> Doug Mann responds: The FBI clearly stepped over the line. > The FBI's raid and press releases clearly serve political > ends.
And you evidence is? > And the FBI ha a long history of carrying out > "investigations" that serve political, and not legitimate law > enforcement aims, such as the cointelpro programs of the > 1960s and 70s. This maybe true previously, but why is it true in this case? > If the FBI already had rock solid evidence of Zimmermann's > guilt, what was the point of the early morning raid of DZ's' > house? Did they find the smoking gun they were after? Search warrants are typically executed to collect evidence. > Did the FBI raid yield a shoe box full of money? A rack > full of Armani suits? Did the seizure of bank DZ's bank > records show mysterious or unusually large cash deposits? > Did DZ's campaign records fail to account for > thousands of dollars in small campaign contributions(which > are not itemized in the public campaign finance report) ? This just does not match the accusations. Mr. Zimmermann is accused of taking money to finance his campaign and pay legal debts. Extravagant spending is not a necessary consequence of corruption. > Incidentally, there were no press releases about Brian Herron > allegedly taking bribes before he was prepared to enter a plea of > "guilty" to charges of felony extortion (18 July 2001). > http://citypages.com/databank/22/1088/article9861.asp So? What do this imply? Mr. Zimmermann's case, maybe different than Mr. Herron's. Why not try making some wild connection because of the difference in race? What I find interesting is that Mr. Zimmermann has yet to public deny the charges (at least to my knowledge). He made a statement about the importance of his social agenda. The goals justify the means...right? His lawyer hasn't denied that he took money, he said that campaign laws were fuzzy. This is not a strong declaration of innocence. Regardless, I'm reserving judgment until Mr. Zimmerman has his day in court. However, I'm afraid that Mr. Mann's reasoning is not prudent or reasonable and is uncharacteristic of the performance that I would expect of a city councilmember. I had more respect for Candidate Mann when he ran his school board campaigns on facts, rather than wild unverified accusations. Michael Atherton Prospect Park REMINDERS: 1. Be civil! Please read the NEW RULES at http://www.e-democracy.org/rules. If you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list. 2. Don't feed the troll! Ignore obvious flame-bait. For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract ________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:mpls@mnforum.org Subscribe, Un-subscribe, etc. at: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
