank heavens for the blogs!
One of the best investigative journalists today, Michael Collins had traveled to New York for my hearing that morning. He was in the courtroom, and caught it all for posterity, with careful attention to details and nuance. He reported it all. My 9/11 warning. The validation of my relationship to Hoven and his murky ties to U.S. Intelligence.
That truth was not lost, though the “gray haired lady” of journalism clearly suffered dementia not to print it.
It was blog journalist, Michael Collins who sat up and paid attention. Collins who alerted the blogging community. Collins who told America: “9/11 Prediction Revealed at Susan Lindauer Hearing on Competence.” 615
That felt so sweet and so good. Collins posted my 9/11 warning dead center for the changing of the media guard, the rise of a new watch dog for the people.
And what about Feuer, that New York Times’ hack? He got flamed on the blogs.
Damning headlines all over the internet taunted: “From the People Who Brought Us Judith Miller: The NYT “Covers” Susan Lindauer hearing.” 616 A friendly reminder of the dishonesty of the New York Times’ reporting on PreWar Intelligence and its unchecked “facts.”
It was a good lesson for the Times’ editors in New York. They can’t pull this sort of crap on the people and get away with it. Not anymore. It won’t be tolerated.
Like everything else, it was bittersweet validation, after so many years of harassment.
There was another surprise coming that would blow us away.
A few short weeks after Godfrey’s and O’Meara’s testimony, O’Callaghan left the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.
O’Callaghan joined the upper echelon of John McCain’s Presidential Campaign, 617 as part of the top circle of advisers. He was assigned to Sarah Palin’s campaign in Alaska, handling “Troopergate.” That’s right. The man who despised spirituality as evidence of “mental defect” took over the reins of Sarah Palin’s Vice Presidential Campaign!
It was enough to know that O’Callaghan was on McCain’s payroll.
This was a political hit, like I’d always sworn it was. All the players were politically motivated. And the outcome was fixed.
I rest my case.
next
OFF WITH HER HEAD, ” THE RED QUEEN SAID2766
notes
CHAPTER 31
587. Michael Collins hosts ElectionFraudNews.com His articles run on 400 blogs. 588. American Cassandra: Susan Lindauer’s Story. Michael Collins. “Scoop” Independent News, Oct. 17, 2007. Republished by permission of the author.
589: “American Cassandra Series:” Michael Collins. “Scoop” Independent News.
590. Ibid. “American Cassandra Series:” Michael Collins. “Scoop” Independent News.
591. Court Transcripts. September, October, November and December 2007. Major fight to force me back to Carswell. Judge Preska, presiding, after I refused to continue psych meetings at Counseling Plus. Thomas Marino, Jr. Pretrial Services, New York. Randy Canal, Pretrial Services, Greenbelt.
592. Tape Recordings of phone calls to PreTrial Services, documenting reporting.
593. Session notes from Counseling Plus. Burton. U.S. vs. Lindauer October, 2006 through August, 2007.
594. Bail Bond U.S. vs. Lindauer set at $500,000. March 11, 2004 through Jan 15, 2009. 595. Ibid. Court Transcripts. September, October, November and December 2007. Major fight to force me back to Carswell. Judge Preska, presiding, after I refused to continue psych meetings at Counseling Plus. Thomas Marino, Jr. Pretrial Services, New York. Randy Canal, Pretrial Services, Greenbelt.
596. Ibid. Court Transcripts. September through December, 2007. U.S. vs. Lindauer. Judge Preska, presiding
597. Ibid. Court Transcripts. September through December, 2007. U.S. vs. Lindauer. Judge Preska, presiding
598. Court Transcripts. PreTrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
599. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
600. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
601. Ibid. Session notes from Counseling Plus. Burton–Lindauer Oct, 2006 through Aug, 2007.
602. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
603. Court filing. Brian Shaughnessy. U.S. vs. Lindauer. Judge Preska, Jan, 2008.
604. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. U.S. vs. Lindauer. December, 2007
605. Ibid. Court Transcripts. Pretrial Services’ attempt to revoke bail. September through December, 2007. U.S. vs. Lindauer. Judge Preska, presiding
CHAPTER 32
606. Court Testimony by Patricia Kelly O’Meara. Hearing on Competence, Judge Loretta Preska presiding.. U.S. vs. Lindauer, June 2008.
607. Ibid. Psyched Out: How Psychiatry Invents Mental Illness and Pushes Pills that Kill, ” by Patricia Kelly O’Meara. Author House. 2006.
608. Ibid. Court Testimony by Patricia Kelly O’Meara. Hearing on Competence, Judge Preska presiding.. U.S. vs. Lindauer, June 2008.
609. Court Testimony by Dr. Parke Godfrey, Hearing on Competence, Judge Preska presiding.. U.S. vs. Lindauer, June 2008.
610. Ibid. Affidavit by Parke Godfrey on 9/11 warning and the question of Lindauer’s Competence.
611. Ibid. Affidavit by Dr. Parke Godfrey on 9/11 warning and the question of Lindauer’s Competence.
612. Ibid. Affidavit by Dr. Parke Godfrey on 9/11 warning and the question of Lindauer’s Competence.
613. Anti War Activist Returns to Court for Iraq Spy Case, by Alan Feuer, New York Times. June 18, 2008
614. Ibid. Anti War Activist Returns to Court, by Alan Feuer, New York Times. June 18, 2008
615. 9/11 Prediction Revealed at Susan Lindauer Hearing on Competence. By Michael Collins. “Scoop” Independent News. June 18, 2008
616. New York Times Covers Susan Lindauer Hearing, By Michael Collins “Scoop” Independent News, ” June 25, 2008.
617. Biography of Edward O’Callaghan. Law Firm of Peabody, Nixon. 2010
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