Serious Questions for Michael Chertoff; Bernie Kerik’s Not Looking So Bad Now
By Allan P. Duncan
January 30, 2005
http://www.OpEdNews.com
President George W. Bush nominated Michael Chertoff to be the new Secretary of Homeland Security several weeks ago and I have some serious questions about this nomination.
On September 7, 2004, I published a four part series of articles titled, New Jersey and Terrorism…Perfect Together, in which I exposed Chertoff’s link to a New Jersey man who was accused of having ties to Osama Bin Laden and whose name had also come up in a federal weapons sting called Operation Diamondback.
Since the story is so complicated, I have tried to distill the entire article to make it a bit easier to understand since many people just don’t have the patience to read a 34 page story. I have also added some new information that was not in the original.
I have been trying to get this story out there for two years and it is finally spreading on the internet and several mainstream sources are currently investigating my claims. I have also been trying to contact Senators and Congressmen since the confirmation hearings are this week and time is of the essence.
The full article can be read by clicking the link below.
http://www.opednews.com/duncan_0090304_ ... orism1.htm
In my article, I reported that in 1998, Dr. Magdy Elamir, a prominent neurologist who lives and practices in North Jersey, was named in a foreign intelligence report as having had ties for years to Osama Bin Laden. This document went on to say that Dr. Elamir owned an HMO in New Jersey that was funded by Bin Laden and that Dr. Elamir had skimmed money from the HMO to fund terrorist activities.
In a Dateline NBC story titled On the trail of arms merchants, dated August 2, 2002, it states that the foreign intelligence report was obtained by Congressman Ben Gillman, when he was Chairman of the House International Relations Committee:
“Last fall, “Dateline” obtained information about Magdy Elamir. He’s a prominent doctor, a neurologist with a practice in Jersey City. Born and educated in Egypt, he moved to this country about 20 years ago and since then has built a fortune. He lives in a mansion, is generous to local charities and is an active supporter of both political parties.
Should counterterrorism investigators take an interest in Dr. Elamir? Well, “Dateline” obtained a document last fall — foreign intelligence report, that makes a startling allegation about the doctor — that he has had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years. The report was given to a senior member of Congress, Ben Gilman, back in 1998, when he was Chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
“We have a former FBI person on our staff and I asked him to look it over,” says Congressman Gilman. “He thought it was credible enough to turn it over to the intelligence people. And we turned it over to the FBI practically immediately.”
This was in 1998.
The report alleges that an H.M.O. owned by Dr. Elamir in New Jersey was “funded by ben [sic] Laden” and that in turn Dr. Elamir was skimming money from the H.M.O. to fund “terrorist activities.”
Has the FBI answered those questions? Not to Congressman Gilman’s satisfaction. But what “Dateline” found intriguing is that less than a year after the congressman says the FBI received the report, Dr. Elamir’s HMO was taken over by the state of New Jersey, which opened a fraud investigation. Why? Because, according to sources close to the investigation, more than $15 million is unaccounted for. Where did the money go? “Dateline” has reviewed documents that show at least some of it went into hard-to-trace offshore bank accounts.” (1)
The date of the 1998 foreign intelligence report is very important, because an article in The Record, dated December 11, 1998, documents the fact that Michael Chertoff was Dr. Elamir’s lawyer in the fraudulent HMO case in the same year that Elamir was named in the foreign intelligence report:
“Elamir, who has been accused by insurance department officials of
diverting state Medicaid funds to other businesses he owns, did not
oppose the state's takeover. No criminal charges have been filed against
him.
But in a hint of the gravity of his legal predicament, he was
represented in court by Michael Chertoff, the former U.S. attorney in
Newark and counsel to U.S. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato's Whitewater
investigation.” (2)
The Record also reported on December 18, 1998 that Michael Chertoff had access to Dr. Elamir’s financial records for the fraudulent HMO and presented them personally in court:
“Chertoff presented a thick document from Elamir's accountant,
Mohammed Hanafy, offering explanations for the money transfers from APPP
to other Elamir-controlled corporations.”
Further on the article states:
Keupper says the state is not satisfied with Hanafy's explanations,
noting that officials have been unable to obtain a full accounting of
services provided by Elamir's corporations to APPP.” (3)
Michael Chertoff apparently represented Dr. Elamir in the fraudulent HMO case from 1998 through December 2000 according to articles and records I have compiled.
The Dateline NBC story from August 2, 2002 also revealed that in 1999, Dr. Elamir’s brother in Egypt, Mohamed El Amir, tried to secure false paperwork for a warehouse full of weapons in Italy that he wanted to ship:
“Dateline” has found another reason why federal investigators might want to pay close attention to Dr. Elamir and his family. It’s something we learned when we interviewed Randy Glass, the con-man turned undercover operative who helped the government break up an illegal weapons ring allegedly tied to terrorist groups. It turns out that one of the people recorded trying to arrange an arms deal with Randy Glass was Dr. Elamir’s own brother, Mohamed, an engineer, also a U.S. citizen now living in Egypt. And just listen to what he was interested in.
“There was a warehouse full of weapons in Italy that they needed shipped,” says Glass.
It was the spring of 1999. Mohamed Elamir explains that he wants false papers that would identify a shipment of weapons — as vegetables.
Randy Glass: “ But you’re talking about, they’re saying they wanna ship vegetables, right? Is what they want — is what they want on the paperwork, correct?”
Mohamed El Amir: “Yep.” (1)
This information now documents the fact that in the Spring of 1999, while Michael Chertoff was representing Dr. Magdy Elamir in his fraudulent HMO case, that Dr. Elamir’s own brother, Mohamed El Amir, tried to secure false paperwork for a warehouse full of weapons. Dateline NBC also revealed that Mohamed El Amir also had alleged ties to Osama Bin Laden since he was named in the same foreign intelligence report that Congressman Gilman received in 1998:
“Did Mohamed give Glass any indication as to who was going to get these arms?
“Never got a chance to ask him,” says Glass.
Glass says federal agents told him to drop the matter.
So, what happened to the case? “Nothing,” says Glass.
There was no follow-up. “No,” says Glass.
Was this a missed opportunity? “Hundred percent,” says Glass.
And Randy Glass doesn’t know the half of it, because that same intelligence report that talks about Dr. Elamir also names his brother Mohamed as having ties to Osama bin Laden.” (1)
The Dateline story also revealed that the same intelligence report stated that Dr. Elamir had financially supported the Al Salam Mosque in Jersey City, the same city where Dr. Elamir has his practice:
“Dateline” caught up with Dr. Elamir recently outside his office. He said he couldn’t talk about his HMO and the missing money. But he had this to say about allegations he’s connected to bin Laden and terrorism.
Dr. Elamir: “That’s preposterous. Never.”
Chris Hansen: “Why would somebody say something like that about you?”
Dr. Elamir: “I have no idea. I have no idea.”
But the intelligence report suggests one thing that he doesn’t deny. That he has donated money to the mosque where the blind sheik once preached, Omar Abdel Rahman, who is now in prison for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.” (1)
Here’s a bit of history about the mosque:
“It is nearly a straight shot from the Jersey City waterfront overlooking the rubble of the twin towers up to Al Salam, the third-floor mosque here that for more than a decade has been tainted with suspicions of terrorism.
First there was the 1990 murder of a militant rabbi, linked to an Al Salam regular. Then there was the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, spurred, prosecutors said, by the incendiary sermons of blind Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and carried out by his followers.”
“Al Salam had a tradition of passionate preaching against the Egyptian government, which is supported by the United States. Journal Square has a large Egyptian population, and many worship at Al Salam.
The mosque's most famous scholar, Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, was convicted in 1995 along with nine followers of conspiring to bomb the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan and several other buildings, bridges and tunnels in New York.
Prosecutors also said Abdel Rahman had galvanized his followers to carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and wounded 1,000.
Three years later, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who prosecutors said masterminded the 1993 bombing, was also convicted. Abdul Rahman Yasin, another suspect in the 1993 bombing who lived in Jersey City, fled the country.
In 1990, Al Salam regular El Sayyid Nosair was charged with murdering Rabbi Meir Kahane during a speech in New York.” (5)
Ramzi Yousef, by the way, is the nephew by marriage of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, acknowledged as the architect of the 9-11 attacks.
Michael Chertoff served as Assistant United States Attorney and then United States Attorney for New Jersey from 1987 to 1994. He would have been in office when “In 1990, Al Salam regular El Sayyid Nosair was charged with murdering Rabbi Meir Kahane during a speech in New York” and would also have been in office when “Abdel Rahman had galvanized his followers to carry out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six and wounded 1,000.” Chertoff was also in office when “Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, was convicted in 1995 along with nine followers of conspiring to bomb the United Nations headquarters in Manhattan and several other buildings, bridges and tunnels in New York.”
I am sure that Michael Chertoff must have had a role in investigating these cases and I’m quite sure he knew quite a bit about the Al Salam Mosque’s members and supporters. It is certainly ironic that he ended up representing Dr. Magdy Elamir who financially supported the Al Salam Mosque, the same mosque that planted the seeds for terrorist attacks within Michael Chertoff’s own jurisdiction.
Michael Chertoff was appointed Assistant Attorney General, under John Ashcroft, in early 2001 and was placed in charge of the Criminal Division. Since Operation Diamondback was an active case when he took office, and culminated in arrests in the Summer of 2001, the case would have fallen under his pervue since it was handled as a criminal case and not as a counterterrorism case. This means that one of his former clients, Dr. Magdy Elamir, along with his brother Mohamed El Amir, were now suspects in a case under his supervision.
Operation Diamondback ran from the Fall of 1998 through the Summer of 2001. As I reported above, Michael Chertoff represented Dr. Elamir in his fraudulent HMO case from sometime in 1998 through December 2000. We also know that Dr. Elamir had been named in the foreign intelligence report in 1998 as having ties to Osama Bin Laden for years and that his HMO had been funded by Bin Laden and that millions of dollars had been siphoned from the HMO to fund terrorist acts. This means that Michael Chertoff had access to the financial records of an HMO, which was allegedly a front for and funded Bin Laden, for at least two years after his client Dr. Magdy Elamir was named as having ties to Bin Laden.
Neither Dr. Magdy Elamir, nor his brother Mohamed, were ever arrested by US authorities when Operation Diamondback ended. Michael Chertoff had represented Dr. Elamir for two of the three and a half years that the investigation spanned and had also overseen the case for a number of months after he was appointed Assistant Attorney General in 2001.
Operation Diamondback dealt with much more than what I have presented in regards to Dr. Elamir and his brother. The case also involved other Middle Eastern men operating in Jersey City with ties to Dr. Elamir and his brother. Three of these men attempted to secure components for nuclear Dirty Bombs and also wanted to secure Plutonium. They also tried to buy 500 Stinger Missiles. In one instance one of the men who was named as a member of the Pakistani ISI, pointed towards the World Trade Center and stated “Those towers are coming down.” The conversation was recorded by the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force and yet nothing was done with the information as we found out the hard way on 9-11. (1)
The suspects named in Operation Diamondback are now known to have had ties to AQ Khan’s nuclear weapons network operating out of Pakistan. This info was not known during the operation by the ATF and FBI Agents who worked on the case. Dateline NBC revealed this information on January 14, 2005. ATF Agent Dick Stoltz who supervised Operation Diamondback had this to say:
“In the summer of 1999, a group of illegal weapons dealers were meeting at a warehouse in Florida, their conversations recorded by federal investigators. One of the men, from Pakistan, was seeking technology for nuclear weapons. Who did he say he was working for?
Dick Stoltz: “Dr. Abdul Khan.”
Chris Hansen: “A.Q. Khan.”
Dick Stoltz: “A.Q. Khan.”
Former federal undercover agent Dick Stoltz was posing as a black market arms dealer.
Hansen: “Did you realize what you had at the time?”
Stoltz: “No. We didn't.”
But now he does -- because A.Q. Khan is considered, by some, to be the most dangerous man in the world. Why? Because Dr. Khan has peddled nuclear weapons technology to some of the countries the United States considers most dangerous, and some accepted his offers.”
Further on:
“Undercover federal agent Dick Stoltz says there's evidence Khan's operatives were at work here in the U.S., like a man who asked if Stoltz could supply heavy water, an ingredient used to make plutonium for nuclear bombs.
Stoltz: “He said that Dr. Khan was handling the negotiations behind the scene, as far as-- the heavy water.” (6)
Only two of the men I am referring to were arrested and only one of them spent time in prison after he had been sentenced to 30 months. Today all of the players involved in Operation Diamondback are walking the streets of North Jersey even though we now know they tried to secure Plutonium and components for a nuclear weapon and were working on behalf of AQ Khan.
When the attacks on 9-11 occurred, Michael Chertoff was placed in charge of the investigation. On Oct. 25, 2001, CBS reported that the Feds had launched Operation Green Quest in an attempt to stop the financing of terrorism. Here’s what Dr. Magdy Elamir’s former attorney had to say on the subject:
"The lifeblood of terrorism is money, and if we cut the money we cut the blood supply," said assistant attorney general Michael Chertoff, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division. (7)
The next day, on October 26, 2001, Michael Chertoff testified before Congress and had this to say:
“As an integral part of this national effort, the Department of Justice and the FBI have established an interagency Financial Review Group to coordinate the investigation of the financial aspects surrounding the terrorist events of September 11th and beyond. All members of this Committee recognize the importance of understanding the financial components of terrorist and criminal organizations. These financial links will be critical to the larger criminal investigation, while also providing a trail to the sources of funding for these heinous crimes. The importance of "following the money," in this instance, as well as in the investigation of all criminal enterprises, cannot be overstated.
The members of this Committee are also well aware that money laundering constitutes a threat to the safety of our communities, to the integrity of our financial institutions and to our national security.” (8)
On March 25, 2002, CNN reported:
“Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff is the Dick Cheney of the Justice Department. Brainy, intense and well connected, the former federal prosecutor can usually be found at Attorney General John Ashcroft's elbow as the department's top counterterrorism tactician. And last week Chertoff vanished to an undisclosed location.
With no deputies along and no publicity, Chertoff was on a stealthy swing through France, Belgium and the Netherlands. His mission: sell Western European governments on a new Bush Administration plan to post U.S. Justice Department prosecutors overseas in unprecedented numbers. "The sinews that hold a terrorist network together are money, communications and transportation," Chertoff told TIME before his trip. To help sever those sinews, Chertoff wants to have American prosecutors stationed in key capitals, where they can work behind the scenes with their counterparts to overcome the legal and cultural obstacles to shipping evidence to the U.S. for use in court.” (9)
I find it very interesting that Michael Chertoff, the man tapped to cut off the flow of finances to known terrorists, had in fact represented a man from 1998-2000 who allegedly had ties to Osama Bin Laden and may have sent millions of dollars to him.
I also find it interesting, that while Michael Chertoff served as Assistant United States Attorney and then United States Attorney for New Jersey from 1987 to 1994, that terrorist acts, including the first World Trade Center bombing, were perpetrated under his watch and were fueled from a mosque in Jersey City that was never shut down and still exists today. Chertoff’s former client, Dr. Magdy Elamir, is known to have supported the mosque financially while having suspected ties to Osama Bin Laden. Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing, just happens to be the nephew of the 9-11 mastermind, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
If you read my entire four part article you will discover a wealth of information about terrorist activities in the North Jersey area from before the 1993 bombing through 9-11 with a lot of evidence that many of the 9-11 hijackers spent time in North Jersey before the attacks.
Questions for Michael Chertoff
If I could question Michael Chertoff during his confirmation hearing set for this Wednesday, I would ask him if he knew of any of his former clients who may have had ties to terrorists or terrorist activities.
I’m sure he would say no.
I would then ask him if he had knowledge of any civil case that he had handled that might have involved an entity that had been funded by a terrorist or been used to fund terrorism.
I’m sure he would also say no.
I would then ask him if he had ever represented Dr. Magdy Elamir in a case involving a fraudulent HMO.
At this, he would most likely answer yes, but maybe not though if he cited attorney client privilege. I’m not a lawyer so I’m not sure how much he has to say about a case.
If he said no, I would then tell him that I know he had represented Dr. Magdy Elamir and would spell out my evidence.
I would then ask him if he had knowledge that Dr, Magdy Elamir had been named in a foreign intelligence report in 1998 as having had ties for years to Osama Bin Laden.
If he said no I would then ask him if he was aware that the HMO that his former client Dr. Elamir owned and operated may have been funded by Osama Bin Laden and that millions of dollars may have been siphoned from the HMO to finance terrorist activities.
If he said no I would ask him if he had ever had access to the financial records of the HMO in question.
If he cited attorney client privilege I would then ask him if he knew what happened to the nearly 6 million dollars that were made in wire transfers from the HMO’s funds to unknown people.
He would most likely cite attorney client privilege again so having made several points I would move on to another subject.
I would then ask him if he was aware that his former client had been named in a weapons sting run by the ATF and FBI while he was representing his client in his fraudulent HMO case.
If he said no I would then ask him if during his tenure as Assistant Attorney General was he aware that his former client Dr. Magdy Elamir had been named as a suspect in a federal weapons sting investigation that fell under his pervue.
If he said no I would then ask him why he didn’t know this since he was the head of the Criminal Division and the case would have fallen under his supervision.
If he said he was aware that his former client had been named as a suspect while the case was under his supervision I would then ask him if he took any actions to guarantee that there was no conflict of interest.
After his answer I would then ask him if he knew why his former client had never been arrested for operating an HMO that may have been funded by Osama Bin Laden, for skimming millions from the HMO that supposedly went to Bin Laden or for having been a suspect in Operation Diamondback.
If he said he didn’t know I would then make the point that he should have known since he was the Assistant Attorney General at the time.
I would also ask him if he was aware of historical terror ties to the Al Salam Mosque in Jersey City.
I’m sure he would then try to talk up the rest of my time by telling stories about the mosque so I couldn’t ask him any more questions but I’d cut him off after a few minutes and ask him if he was aware that his former client Dr. Magdy Elamir had financially supported the Al Salam Mosque.
If he said no then I would tell him that he doesn’t seem to know a lot about what has been happening in his own home state, especially since one of his own personal clients has been accused of being up to his neck in terror ties that could jeopardize our national security.
I would then close by asking Michael Chertoff how he thinks he can protect our homeland when he failed to shut down terrorism with roots in New Jersey while he was Assistant United States Attorney and then United States Attorney for New Jersey from 1987 to 1994, and then failed to cut financial ties to terrorism that might have involved one of his own former clients after he became Assistant Attorney General and was put in charge of Operation Green Quest.
I know that I won’t be able to ask these questions of Chertoff on Wednesday, but I’m hoping that at least one Senator on the confirmation committee will have received this information by then and has the intestinal fortitude to actually pose some of these questions
In my opinion, Michael Chertoff has no business becoming our Secretary of Homeland Security until these questions are answered. If he can’t secure his own backyard…there’s no way possible he can secure our entire country.
Public Policy: Chertoff Buried Early Evidence of Bush Torture Campaign in Afghanistan
By Dave Lindorff, ILCA Associate Member
The nominee for new Homeland Security secretary, back in 2002, worked hard to keep the public from hearing courtroom testimony that would have revealed the Bush government’s new campaign of torture, allowing it to spread from Afghanistan to Guantanamo to Iraq.
From an article of mine in the current, Feb. 14 issue of The Nation magazine (
http://www.thenation.org
).
Back on Friday, June 12, 2002, the Defense Department had a big problem: Its new policy on torture of captives in the "war on terror" was about to be exposed. John Walker Lindh, the young Californian captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 and touted by John Ashcroft as an "American Taliban," was scheduled to take the stand the following Monday in an evidence suppression hearing regarding a confession he had signed. There he would tell, under oath, about how he signed the document only after being tortured for days by US soldiers. Federal District Judge T.S. Ellis had already said he was likely to allow Lindh, at trial, to put on the stand military officers and even Guantánamo detainees who were witnesses to or participants in his alleged abuse. >br>
...
Accordingly, Michael Chertoff, who as head of the Justice Department's criminal division was overseeing all the department's terrorism prosecutions, had his prosecution team offer a deal. All the serious charges against Lindh--terrorism, attempted murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, etc.--would be dropped and he could plead guilty just to the technical charges of "providing assistance" to an "enemy of the U.S." and of "carrying a weapon." Lindh, whose attorneys dreaded his facing trial in one of the most conservative court districts in the country on the first anniversary of 9/11, had to accept a stiff twenty-year sentence, but that was half what he faced if convicted on those two minor charges alone.
But Chertoff went further, according to one of Lindh's attorneys, George Harris. Chertoff (now an appeals court judge in New Jersey) demanded--reportedly at Defense Department insistence, according to what defense attorneys were told--that Lindh sign a statement swearing he had "not been intentionally mistreated" by his US captors and waiving any future right to claim mistreatment or torture. Further, Chertoff attached a "special administrative measure," essentially a gag order, barring Lindh from talking about his experience for the duration of his sentence.
At the time, few paid attention to this peculiar silencing of Lindh. In retrospect, though, it seems clear that the man coasting toward confirmation as Secretary of Homeland Security effectively prevented early exposure of the Bush/Rumsfeld/Gonzales policy of torture, which we now know began in Afghanistan and later "migrated" to Guantanamo and eventually to Iraq. So anxious was Chertoff to avoid exposure in court of Lindh's torture--which included keeping the seriously wounded and untreated Lindh, who was malnourished and dehydrated, blindfolded and duct-taped to a stretcher for days in an unheated and unlit shipping container, and repeatedly threatening him with death--that defense lawyers say he made the deal a limited-time offer. "It was good only if we accepted it before the suppression hearing," says Harris. "They said if the hearing occurred, all deals were off." He adds, "Chertoff himself was clearly the person at Justice to whom the line prosecutors were reporting. He was directing the whole plea agreement process, and there was at least one phone call involving him."
Michael Chertoff and the sabotage of the Ptech investigation
Remember Ptech? That's the Boston software firm financed by Saudi businessman Yassin Al-Qadi, who also happens to be an al Qaeda bagman, whose clients happened to include numerous sensitive US federal branches and agencies, including the FAA, the FBI, the military and the White House.
A little background, from the mainstream, even, thanks to WBZ-TV:
Joe Bergantino, a reporter for WBZ-TV's investigative team, was torn. He could risk breaking a story based on months of work investigating a software firm linked to terrorism, or heed the government's demand to hold the story for national security reasons. In mid-June, Bergantino received a tip from a woman in New York who suspected that Ptech, a computer software company in Quincy, Mass., had ties to terrorists. Ptech specialized in developing software that manages information contained in computer networks.
Bergantino's investigation revealed that Ptech's clients included many federal governmental agencies, including the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Naval Air Command, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, NATO, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Secret Service and even the White House.
"Ptech was doing business with every federal government in defense and had access to key government data," Bergantino said.
...
Bergantino was ready to air the story by September, but the government had different plans. Federal authorities told Bergantino not to air the story because it would jeopardize their investigation and would threaten national security. According to federal authorities, documents would be shredded and people would flee if we ran the story, Bergantino said.
But Bergantino claims the government's demand to hold off on the story was merely a pretext.
In October 2001, President George W. Bush signed an executive order freezing the assets of individuals linked to terrorism. According to Bergantino, the list identified Saudi Arabian businessman Yassin Al-Qadi as a key financial backer of Osama Bin Laden. As it turns out, Bergantino said, Al-Qadi also is the chief financier of Ptech. The government failed to investigate Ptech in October 2001 and didn't start it's investigation until August 2002 when WBZ-TV's investigation called attention to Ptech.
Even if Ptech was unaware that the President's October 2001 order contained the name of its chief financier, documents seized in a March 2002 government raid revealed Ptech's connections with another organization linked to terrorism, Bergantino said. And again, the government failed to investigate Ptech.
Bergatino's tipster was Indira Singh, who has said she recognizes the separate command and control communications system Mike Ruppert describes Dick Cheney to have been running on September 11th as having "the exact same functionality I was looking to utilize [for] Ptech."
Now, how does Chertoff figure in the Ptech story? It goes back to the turf war of two years ago over Operation Greenquest, "the high-profile federal task force set up to target the financiers of Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups." The aggressive, Customs-led task force was folded into Homeland Security, sending both the FBI and its minders at the Department of Justice into a tizzy. They "demanded that the White House instead give the FBI total control over Greenquest."
Now, consider this, also from the two-year-old Newsweek:
The FBI-Justice move, pushed by DOJ Criminal Division chief Michael Chertoff and Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson, has enraged Homeland Security officials, however. They accuse the bureau of sabotaging Greenquest investigations—by failing to turn over critical information to their agents—and trying to obscure a decade-long record of lethargy in which FBI offices failed to aggressively pursue terror-finance cases.
...
One prime example of the tension is the investigation into Ptech, the Boston-area computer software firm that had millions of dollars in sensitive government contracts with the Air Force, the Energy Department and, ironically enough, the FBI. In what turned into a minor embarrassment for the bureau, the firm’s main investors included Yasin Al-Qadi, a wealthy Saudi businessman whom the Bush administration had formally designated a terrorist financier under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Al-Qadi has vigorously denied any connection to terrorism.
The Ptech case turned into an ugly dispute last year when company whistleblowers told Greenquest agents about their own suspicions about the firm’s owners. Sources close to the case say those same whistleblowers had first approached FBI agents, but the bureau apparently did little or nothing in response. With backing from the National Security Council, Greenquest agents then mounted a full-scale investigation that culminated in a raid on the company’s office last December. After getting wind of the Greenquest probe, the FBI stepped in and unsuccessfully tried to take control of the case.
The result, sources say, has been something of a train wreck. Privately, FBI officials say Greenquest agents botched the probe and jeopardized other more promising inquiries into Al-Qadi. Greenquest agents dismiss the charges and say the problem is that the bureau was slow to respond to legitimate allegations that an outside contractor with terrorist ties may have infiltrated government computers.
Whatever the truth, there is no dispute that the case has so far produced no charges and indictments against Al-Qadi or anyone else connected with Ptech. The company has denied wrongdoing.
The turf war was won on May 13, 2003, when John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge signed a "Memorandum of Agreement bet7ween the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, giving the FBI "unprecedented unilateral control of all terrorist-financing investigations and operations."
Several seasoned government agents fear for the nation’s security should the FBI be tackling most terrorism cases, as their ineptitude in preventing terrorism has been established time and time again. Yet, the memorandum between Ashcroft and Ridge places the FBI in an incredibly powerful position over Homeland Security. According to the memorandum, "all appropriate DHS leads relating to money laundering and financial crimes will be checked with the FBI."
Well, no reason to fear now, now that Michael Chertoff is heading up Homeland Security. Right?
Also, a noteworthy admission today from the Department of Justice, released in a "37-page, unclassified summary of a broader, 100-page internal review over Edmonds' case":
From Associated Press:
Evidence and other witnesses support complaints by a fired FBI contract linguist who alleged shoddy work and possible espionage within the bureau's translator program in the months after the September 2001 terror attacks, according to a report Friday by the senior oversight official at the Justice Department.
The department's inspector general, Glenn Fine, said the allegations by former translator Sibel Edmonds "raised substantial questions and were supported by various pieces of evidence." Fine said the FBI still has not adequately investigated the sensational claims.
A show of hands: how many have heard US cable news whisper, even once, the name "Sibel Edmonds"? I have. Once. It was about the time of Edmonds' press conference last Spring, held between sessions of Thomas Kean's 9/11 Commission. Paul Begalia, the designated liberal of CNN's Crossfire, gingerly raised her more reasonable-to-mainstream charges. (At least, those of which John Ashcroft's gag order permits her to speak.) Tucker Carlson, as if on cue, called her a "conspiracy theorist" and, I seem to recall, a "nutjob."
And according to CNN, that's the last we've heard of her.
Naturally, neither Sibel Edmonds nor Indira Singh, nor Ptech, warrant a mention in the official 9/11 Commission report. Though Edmonds is gagged, Singh did give testimony to the 9/11 Citizens' Commission, Sept 9, 2004 in New York. She read an open letter from Edmonds, and added "what I have uncovered in Ptech connects with some of the things that she has discovered. Sibel is not allowed to disclose content but she can ask me questions. I know some of the things that she mentioned there connect directly to what I discovered."
Further:
INDIRA SINGH: I did a number of things in my research and when I ran into the drugs I was told that if I mentioned the money to the drugs around 9/11 that would be the end of me. That is a current threat that I’m under and therefore I will speak out about the drugs at another forum.
I did not expect the Kean Commission to go anywhere near the FBI and Ptech. But I hope all Americans will demand answers regarding the FBI and Ptech. I would like to leave you with this one question. Not only why is Ptech still operating but why did Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Chertoff state that they cannot differentiate between terrorism, organized crime and drug dealing and is that the reason the Kean Commission will not make terrorism financing a priority in the future?
...
Ptech was with Mitre Corporation in the basement of the FAA for two years prior to 9/11. Their specific job is to look at interoperability issues the FAA had with NORAD and the Air Force in the case of an emergency. If anyone was in a position to know that the FAA, that there was a window of opportunity or to insert software or to change anything it would have been Ptech along with Mitre. And that ties right back to Michael Ruppert’s information.... The functionality that Michael is claiming that Dick Cheney utilized is the exact same functionality I was looking to utilize Ptech for in the bank. I was looking to set up a shadow surveillance system on everything going on, every transaction and the ability to backdoor, to look at information unobtrusively and to backdoor intelligent agents out there to do things that other people would not be aware of. To stop… in risk the whole shift is from bad things going on and finding it after the fact to preventing it from happening. So we were looking for patterns and have the intervention in there. So we were looking for interventive software, something that would stop. What Mike Ruppert is referring to is exactly the same kind of functionality…surveillance and intervention.
Another show of hands: have you heard anything like that, ever, on US cable news?
Friday, January 14 2005 - Articles
New Jersey and Terrorism: Perfect Together
Part 2: The Good Doctor Who Wasn't So Good
By Allan P. Duncan September 4, 2004
Courtesy of OpEdNews.com
THE GROUNDBREAKING RESEARCH CURRENTLY FEEDING THE CHERTOFF EXPOSE STORIES
In Part 1 of this series I introduced you to three men from Jersey City who attempted to set up a weapons deal which included among other things, hundreds of Stinger Missiles and components for nuclear weapons. The weapons deal was part of a two and a half year investigation called Operation Diamondback which culminated with the arrests of two of the Jersey City men in June of 2001.
Diaa Moshen was sentenced to 30 months in prison and Mohamed Malik was freed and had his case sealed and purged of all references to Pakistan . Both men are now free and continue to walk the streets of New Jersey.
The third man, Raja Ghulam Abbas, an alleged Pakistani ISI Agent, fled the country and the last I heard was living in Pakistan .
During a meeting at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca Grill on July 22, 1999, Abbas pointed towards the World Trade Center and stated "those towers are coming down." Despite the fact that the meeting was recorded and was being watched by members of the FBI's Terrorism Task Force, the threat was apparently not taken seriously. (4)
Randy Glass, the former con-man who posed as a weapons dealer during Operation Diamondback, was so upset about the references to the Towers coming down, that after the investigation ended he notified his elected representatives in Florida and reported the threats. According to an article in the Palm Beach Post, titled Intelligence Panel Hears from Glass, by John Pacenti published on October 17, 2002 :
"In August 2001, just before Glass started to serve a seven-month sentence for a $6 million jewelry scam, he said he reached out to Sen. Bob Graham and U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. He said he told staffers for both lawmakers that a Pakistani operative working for the Taliban known as R.G. Abbas made three references to imminent plans to attack the World Trade Center during the probe, which ended in June 2001.
At one meeting at New York's Tribeca Grill caught on tape, Abbas pointed to the World Trade Center and said, "Those towers are coming down," Glass said." (8)
Further on in the article Pacenti reports:
"Graham acknowledged at news conference in Boca Raton last month that Glass had contact with his office before Sept. 11, 2001, about an attack on the World Trade Center. "I was concerned about that and a dozen other pieces of information which emanated from the summer of 2001," the senator said." (8)
WPTV, an NBC affiliate in Florida did a news report where Senator Graham is confronted about the Glass info and a video of the story can be viewed online by checking out The Randy Glass Video in the Resources section at the end of this article.
In Part 1 of this series, I mentioned the fact that General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of the Pakistani ISI, had been sacked from his position after it was determined that he had authorized a wire transfer of $100,000 to Mohammed Atta shortly before 9-11. (6)
On the morning of 9-11, General Ahmad was at a breakfast meeting in Washington D.C. with Senator Bob Graham and Congressman Porter Goss, the Chairmen of the Senate and House Intelligence Committees. (9) One would think that as soon as Senator Graham heard about the attack on the World Trade Center , he would have remembered the information Randy Glass had shared with him about the threats.
Ironic, isn't it, that Graham was sitting with the head of the Pakistani ISI at the exact same time the attacks took place when he had already been warned of a threat that had come directly from the lips of an alleged Pakistani ISI Agent? No wonder Senator Graham acted dumb when confronted with the pre 9-11 Glass warning in the WPTV news story.
I've also never heard a response from either Senator Bob Graham or Congressman Porter Goss about what their thoughts were when it was revealed that the guy they had breakfast with on 9-11 had actually authorized the transfer of money to Mohammed Atta?
Porter Goss has now been nominated by President Bush to head the CIA. Many people have been lobbying to have Goss questioned about his meeting with General Ahmad on 9-11 but I'm betting that nobody has the guts to even bring it up during his confirmation hearings and it seems to be a foregone conclusion that he will breeze though the hearings with no problem.
I also alluded in Part 1, to frustrations voiced by intelligence professionals over the lack of attention Operation Diamondback received from higher ups in Law Enforcement. ATF Special Agent Dick Stoltz had this to say about Operation Diamondback:
"Stoltz says he's surprised that all the evidence and intelligence the case generated wasn't pursued more aggressively at the highest levels of law enforcement in Washington.
"Quite frankly, I was always wondering when maybe the case would be taken away from ATF," says Stoltz.
So Stoltz thought that he was on to something so big that ultimately FBI, perhaps CIA might take over? "Oh, FBI at the minimum," says Stoltz." (2)
Other federal officials had this to say:
"Some federal officials were frustrated that the FBI, while allowing a Florida agent to work on the probe, did not declare the case a counterterrorism matter. That would have given ATF officials better access to FBI information and U.S. intelligence from around the world, and would have drawn bureaucratic backing from people all the way to the White House, officials said." (7)
In the same Washington Post article, Dick Stoltz added this:
"Had more attention been paid to this inside the government, the case agents in the trenches would have had more information on who these Pakistani people on U.S. soil were," said Stoltz, who is now retired. "It would have steered us in other directions, and possibly justified continuing the investigation. . . . We couldn't understand why this wasn't treated as a national security matter." (7)
So why was Operation Diamondback handled as a criminal matter and not as a counterterrorism case? I believe I may have discovered the answer which will be revealed in the following section.
The Strange Story of Dr. Magdy Elamir The August 2, 2002 edition of Dateline NBC, brought to light the story of another North Jersey character named Dr. Magdy Elamir.
"Last fall, "Dateline" obtained information about Magdy Elamir. He's a prominent doctor, a neurologist with a practice in Jersey City . Born and educated in Egypt , he moved to this country about 20 years ago and since then has built a fortune. He lives in a mansion, is generous to local charities and is an active supporter of both political parties.
Should counterterrorism investigators take an interest in Dr. Elamir? Well, "Dateline" obtained a document last fall ó foreign intelligence report, that makes a startling allegation about the doctor ó that he has had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years. The report was given to a senior member of Congress, Ben Gilman, back in 1998, when he was Chairman of the House International Relations Committee.
"We have a former FBI person on our staff and I asked him to look it over," says Congressman Gilman. "He thought it was credible enough to turn it over to the intelligence people. And we turned it over to the FBI practically immediately."
This was in 1998.
The report alleges that an H.M.O. owned by Dr. Elamir in New Jersey was "funded by ben [sic] Laden" and that in turn Dr. Elamir was skimming money from the H.M.O. to fund "terrorist activities."
Has the FBI answered those questions? Not to Congressman Gilman's satisfaction. But what "Dateline" found intriguing is that less than a year after the congressman says the FBI received the report, Dr. Elamir's HMO was taken over by the state of New Jersey , which opened a fraud investigation. Why? Because, according to sources close to the investigation, more than $15 million is unaccounted for. Where did the money go? "Dateline" has reviewed documents that show at least some of it went into hard-to-trace offshore bank accounts. Does that mean any of the missing money went, as the intelligence report suggests, to fund terrorist activities? We don't know." (2)
This story really caught my attention since allegations were made that Dr. Elamir had financial ties to Osama Bin Laden for years and that Bin Laden had funded an HMO that Elamir was operating in New Jersey . The intelligence report that Dateline refers to also infers that Dr. Elamir may have skimmed money from the HMO to fund "terrorist activities".
I decided to look deeper into this story and found the following information about Dr. Elamir:
"Magdy El Sayed El Amir, a native of Egypt, received his medical degree from the University of Cairo in 1977. After moving to the US with his family, he completed his neurology and psychiatry residency before opening a storefront neurology practice in Jersey City , NJ , in 1982. The practice catered to the area's poor, many of whom were fee-for-service Medicaid beneficiaries.
Elamir (in this country, he'd begun eliding the two parts of his last name) did a brisk business. Before long, his medical practice became the nucleus for other health-related enterprises, including several MRI centers, a limousine and ambulance company, and a physician billing and management service. He also acquired real estate in Hudson County , where he practiced, and in several adjoining counties." (10)
I also found out that in addition to the HMO fraud case referred to in the Dateline story, that Dr. Elamir had a history of involvement in other fraud cases.
"In 1996 and 1997, Maryland Casualty Insurance Co., National Consumer Insurance Co., and Allstate New Jersey Insurance Co. cited Elamir and numerous other defendants in lawsuits alleging that they performed unnecessary medical procedures on "victims" of staged auto accidents. As a result, Allstate stopped paying for MRIs at Elamir's unlicensed centers, and his cash flow dropped, Elamir's attorneys have said.
"Elamir ran afoul of the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 1997 after applying for a license to perform radioactive imaging in another of his offices. The NRC found that he had listed a Long Island doctor as his office's radiation safety officer and the sole authorized user of the material without the doctor's knowledge, NRC disciplinary records show. The physician was not licensed in New Jersey , according to the state Board of Medical Examiners.
As a result, the NRC has prohibited Elamir from any involvement with nuclear medicine until 2002." (11)
In 2001 Dr. Elamir was involved in another accident fraud case in New Jersey : "A Clifton lawyer and three doctors were arrested in Wednesday's roundup of 192 defendants charged as part of an auto insurance fraud ring, making them the first professionals to be arrested under New Jersey's anti-runner statute.
"Hudson County prosecutors said the ring staged accidents in Hudson, Bergen, Passaic and Essex counties to try to collect $5 million in phony claims, a few of which were paid by carriers cooperating in the 19-month-long sting operation." (12)
Further on in the article:
"The other doctor charged under the statute is neurologist Magdy Elamir of Saddle River . He is accused of paying Poller in exchange for his sending patients to Elamir's clinics for unnecessary and expensive MRIs.
"Neurologist Elamir, who operates clinics in several cities, is no stranger to authorities. In June 2000, he was sued by the state for allegedly draining $16.7 million from the assets of a Newark-based HMO he and his associates ran. The now-defunct HMO, American Preferred Provider Plan, served 44,000 poor, mostly Medicaid patients.
"State Banking and Insurance Commissioner Karen Suter said at the time that the assets were diverted to Elamir, his relatives and associates, and other enterprises he controlled, including HMOs in Michigan and Washington , D.C.
"Bill Hine, a spokesman for Suter, says the suit against Elamir is in discovery. The state is liquidating the Washington HMO and has taken over the Michigan operation and sold the assets, he adds.
"Elamir's clinics also came up in the discipline case against former Newark solo practitioner Patrick Pajerowski, disbarred by the state Supreme Court in 1998 for using a runner. In that ethics case, two accident victims were visited by the runner -- Pajerowski's office manager -- who referred them to a Jersey City clinic operated by Elamir, even though they told him they were not injured. No criminal charges were filed." (12)
If that wasn't enough, I also found that in 1999, Dr. Elamir was running a number of unlicensed MRI centers:
"A Saddle River man accused by the state of siphoning more than $ 9 million from his financially ailing health maintenance organization also owns five unlicensed MRI centers that are not subject to health and safety standards, state officials say.
"Dr. Magdy Elamir, owner of the American Preferred Provider Plan (APPP), which was taken over by the state last month, owns magnetic resonance imaging centers in Paterson , Passaic , Jersey City , Irvington , and Newark ." (13)
So here we have a prominent neurologist who is alleged to have funneled money to Osama Bin Laden through his fraudulent HMO, and we also discover that he has been involved in at least two accident fraud schemes, operated unlicensed MRI centers and had a license revoked by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC license revocation is especially troubling since unauthorized and unlicensed personnel at Dr. Elamir's clinics were handling nuclear materials.
In a document I found titled Nuclear Regulatory Commission Issuances, dated July 1- December 31, 1998, Volume 48 pages 1-415, on page 7 is listed:
Magdy Elamir , MD
( Newark , New Jersey )
Docket 1A 97-070
Memorandum and Order, LBP 98-25, October 8, 1998 ÖÖ226
This document is in the form of a PDF file and when I scrolled down to page 226, I found five pages of information concerning the suspension of Byproducts Material License # 29-30282-01. (14)
In an NRC News article published by the U. S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on April 4, 1997 , it states:
"An NRC inspection in January found that the individuals acting as the authorized user of radioactive materials at Newark Medical Associates and as its radiation safety officer were not listed on the license, as NRC requires. A subsequent investigation by the NRC's Office of Investigations determined that the application for the license listed an individual as the sole authorized user and radiation safety officer without that individual's consent or knowledge. Investigators further found that the individual has never been associated with Newark Medical Associates." (15)
To make matters worse, Dr. Elamir's own brother, Mohamed El Amir, was implicated in Operation Diamondback:
"Dateline" has found another reason why federal investigators might want to pay close attention to Dr. Elamir and his family. It's something we learned when we interviewed Randy Glass, the con-man turned undercover operative who helped the government break up an illegal weapons ring allegedly tied to terrorist groups. It turns out that one of the people recorded trying to arrange an arms deal with Randy Glass was Dr. Elamir's own brother, Mohamed, an engineer, also a U.S. citizen now living in Egypt. And just listen to what he was interested in.
"There was a warehouse full of weapons in Italy that they needed shipped," says Glass.
It was the spring of 1999. Mohamed Elamir explains that he wants false papers that would identify a shipment of weapons ó as vegetables.
Randy Glass: " But you're talking about, they're saying they wanna ship vegetables, right? Is what they want ó is what they want on the paperwork, correct?"
Mohamed El Amir: "Yep."
Then Randy Glass cuts to the chase.
Randy Glass: "Listen. My phone line is secure. And so I'm just gonna talk very open with you, OK?"
Mohamed El Amir: "Yep."
Randy Glass: "OK. They want to ship things like tanks, correct?"
Mohamed El Amir: "Uh-huh."
Glass: "OK. How... OK. In oró "
Mohamed El Amir: "No, no, no, no. Just ammunition, not tanks."
Randy Glass: "So they just wanna do basically, small arms and ammunition, right?"
Mohamed El Amir: "Yes."
Did Mohamed give Glass any indication as to who was going to get these arms?
"Never got a chance to ask him," says Glass.
Glass says federal agents told him to drop the matter.
So, what happened to the case? "Nothing," says Glass.
There was no follow-up. "No," says Glass.
Was this a missed opportunity? "Hundred percent," says Glass.
And Randy Glass doesn't know the half of it, because that same intelligence report that talks about Dr. Elamir also names his brother Mohamed as having ties to Osama bin Laden." (2)
So at this point we now have information that Dr. Magdy Elamir along with his brother Mohamed El Amir have ties to Osama Bin Laden and yet neither one of them is arrested. Randy Glass says in fact that "federal agents told him to drop the matter."
All of this information made me wonder what a person has to do in New Jersey to lose his or her medical license? I also wondered why Dr. Elamir had never been arrested for his connections to Osama Bin Laden? The only logical reason I could figure that Dr. Magdy Elamir was still practicing medicine was that he must have had one fine well connected lawyer.
I then took a closer look at the articles and court documents I had collected on Dr. Magdy Elamir and they revealed who his lawyer was.
"Elamir did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment. But his attorney, Michael Chertoff, said several of the five MRI centers may be exempt from licensing requirements, a position questioned by state health officials." (13)
The same article states that Dr. Elamir's lawyer, Michael Chertoff, also represented him in the fraudulent HMO case:
"Chertoff, who has represented Elamir at court hearings on the state takeover of APPP, said he did not know why the MRI centers did not provide financial help for the troubled HMO, as envisioned in the agreement.
"Elamir has been accused by the state of diverting state Medicaid funds to other businesses he owns. In a civil proceeding, the state alleges that American Preferred Provider illegally"loaned"more than $ 4 million to two start-up HMOs in Michigan and Washington , D.C. , also owned by Elamir, and that APPP paid Elamir and various other businesses he owned more than $ 5 million out of Medicaid funds." (13)
I didn't know who Michael Chertoff was when I ran across his name as the attorney who defended Dr. Elamir in his fraudulent HMO and MRI cases, so I did some research. I was completely blown away by what I discovered about Michael Chertoff.
As it turns out, Michael Chertoff was appointed Assistant Attorney General, under John Ashcroft, in early 2001 and was placed in charge of the Criminal Division. (16) Since Operation Diamondback was an active case when he took office, and culminated in arrests in June of 2001, the case would have fallen under his pervue since it was handled as a criminal case and not as a counterterrorism case. This means that one of his former clients, Dr. Magdy Elamir, along with his brother Mohamed El Amir, were now involved in a case under his supervision.
When the attacks on 9-11 occurred, Michael Chertoff was placed in charge of the investigation. On Oct. 25, 2001 , CBS reported that the Feds had launched Operation Green Quest in an attempt to stop the financing of terrorism. Here's what Dr. Magdy Elamir's former attorney had to say on the subject:
"The lifeblood of terrorism is money, and if we cut the money we cut the blood supply," said assistant attorney general Michael Chertoff, the head of the Justice Department's criminal division. (17)
The next day, on October 26, 2001 , Michael Chertoff testified before Congress and had this to say:
"As an integral part of this national effort, the Department of Justice and the FBI have established an interagency Financial Review Group to coordinate the investigation of the financial aspects surrounding the terrorist events of September 11th and beyond. All members of this Committee recognize the importance of understanding the financial components of terrorist and criminal organizations. These financial links will be critical to the larger criminal investigation, while also providing a trail to the sources of funding for these heinous crimes. The importance of "following the money," in this instance, as well as in the investigation of all criminal enterprises, cannot be overstated.
"The members of this Committee are also well aware that money laundering constitutes a threat to the safety of our communities, to the integrity of our financial institutions and to our national security." (18)
On March 25, 2002 , CNN reported:
"Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff is the Dick Cheney of the Justice Department. Brainy, intense and well connected, the former federal prosecutor can usually be found at Attorney General John Ashcroft's elbow as the department's top counterterrorism tactician. And last week Chertoff vanished to an undisclosed location.
"With no deputies along and no publicity, Chertoff was on a stealthy swing through France, Belgium and the Netherlands . His mission: sell Western European governments on a new Bush Administration plan to post U.S. Justice Department prosecutors overseas in unprecedented numbers. "The sinews that hold a terrorist network together are money, communications and transportation," Chertoff told TIME before his trip. To help sever those sinews, Chertoff wants to have American prosecutors stationed in key capitals, where they can work behind the scenes with their counterparts to overcome the legal and cultural obstacles to shipping evidence to the U.S. for use in court."
Perhaps Chertoff could have saved some time and effort and looked in his own backyard for evidence of terrorist financing. To date, Dr. Magdy Elamir and his brother have not been arrested and are still free.
I have a theory that Elamir was not arrested, because if his case did come to court, then Chertoff's role as his lawyer in the HMO case might have been exposed. Since Elamir's HMO was supposedly a front for Bin Laden and millions of dollars were allegedly skimmed from the HMO to fund terrorism, Chertoff himself might be implicated in some way since he had to have had access to the HMO's books and Elamir's finances when he defended him.
I also have a theory that this may be why Operation Diamondback remained a criminal case and not a counterterrorism case. As head of the Criminal Division in the Department of Justice, the case would have been under the control of Michael Chertoff himself. Was this the real reason why the case came to a screeching halt with only a few arrests? Was this the reason why Randy Glass was told to drop the matter by federal agents when the case started focusing on Dr. Elamir's brother Mohamed El Amir? Was this the reason why so many federal agents were frustrated because they felt the case hadn't received the attention of higher ups in federal law enforcement? Maybe it had?
On April 22, 2003 President Bush nominated Michael Chertoff to be the Federal Circuit Judge for the Third Circuit. Judge Chertoff now presides over federal cases in New Jersey , Pennsylvania , Delaware and the Virgin Islands .
Whistleblower Charges Justice Dept. with Misconduct (Chertoff)
Posted by seemslikeadream on Sun Jan-30-05 07:23 PM
Whistleblower Charges Justice Dept. with Misconduct in Chertoff's Prosecution of John Walker Lindh
snip
But as his record comes under fresh scrutiny, questions are being raised about his handling of the case of John Walker Lindh - the so-called American Taliban. As head of the criminal division of the Justice Department, the 2002 prosecution of Lindh was one of Chertoff"s biggest triumphs.
But the case resurfaced the following year in Senate confirmation hearings after Chertoff was nominated to be a federal appellate judge. At that time, Senate Democrats questioned Chertoff extensively about concerns that the FBI might have improperly questioned Lindh in Afghanistan even though his family had hired a lawyer for him.
The questioning yielded potentially damaging admissions from Lindh that factored into his decision to later plead guilty to felony charges, resulting in his 20-year prison sentence.
At his 2003 confirmation hearing, Chertoff said he and his deputies did not have an active role in discussions about ethics warnings in the c