Monday, January 09, 2006
 Antiwar.com January 4, 2006: "The Bush administration – and the nation – has a lot at stake in the upcoming trial of former Cheney aide I. Lewis Libby over the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity to the media. And if prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald decides to indict others (especially top Bush aide Karl Rove, as some expect), the stakes will get even higher.
. . . At best (for the neocon-led government, anyway), the whole thing could just get smothered under a heavy blanket of "state secret" luxuries granted to the defense. Given the track record of the case's presiding judge, this is a distinct possibility. [...]
The trial's appointed judge – Reggie Walton [was] allegedly selected "randomly," but repeatedly and specifically chosen for cases presented by FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds since 2002. In his 2004 decision, Walton ruled "with much consternation" to uphold the government's line that Edmonds could not present her case because it would threaten national security.
Although Edmonds' appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected, she has tenaciously refused to give up, launching a new suit. And guess who's been appointed the judge? You guessed it! Reggie Walton. According to Edmonds, as we will see below, this is a suspicious and disastrous development that does not bode well for an impartial and fair Libby trial.
... "It does seems that a disproportionate number of high profile cases and cases concerning secrecy go to a few [of the Washington, D.C.] judges," notes Professor William Weaver, an expert on government secrecy and legal matters with the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
[...]
It does sometimes seem that the chances of a certain judge being "randomly" appointed to cases as important as Libby's and Edmonds' second one [.pdf] are just slightly worse than winning, say, the Greek lottery. However, there are other limiting factors at work that reduce the pool and that sometimes introduce a factor of singular manipulation into the appointment process.
[...]
The secrecy or at least lack of a public procedure in judicial appointments discussed above becomes of critical importance when we consider the bizarre concurrence of events that is the Edmonds case – in many respects our best recent guide to what could happen in the Libby trial.
The case, based on 1st and 5th Amendment rights, was originally filed in July 2002, when it was randomly assigned to Judge James Robertson – the very judge who recently resigned from the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to protest the Bush administration's chronic deception of the court!
Not surprisingly, Sibel Edmonds remembers Robertson as "a good judge." In fact, when it became obvious that two of the main culprits in the case (Doug and Can Dickerson) were about to flee the country, Judge Robertson "ordered an emergency deposition," recounts Edmonds.
However, in December 2002, "without any reason being cited, we got a notification from the court saying that my case was being removed from Judge Robertson and transferred to Judge Walton – recently appointed by George W. Bush," says Edmonds.[...]
under Judge Walton there was "no activity whatsoever for one and a half years; first, he scheduled a status hearing for March 2003, but one day before the scheduled date, he sent us a notice canceling it and postponing it to July 2003. No reason was cited."
Incredibly enough, the process would be repeated. A day before the rescheduled July 2003 hearing, Judge Walton sent another cancellation notice – once again, without giving any reason – this time buying more time for the government by rescheduling the hearing to October 2003.
Come October, the good judge sent another cancellation notification – this time providing a reason, but no rescheduled date. According to Edmonds, the reason given was that "he had to obtain top-secret clearance for his entire office and court clerks."
After that, it took a subpoena of Edmonds for a lawsuit by 9/11 victims' family members to provoke the judge to react. On April 27, 2004, when they subpoenaed Edmonds, "the FBI and DOJ asked for an emergency hearing, and Walton granted it right away."
And this was when things became truly ridiculous. The judge decreed that it would be a violation of "state secrets" for Edmonds to tell the court what languages she spoke, or where she had attended university, or what her date of birth was. He also blocked her deposition.
By early July 2004, Edmonds still had not been granted a hearing in her own case. Nevertheless, Judge Walton had freely allowed the DOJ to make their arguments before him – of course, in secret – and then gladly slammed the gavel down, ruling in their favor.
[...]
"Based at least on his involvement with my FTC case," says Edmonds, "Walton knows that my case involves some of the Turkish-American organizations that figure prominently in the former career of Valerie Plame. As you know, the two cases involve basically the same players, who have been active for many years. Further, both Libby and Walton have worked with the White House during the same period in different capacities."
If a judge does not stick to the law himself, why should the average citizen do so? This is the question critics are asking now regarding the entirely redacted financial disclosure form filed by Judge Walton in which every line has been blacked out [.pdf].
What is interesting here is not necessarily the content of the form, but why the judge had everything on it blacked out. According to Professor Weaver, the Ethics in Government Act "does not allow judges to file completely redacted disclosures at their own discretion – the redactions must be made for security purposes and for only as long as necessary to secure the filer from jeopardy." Professor Weaver has now filed a request for an unredacted version of Judge Walton's financial disclosures, "on the basis that there is no evidence whatsoever that his security is threatened by the revelation of his investments." This is, for the legal critics, a question of principles.
However, it will be tough. While the Ethics in Government Act does not provide for an enforcement mechanism, says the professor, "the Judicial Conference of the United States has a committee that handles judicial financial disclosures. I plan to make a complaint to the chief judge of D.C. and then to the AJC if we do not get an unredacted report. My argument will be that he is a scofflaw and that he reflects poorly on the judiciary by failing to comply with the law. It also prevents litigants from knowing if he has a financial interest that would affect his impartiality in a particular case." Such "financial interests" could be wide-ranging. What if, for example, Judge Walton has a financial interest in any company or with any individuals subsidizing the Libby Defense Fund? Or with any companies or individuals who may be implicated in the outing of Valerie Plame, or which were targeted in her covert investigations? [...]
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