Friday, August 05, 2005
 RawStory/VANITY FAIR: Vanity Fair's September edition packs a punch with an article about Sibel Edmonds, the FBI translator who has been gagged by the Bush Administration from revealing information about conversations she translated surrounding a seemingly major corruption scandal involving Turkish nationals and U.S. lawmakers, ...
Edmonds says she has heard classified wiretaps which indicate Turkish nationals tried to bribe both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in Chicago and Washington.
[...] On top of the usual prohibition against disclosing classified information, the Bush administration has smothered her case beneath the all-encompassing blanket of the "state-secrets privilege"-a Draconian and rarely used legal weapon that allows the government, merely by asserting a risk to national security, to prevent the lawsuits Edmonds has filed contesting her treatment from being heard in court at all. According to the Department of Justice, to allow Edmonds her day in court, even at a closed hearing attended only by personnel with full security clearance, "could reasonably be expected to cause serious damage to the foreign policy and national security of the United States."
[...]
"Edmonds has given confidential testimony inside a secure Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility on several occasions: to congressional staffers, to investigators from the OIG, and to staff from the 9/11 commission," Rose continues. "Sources familiar with this testimony say that, in addition to her allegations about the Dickersons, she reported hearing Turkish wiretap targets boast that they had a covert relationship with a very senior Republican indeed-Dennis Hastert, Republican congressman from Illinois and Speaker of the House since 1999.
[...]
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