Talk about not having what it takes to get the job done?! How 'bout those highly trained federal agents. What a joke!
----- Original Message ---- From: Kris Millegan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Cia-drugs Cia-drugs <Cia-drugs@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, August 27, 2008 7:28:06 AM Subject: [cia-drugs] Fwd: When Is an Assassination Plot NOT a Plot? When the Target Is a Black Democrat? Begin forwarded message: From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] com Date: August 26, 2008 11:12:50 PM PDT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] com Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] com, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] org Subject: When Is an Assassination Plot NOT a Plot? When the Target Is a Black Democrat? When is a plot not a plot? A group of armed "meth heads" reportedly discussed shooting Barack Obama, but the feds opted for lesser charges. By Mike Madden http://www.salon. com/news/ feature/2008/ 08/27/plot/ Aug. 27, 2008 | DENVER -- Late Saturday night, the cops in Aurora, Colo., stopped a blue Dodge truck that was swerving all over the road. The driver, a 28-year-old "trance" D.J. named Tharin Gartrell, had a suspended license, a criminal record and four grams of methamphetamine in his pocket. In his trunk, he had two rifles (one stolen), a few boxes of ammo, a bulletproof vest and a portable meth lab. By the next day, based on what Gartrell told them, the cops had called in the feds, and authorities had arrested his cousin, a convicted burglar named Shawn Adolf, and a friend, Nathan Johnson, and turned up more drugs. And in Adolf's case, a background check turned up some outstanding warrants, one with a $1 million bail set. Which might explain why Adolf jumped out the window of his hotel room in Glendale, Colo., when the Secret Service showed up to arrest him on Sunday. From the sixth floor. Shawn Robert Adolf, left, Tharin Gartrell and Nathan Johnson That might have been the end of the episode, and it might just have been unusually dramatic fodder for the local paper's crime blotter, except it turned out Gartrell, Johnson and Adolf had a problem with Barack Obama. Namely, they objected to the Democratic presidential nominee's being black, though court documents say they expressed that fact in less delicate terms. And a woman who'd been hanging out in their hotel to "chill and do drugs," according to court papers, told federal agents the three had gathered on the outskirts of Denver in order to try to do something about it. Specifically, to shoot him with the rifles and ammo they'd brought along. Nathan Johnson confirmed the plotin an interview with a local Denver television reporter from inside the Denver jail. "So your friends were saying threatening things about Obama?" the reporter asked. <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bs.serving-sys.com/BurstingPipe/BannerRedirect.asp?FlightID=572249&Page=&PluID=0&Pos=8067";><font size="2"></font></a> "Yeah," Nathan Johnson replied. "It sounded like they didn't want him to be president?" continued the reporter. "Well, no," Johnson said. "He don't belong in political office.. Blacks don't belong in political office. He ought to be shot." <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://judo.salon.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.cgi/www.salonmagazine.com/news/content/[EMAIL PROTECTED]"><font size="2"></font></a> By Tuesday, officials had decided the three men didn't have the capacity to act on their racist impulses, no matter how heavily armed they were. But the whole episode was a strange, and alarming, reminder of why Obama has had Secret Service protection since the spring of 2007 -- there are a lot of people out there who hate the idea of a black president, and are crazy enough to say they'll do something about it. The arrests raised the frightening specter of yet another of America's charismatic young leaders being gunned down by a lunatic. Obama aides declined to comment, citing a strict policy of not discussing security. The arrests seemed more threatening when they first became public. Serious brass was pulled in; Attorney General Michael Mukasey was briefed. But Tuesday, after an investigation involving three different federal agencies, Colorado's U.S. attorney, Troy Eid, announced that authorities had decided Adolf, Johnson and Gartrell were basically not as dangerous as they looked. The feds didn't plan to charge any of the three men with threatening a presidential candidate, a federal felony that comes with a possible five-year prison term. Instead, Eid charged Adolf (who is variously referred to as Adolph and Adolf in federal documents) and Johnson with violating federal bans on felons owning weapons, and Gartrell with drug possession. (Admittedly, the fact that the three thought Obama was staying in the exurban hotel in which they had rented a room made it seem like they hadn't planned very carefully.) So the case, instead, became basically an object of curiosity for a press corps hungry for unscripted news. One helpful offshoot from the brief saga: It helped show exactly what it takes to get charged with an assassination plot. Evidently, you need to have some degree of competence and/or sobriety. "The reported threats, hateful and bigoted though they were, involved a group of 'meth heads,' methamphetamine users, all of whom were impaired at the time, and cannot be independently corroborated, " Eid told reporters. "The law recognizes a difference between a 'true' threat -- one that might actually be carried out -- and the reported racist rantings of illegal drug users." That was, apparently, what differentiated the case from earlier ones, including an incident where Eid charged a Colorado prisonerwith sending an anthrax hoax to John McCain's office near Denver, and a Florida case where a would-be bail bondsman threatened to shootObama. http://letters. salon.com/ news/feature/ 2008/08/27/ plot/view/ ?show=all Future statement for the history books: "...officials had decided the three men didn't have the capacity to act on their racist impulses, no matter how heavily armed they were." That'll turn up in some future Commission report. By the waydidn't the DoJ prosecute a bunch of wackos in Fla on terrorism charges for basically the same thing? A lot of talk, but even the DoJ admitted they didn't have what it took to pull it off? Interesting. Potential Perp: Ima shoot that black sumbitch for tryin to be prezdint. FBI Agent: Ah, you'll never pull it off -- run along you scallywag! What kind of shit is this? -- FilthyHarry Tuesday, August 26, 2008 08:12 PM ------------ ----- FBI Says 7 Terror Suspects Were Mostly Talk By Richard B. Schmitt and Carol J. Williams Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2006 page A-5 http://articles. latimes.com/ 2006/jun/ 24/nation/ na-terror24 In a four-count indictment unsealed Friday, federal officials charged seven men caught in a sting operation here with conspiring to support Al Qaeda and “levy war against the government of the United States.” Authorities arrested the suspects – whom Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales characterized as “homegrown terrorists” – after searching a warehouse in the impoverished Liberty City area north of downtown Thursday. They said the men, ages 22 to 32, never presented any real danger. The indictment suggested they never came in contact with anyone from Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network.. The only materials they received during the seven months they were monitored by an undercover informant appear to have been six pairs of boots and use of a digital video camera. “You want to go and disrupt cells like this before they acquire the means to accomplish their goals,” U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said at the federal courthouse in Miami, flanked by two dozen federal, state, county and local officials involved in disrupting the alleged plot. The men were charged with conspiring to violate a sweeping anti-terrorism measure that makes it a crime to provide “material support” for terrorism, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. That law has been used successfully against scores of defendants since the Sept. 11 attacks. But this case was developed exclusively through information provided by the undercover operative, a circumstance that could allow defense lawyers to argue entrapment. Some of the men had minor criminal records. One is a Haitian citizen in the United States illegally, five are American citizens, and one had a residence permit. None was known to be an adherent of a militant Islamic faction, nor even of the Muslim faith. Relatives described some as religious, but drawn together to study the Bible, not the Koran. With little more than age, Caribbean heritage and poverty in common, the suspects were said by FBI Deputy Director John S. Pistole to be “more aspirational than operational.” No weapons were found in the raid of their reported meeting place, Acosta said. He declined to say what, if anything, was seized. On Friday, law enforcement agents wearing flak jackets and carrying automatic rifles stood guard over the windowless building in a shabby lot. The Miami CBS affiliate, WFOR-TV, filmed the warehouse interior through a hole in a corrugated aluminum shutter, showing a brown sofa and dining set. It appeared to be the same room shown in photos that Acosta’s office released from a surveillance tape of the suspects, time-stamped shortly after 10 p.m. March 16 – one of a dozen meetings mentioned in the indictment. The seven charged are Narseal Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Grant Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin and Rotschild Augustine of Miami and Lyglenson Lemorin of Atlanta. Acosta indicated that further arrests were not expected. “I’m confident we have identified every individual who had the intent of posing a threat to the United States,” he said. Five of the Miami suspects – it was unclear why Phanor was not among them – appeared Friday at a brief hearing to determine whether they needed a public defender. Lemorin was arraigned in Atlanta. Relatives of Lemorin told reporters he had gone to Miami to find work but had returned months ago after discovering the men he had befriended were involved in witchcraft.. Several of the suspects are of Haitian origin, a culture with voodoo influences. According to the 11-page indictment, Batiste recruited the others and, around November, expressed interest to the informant in assisting Al Qaeda. The informant allegedly met with Batiste on Dec. 16 and was given a list of materials “needed in order to wage jihad” – including boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios and vehicles. Six days later the two reportedly met again, and Batiste allegedly outlined his mission to wage war against the U.S. government and to destroy the Sears Tower in Chicago and public buildings in Miami. He gave the informant a list with his and five of the other men’s shoe sizes, and soon received the military boots. Batiste repeatedly discussed five fellow “soldiers” with the informant, the indictment said. The only mention of Phanor in court papers was as a driver for the informant to a meeting in the Florida Keys. Batiste later asked for binoculars, bulletproof vests, firearms and $50,000 in cash, according to the indictment. During meetings this year, Batiste said he wanted to wage war against the United States to “kill all the devils we can” in a mission that would “be just as good or greater than 9/11,” the indictment says. Federal officials in Washington declined to say how the idea of working with Al Qaeda came to the defendants, or whether it might have been planted by the government’s informant. The indictment makes clear that the informant told authorities of Batiste’s alleged interest in joining Al Qaeda before going undercover for the government. On Friday, Justice Department officials said the case was an example of the government’s success at rooting out plots before they came to fruition. “This case clearly demonstrates our commitment to preventing terrorism through energetic law enforcement efforts aimed at detecting and thwarting terrorist acts,” Gonzales said at a news conference. He also said,“These men were unable to advance their deadly plot beyond the initial planning phase.” But, he said, they had taken enough steps to justify criminal charges – including seeking out uniforms and weapons, conducting reconnaissance of Miami targets, and swearing an oath of allegiance to Al Qaeda. He said that under the anti-terrorism law, it did not matter that the “Al Qaeda representative” they were dealing with was an operative with the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force. Deputy Atty. Gen. Paul J. McNulty said in a separate briefing, “We really don’t have the option of waiting for the plotters and conspirators to take the next step.” The Miami case was the latest in which the Justice Department used undercover operatives. Federal prosecutors recently won a jury verdict in a terrorism case in Lodi, Calif., based largely on the testimony of an FBI informant who encouraged one of the suspects to attend a terrorist training camp. A government informant also is involved in a case in Toledo, Ohio, in which three men are accused of conspiring to aid the insurgency in Iraq. The informant reportedly went so far as to meet one defendant in Jordan when the suspect allegedly was seeking to enter Iraq to wage jihad. Some legal observers said the Miami indictment appeared to be based on little evidence, raising questions about where the Justice Department was drawing the line between criminal activity and unsavory thoughts and words. “It sounds to me like this is loose talk, and yet the government makes it sound like a detailed plan,” said Stephen Hartman, a criminal defense lawyer in Ohio who is representing a defendant in the Toledo case. “It raises some real concerns: What does it take to get the FBI on your back on something like this?” Federal judge sets 2009 date for THIRD TRIAL in Sears Tower terror case Mike Rosen-Molina at 3:02 PM ET http://jurist. law.pitt. edu/paperchase/ 2008/04/federal- judge-sets- 2009-date- for-third. php[JURIST] A federal judge Wednesday set January 6, 2009 for the third terrorism prosecution of six men charged with conspiring to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago and the FBI headquarters in Miami after two previous prosecutions ended in mistrials. Earlier this month, US District Judge Joan A. Lenard declared the second mistrial after the jury was unable to reach a verdict after 13 days of deliberations. In December 2007, Lenard declared an initial mistrial when the jury was deadlocked after nine days of deliberations. A seventh man was acquitted in that proceeding. The seven were indicted in 2006 on charges of conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda; conspiring to provide material support, training, and resources to terrorists; conspiring to maliciously damage and destroy by means of an explosive; and conspiring to levy war against the government of the United States. The indictment alleged that ringleader Narseal Batiste recruited the six other initial defendants to "organize and train for a mission to wage war against the United States government," and that they pledged an oath to al Qaeda in an attempt to secure financial and logistical backing. Lawyers for some of the men have said that their clients were entrapped by an FBI informant posing as an al Qaeda operative. ________________________________ It's only a deal if it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here. =
