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Dan Choi and I drove David House to the Virginia court house for his testimony before the Wikileaks grand jury today. David and his attorney entered the US attorney’s office next to the court house, but because Dan and I had not received subpoenas and were not on the witness list, we were not allowed entry.
While we were sitting in the lobby, we struck up a conversation with someone who identified themselves as a friend of Lynndie England. The person, who asked for anonymity out of concerns for their family’s privacy, indicated that they had accompanied England and were familiar with the details of England’s subpoena.
England’s attorney was contacted last week and told that she was wanted for questioning before the grand jury today. England indicated that she would comply with the request, and was surprised that she subsequently received a subpoena last Friday anyway.
According to the associate, England did not know whether she was appearing before the Wikileaks grand jury. The information she was given indicated she would be questioned about activities at Abu Ghraib that happened during a period in which she was not present.
The individual speculated that Wikileaks had received documents implicating people much higher up than England in the torture activities at Abu Ghraib, which would expose the details of the government’s attempts to cover up what happened.
I asked the person if they would like to walk up the street with us to Starbucks. The guards at the security station told Dan and I to leave, then locked the door and attempted to prevent the individual from leaving the building. They told the individual that we were from Wikileaks and that they could not talk to us.
They called an FBI agent to the lobby, who told the guards that they had no cause to detain the individual, as they were not officially associated with the inquiry. The guards unlocked the exit door and allowed the individual to depart.
The individual said that the request came out of the blue.
Update: See Marcy’s post: England’s appearance may have been related to the grand jury investigation into the death of Manadel al-Jamadi.
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Holy Cow that is huge breaking news!
Whoa..
Curious and curiouser…
Next thing ya know they’ll charge Bradley with devising and implementing the torture program at Abu Graib.
Are some people paranoid or what? Trying to prevent a citizen from leaving a courthouse? Accusing you of being part of Wikileaks? I hope you get a chance to tell this story on MSM so people can start to get a glimmer of understanding about what is going on.
I HATE to be a broken record, but WHEN will the Democratic Party wake up & realize its ONLY hope is to separate itself from “Clarence Thomas” Obama? Because of us, Obama’s set up financially for life. Because of Obama, a LOT of Democrats will be headed for the unemployment line (when he loses in ’12). Obama MUST be primaried!
ayfkm ?!?!?
busy busy busy redefining “ham fisted” – this crew would fuck up a wet dream – damn
bless you for being there Jane !
So, Jane, ya gonna be the headliner on KO’s premiere? I can’t think of a better topic for it.
Hey, stranger. How ya be?
It seems obvious that when they locked her in – against her will, she was entitled to go home RIGHT THEN. Why should Americans have to tolerate this arrogant behavior, it’s just crazy.
Jane I don’t have to wish you to live in interesting times because you are already there in the muddle. Nice catch.
That must have felt like entering the Twilight Zone.
I be fine (((dahlin’)))) – presently in lurk mode for some reason
can you believe this s**t ?!? suddenly thinking of that rather large pack of dogs who wouldn’t bark in the Taguba report
Jesus that’s weird. Lynndie fucking England? What could they want with her? She was just a guard soldier who did some nasty shit, not a decision maker. I wonder what she could possibly know about higher ups, can’t imagine much.
And the guard’s behavior is priceless. I’ve openly told five or six people that said something bad about WL that I think they’re heroes, and Bradley Manning should be released immediately and commended for exposing the government’s crimes. They look at me with mouth agape shock. There’s an educational gap out here, doncha know.
If this was in Alexandria, I think she’s testifying in the grand jury investigating the death of Manadel al-Jamadi in Abu Ghraib.
Is it even possible that the AG is not involved with this Manning prosecution? What is wrong with these people? Is the entire Justice Department a train wreck?
Thanks for sharing, Jane.
Link here.
So, what do these stupid people say – oops, excuse us, we thought we could intimidate you into acting like a lamb, sorry.
“The information she was given indicated she would be questioned about activities at Abu Graib that happened during a period in which she was not present”
That’s pretty darn odd. Why do you call a “witness” to “testify” as to things about which,they could only, at best, have hearsay information?
Doesn’t surprise me. The playbooks for the Gestapo, KGB and Stasi have been around for quite a while.
How long before they question the tech guys that ran the live secure feeds from the torture pits to DC command and control central ? That would stab at the heart of the beast, no?
Inquiring minds would like to know.
Who is the last politician of either major party who suffered financially for losing office? Politicians separated from office don’t land in unemployment lines. The only disadvantage I can think of is exemption from insider trading laws.
That was my first thought when I read Jane’s account. Why did it take a visit from the FBI to point out to the guards (and the individual) that they had NO right to detain anyone not under subpoena. Bob Marley’s anthem “Stand Up” comes to mind . . .
That’s a rhetorical question, right?
“Um, hey Ed, ya know what we’re supposed to do in this situation?”
“Whut situation?”
“The one where we think somebody’s about to go off and consort with terrorist sympathizers.”
“Oh yeah, Frank, we’re supposed to handcuff ‘em to the chair or something, right? Then we get to search em and rough ‘em up a little. I think. Lemme go and ask the FBI guy. He’ll know for sure.”
“Duh, Mr. FBI agent, we got a situation over here…..”
WTF!?
More of our injustice systemem at work.
And how long did England serve in prison?
Sentenced to 3 years, and then only spent 521 days in jail. Because hey what she did was no biggie, right?
No officers were ever prosecuted!
Used to be that the PTB woould t least give us the little fish. No more of that. Now they’re protected as well. I guess if you protect them, less chance of them ratting.
Police state, we’re already here.
Oct. 6th can’t get here quickly enough.
this is a clear sign that the OBAMA WH is in panic mode.
calling Dan and Jane members of Wikileaks? crazy
locking up an innocent citizens? and having a FBI agent let them go? crazy
no wonder the USA is falling a part
the USG has been taken over by MORONS!
Obama and his political team are making critical errors.
Soon people are going to say OBAMA wants to lose in 2012.
Obama has loss control of Dems in the House and the Senate. LOL
Indeed, milling around with civil liberties, there’s a good reason to lock us out of courtroom. Truly, the state of ‘justice’ in the country needs a lot of work.
This is far too coincidental not to be related. Obviously, soldiers like Lynndie England who were court-martialed at Abu Ghraib were acting on orders from higher up in the chain of command, and they got their orders from the CIA and private contractors who were in charge of the interrogations. Everyone above NCO level, however, was too well-connected to prosecute. The material that Manning released to Wikileaks may fully disclose these connections – and the orders from them.
God damn George Bush for using 911 to turn this country into a no-holds barred Fascist Police state… and Fuck Obama for making it even worse.
Word.
Wow – the guards detaining your new acquaintance from getting a coffee with you is mind blowing.
On an NSA campus I can understand such goings on – but not at a court house.
Good on you – as I learned to say in Virginia a while back. You are doing God’s work!
:-)
Did they then try to prevent you from exiting with England’s friend?
And we told you not to wear your Wikileaks button, Jane.
I was thinking of all the lower paid Party loyalists who’ve been swallowing hard while defending Obama’s actions for three plus years. I guess the sad truth in this economy is, they at least have jobs until the election.
Yes. I was really struck by,
What could she possibly testify too if she wasn’t there?
“Fuck Obama for making it even worse”
Second.
Because of Obama a lot of Democrats are already in unemployment lines without waiting for his reelection.
Please see my comment and link above; I don’t think England’s testimony is at all related to Manning or Wikileaks.
What the hay, people.
Sorry, I thought that wasn’t God’s work, it was the work for the “Democratic Party”, as in the Party that believes in & acts to forward “Democratic” ideals.
Whew. Willful ignorance meets meagre training in an environment rife with fascist propaganda.
x2
Agreed. Sounds like a fishing expedition, but I’m not sure what they are fishing for… Ralphbon already linked the original Time article, here’s Marcy’s take on it. And here is her subsequent post about the CIA IG reopening their investigation. In short, Marcy figures these investigations are an attempt to forestall real action by the EU.
I have to say though, someone should have thought through the prospects of putting Jane in the same building with anyone connected to the other grand jury ; ) She is likely to cause far more trouble than anyone at Time ; )
England and House cannot be interviewed by the same grand jury at the same time, so I agree.
Months ago I read/heard a piece about the issue of whether or not the police framing people was Constitutional going before SCOTUS. Not a word have I seen/heard since.
wow. excellent reference – was unaware any such inquiry was ongoing (forgive me EW wherever you are)
So …. how many of these clowns are saying that Jane is part of WikiLeaks?
Did these clowns dream that up themselves? Or were they told this?
Is this what they think about House too? And what about Choi?
As ralphbon indicates @ 15 & 17 & 37, it sounds like Lynndie England has been called before a separate, non-WikiLeaks grand jury, that is apparently now convened in that courthouse:
Good scoop, Jane.
All the laws Bush enacted, the Patriot Act, MPHEA, the FISA amendments, all these things were written well before George Bush became president. They’ve been gestating since North was working on continuity of government plans during Reagan’s first term. The work continued under Clinton who is very closely tied to the Bush family. I wouldn’t be surprised if Poppy is Clinton’s CIA handler and if Bubba’s trips to Moscow and Eastern Europe while he was at Oxford were made at the behest of Bush Senior. He sure did know an awful lot about Bubba’s itinerary during that time when he tried smearing him with it during the ’92 campaign.
We’ve been a protofascist state for quite awhile now. All that was needed to kick it up a notch was the loss in Vietnam to hurt the national pride (like Versailles to the Nazis) and a continuous run of ineffective administrations running this country into the ground to convince people that representative government doesn’t work (like Weimar). All that’s needed now is a trigger event.
All those little executive orders Bush implemented while he was in office were never revoked under Barry. That was the deal. Barry’s nothing more than a seat-warmer whose only goal is the destruction of Social Security and whatever remains of the social contract.
I would imagine that before this morning neither of the guards had ever heard the word WikiLeaks.
Which of course makes the insistence of the guards that the “individual” could not talk to “Wikileaks” even less rationale. It’s not as if they are two witnesses trying to coordinate testimony to the same grand jury. The guards response is silly, paranoid and illegal, but ultimately just silly.
Jane just has “trouble-maker” written all over her.
Probably republicans.
Another banana republic controlled by corporations and the military/intelligence communities. Will the heat be shooting us down at the Vichycrat and Regressive conventions? How many are really willing to give their lives for their country?
Ain’t it wonderful?
The absolute best.
I’m guessing the revolving doors work for them, as well. Maybe not as quickly or as handsomely remunerated, but decently, nonetheless. It’s the amateurs who bust it for the candidate who get nothing, not even unemployment as they weren’t paid to begin with. It’s like being scored off by a lover and many of them don’t seem to get over it. OFA, I’m looking at you.
that’s certainly possible, but the actions and comments of the courthouse guards in attempting an unlawful detainment of Ms. England’s acquaintance certainly put a chill on this entire incident. And to be honest, I would be quite surprised if Mr. Durham’s investigation actually results in any substantial indictments.
But he’s “tough” and “respected.” /s
Unbelievable that security guards would make that kind of decision on their own.
On break, gj reconvening at 4pm. house has not been questioned yet.
Jane, can you confirm how many grand juries are meeting today in the courthouse?
Oh, yeah, baby, don’t you know it! Oops, Jane on the Thread, heads up! /s
So the plot thickens?
So, you think they were “briefed?”
If this was Minneapolis, Jane would have been arrested:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/984773/41975064
I am so curious about Netroots Nation coming up there…
Wouldn’t surprise me. Jane and David are high profile where Bradley is concerned, more so than Bradley’s attorney. Jane also has a high profile forum and can raise quite the stink when she has a mind to. Prolly makes all concerned with Bradley’s case quite nervous.
Would also not surprise me to find out that David has been under surveillance for a while, which means Jane’s movements have been noted as well. A healthy dose of paranoia is a good thing sometimes. Just might keep one alive.
So would we all be, given the track record of our Department of Justice, and the narrow jurisdiction of Durham’s DOJ-defined prosecutorial mandate.
Which, perhaps, indirectly supplies the answer to Mary’s query @ 19:
Perhaps because you’re [John Durham's] not in the business of obtaining “substantial indictments”?
What I’m thinking as well.
Go, Jane!!!! IF you really are “flying up their noses,” then good on ya!! Be safe but go for it!
Wow this has the potential to be huge.
You have a gift for clarity powwow. I think you have hit upon the answer.
Anyone see Rumsfeld in the building? Is he being asked to testify? I mean, are they getting to the point?
Maybe the FBI agent just happened to bring a little intelligence and or respect for the oath he/she took into the mix this morning. It’s really scary to think about how some members of law enforcement are willing to throw the law out the window when they catch a whiff of DFH.
“I mean, are they getting to the point?”
…with Rumsfeld?
Was the irony in that question intentional?
Can’t argue with any of that. Eye-opening but consistent with all circumstances. And sucks.
Thanks for the *important* news, Jane. It’s my opinion that Lynndie England, amongst others, was used as a scapegoat by the US military & USG to cover up travesties ordered from on high. Typical.
Now they want to this young woman to be put on the hot seat again: more travesty!
Citizens better start taking note bc the next time the ax man cometh, s/he may be coming for you!!
Will be very interesting to learn, if poss, whether England is being called to appear before WikiLeaks GJ or another one. Either way, my heart goes out to England. I think she’s been used, abused, chewed up and spat out by the PTB. Disgusting… All serfs, though, should take note. You can vote “conservative” all you like, but THIS is how you’ll be treated, if the “big boys” decide that’s what you deserve… for no reason at all except that it “amuses” them to do so.
That WAS snark, wasn’t it??????
Very interesting! I wish the detainee had called 911 as soon as he/she was imprisoned. A big stink would have been lovely. Were these security guards or city cops or military?
or, indeed, perhaps any indictments.
We don’t live in an era where we can trust or depend on law enforcement any more. The days of the friendly cop on the beat are long gone. They’ll arrest me for what I think/say before they’ll arrest a Tea Partier for carrying an unregistered handgun.
mzchief, I left you a response (finally) on Egnor’s LezGetReal diary.
So ignoring the GIANT differences in integrity and motives, she and Bradley have something in common, they’re both “whipping boys” so to speak.
Poppy Bush as Clinton’s CIA handler….that is awesome. I like where your mind goes.
Guards on federal property are usually federal employees.
That makes sense. There have been many homicides among the detainees held by us in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. I hope all the people who killed detainees are fully brought to justice. All of them.
Yup.
Thanks! I’ve been in federal court before, just could not recall…
I was a witness in a Federal drug trial once. Pays to listen while sitting outside the courtroom waiting to be called.
Indeed.
I wouldn’t trust Durham worth a damn. He does what he is told…nothing more. If he is investigating the “iceman” homocide, it’s more than likely to stick England and the other grunts with the rap. That way they can dust their hands off and say, “There, we took care of it.”
Thanks for the news flash.
Is there an explanation why the guards could ask Jane and Dan to leave (the lobby) but why the guards did not command the same to Lynndie’s friend?
Like Jane and Dan, it sounds like Lynndie’s friend was not on a witness list, else the guards would have been able to detain Lyndie’s friend in the lobby. Unless the guards were locking everyone out of the lobby (Jane, Dan, and Lynndie’s friend), then it seems the guards were merely playing favorites.
Did you get the impression the guards locked in Lyndie’s friend to prevent the friend from interacting with the likes of Jane and Dan? or because they thought Lynndie’s friend was supposed to testify?
You know who I want to see testify too? John Walker Lindh. He couldn’t testify to Abu Ghraib but he could testify to Rumsfeld (“take the gloves off“), Ashcroft, Tenet and Powell — because his lawyer contacted all of them when Lindh was first reported to be in custody, in December 2001, asking to see his client. On the other end, John was asking to see a lawyer. But no, instead Lindh gets sent off to a cruise on our black site ships, the Peleliu and Bataan. People now are freaked about Obama telling San Francisco fundraisers that Manning is guilty?
And that was months before Lindh finally was able to meet with a lawyer, and before he plea bargained for 20 years of gagged prison because he thought a fair trial was impossible. More here. (Can gagged prisoners testify to a grand jury?)
Also, also, ALSO — for God’s sakes, look who’s the AG now? Eric “Sucks” Holder, who as Deputy AG in Clinton administration ran the DOJ coverup of the Oklahoma City bombing called the Trentadue Mission…
…along with other guys still in DOJ, Robert Litt and David “Roach Motel” Margolis, the guy who spiked the OPR report by rewriting the conclusion:
I tell you, I think the ball is in Utah now, where Jesse Trentadue is suing for CIA/FBI/DOJ FOIA, and the judge is asking the plaintiffs to answer some questions…
Ball!
Ball.
Dear Jane,
Please tell us that you have a hard copy of your vehicle insurance pinned in a pocket somewhere. Pups worry about that kinda stuff. ;-)
The CIA grand jury investigation might be prologue and as a pre-condition to the Petraeus installation at CIA, i.e., Petraeus doesn’t want skeletons coming back to haunt him, whatever his aspirations.
(I think Jane’s nail polish is embedded with GPS nano chips and other telltale nano sniff stuff.)
Here’s a transcript of an interview Lindie England did with Der Spiegel. She was a scape goat, some thing that big brother put forward to direct your two minutes of hate toward while Rumsfeld, Miller and the rest of them walked out the back door.
They should try Manning for treason, find him guilty, and sentence him to the firing squad or 10 years of listening to The Clown™, aka Barry “It’s My Depression and I’ll Laugh If I Want To” Obama, speak without a TelePrompTer.
If those were my choices, I would take the firing squad.
“Petraeus doesn’t want skeletons coming back to haunt him”
Yeah, right.
Another Mooreon.org “Petraeus or Betray Us” numbskull.
You can always tell if someone is from Mooreon.org. They are the ones whose IQ is in single digits.
The Clown™: Out in 2012 or America is FINISHED.
Seriously, you think you’ve trademarked “The Clown”? And you’d take being executed by a firing squad over listening to the words of a fellow American?
You’re a joke.
I suppose the only reason why your stupid little comment about a firing squad is still up at Firedoglake is that you at least mentioned a trial first.
Anyone else you want to shoot at before you have all the facts?
You’re a really bad, unfunny joke.
America’s not FINISHED yet, but the process did start during the Reagan administration, was not stopped by Clinton, and has now gotten far worse between the puppet presidencies of Bush and Obama.
What a story. Everything is rotten, it seems, in the state of ‘Merca.
I thought guards at federal buildings are usually rent-a-cops…
I made a donation to FDL after reading it. Please continue reporting, FDL!
Fixed it for ya:
“For some time I have been disturbed by the way the CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the government…. I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations.” – former President Harry Truman, in a letter to the Washington Post, one month after the JFK assassination, December 21, 1963
“I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo.” – Harry Truman
The formation of the CIA was not the beginning of the end for America any more than was slavery or McCarthyism.
The corruption that began with Reagan, when Goldman Sachs et al gained so much power and everything that wasn’t nailed down started being privatized for profit, now that’s the beginning of the end because it won’t and/or can’t be stopped until this country has collapsed under the weight of it.
Doubt that the “idealistic” Democratic Party still exists outside of a platform that while ignored after elections is produced every 4 years to motivate the base.
Near 90 % of the population thinks God is around and is into doing good – and what Jane is doing is “doing good”. Those that don’t buy into God usually do not require their associates to adopt their views – just as the religious in the party do not go off on those in the Democratic Party like our California Congressman when he loudly proclaims his faith in there being no God.
If you want to attack every comment that associates doing good with God and sell that attitude as the Democratic Party position, good luck on winning elections.
He is also inaccurate – ran some jobs numbers trying to push Perry but does not seem to know how to use the internet to get the correct data.
But then he is just another young republican trying to make a buck posting on FDL :-) – and they are not known for brains or skills.
So, Republicans do create jobs.
Sign outside Newt’s headquarters:
I’m not a salesperson & God is a personal matter. I am one who LOVES the arguments, reasoning ability & courage of Jon, Marci & Jane, & even lately David.
Thanks for the link. I read the article. Lyndie gets little sympathy from me however. She enjoyed torturing other human beings. I can’t quite get past that.
Riveting. You met a war criminal and had coffee. Was it good?
There is a weird sort of surrealism in this. There have been umpteen claims that Wikileaks’ releases would put informants in danger. This did not happen. In actuality, this administration’s method of using informants to locate OBL did put them in danger (they are being rounded up). Yet we see whom is being paraded in front of juries?
Should have put the title in too: Lynndie England: “Rumsfeld Knew”
I guess Rumsfeld can’t be indicted or face punishment, is that true? But does that preclude him from having to testify?
Like, I’m still back on that Bataan Katrina thing, and how Rumsfeld stopped the military from helping out when Michael Brown and Chertoff requested aid. That Thursday when they’re (maybe?) euthanizing patients in desperate Memorial Hospital, the Bataan with its 600 unused hospital beds and capability to make 100,000 gallons of fresh water a day (reading from the newspaper) takes off for Mississippi (Gov. Barbour-R). That’s what I’ve picked up on from pixels online. But I also saw Spike Lee’s If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise movie about New Orleans, and Spike Lee loves Gen. Honore. I love Gen. Honore. Gen. Honore lands in his helicopter and orders all the troops there to put their guns down. OMG sanity! And it’s not like there was no military response. There are photos online of Honore on the deck of the Bataan on August 31. Honore’s got a book out and you can search the contents online and the word “Rumsfeld” is in there on two pages, and one of those is the index pointing to the other one. There’s like a sentence.
You see what I’m getting at? Gen. Honore, tell how the orders went between you, Rumsfeld and FEMA.
It’s all about Rumsfeld hiding his gobsmackingly fucked/illegal decisions and leaving someone else holding the bag. Everyone blames Lynndie England for Abu Ghraib. Everyone remembers clueless FEMA fuckup Heckuva Job Brownie. Does anyone recall Rumsfeld standing up and saying “I ordered that”? I hope they ask Karpinski to testify.
Can the public submit questions to a grand jury?