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Reggie Walton, Judge for Plamegate and Sibel Edmonds cases?

Karl Rove, TB
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PROGRESSIVE REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE
  • Crisis Papers Summer, 2005, Judges looking at Fitzgerald's evidence of a crime are shown eight pages of evidence that convinces them to compel Miller and Cooper to testify or go to jail, based on national security matters.
  • Dissident Voice, Judith Miller: Drum Major for War, Norman Solomon
  • Global Security
  • Think Progress Plamegate characters: Karl Rove I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby Condoleezza Rice Stephen Hadley Andrew Card Alberto Gonzales Mary Matalin Ari Fleischer Susan Ralston Israel Hernandez John Hannah Scott McClellan Dan Bartlett Claire Buchan Catherine Martin Colin Powell Karen Hughes Adam Levine Bob Joseph Dick Cheney George W. Bush
  • NoGW pdf
  • WHIG, According to a Washington Post article, the group was "an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities." (1) (Barton Gellman and Walter Pincus, "Depiction of Threat Outgrew Supporting Evidence", Washington Post, Sunday, August 10, 2003)
  • Jan 2004 "Soon after he started his investigation, in January 2003, Fitzgerald subpoenaed three sets of documents. Along with two other subpoenas issued in January 2004, Fitzgerald subpoenaed all the documents of the White House Iraq Group during the period from July 6, 2003 to July 30, 2003. (3) (Tom Brune, "Subpoenas for White House", Newsday, March 5, 2004)
.......
Neoconservatives, Wikipedia
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 Three Islamic Charities Tip-Off and Judith Miller     top
PROGRESSIVE REFERENCE CONSERVATIVE
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Sibel Edmonds, Plamegate Judge
Judge Reggie Walton from NarcoNews  
  • Summary of article:
  • Walton financial disclosure reports redacted?
  • Edmonds prevented from pursuing whistleblower retaliation case because of state-secrets claim (upheld by Walton) and appeal rejected by Supreme Court.
  • Again Walton will hear a separate related Edmond's case
  • Ties to William Bennet

 

 

Judge in Scooter Libby, Sibel Edmonds cases is redacted in action http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/12/17/181422/49 By Bill Conroy, Posted on Sat Dec 17th, 2005 at 06:14:22 PM EST What do two of the biggest national-security news stories of the century — the Valerie Plame leak scandal and the legal case of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds — have in common? They both are being presided over by the same federal judge in the District of Colombia, Reggie Walton, a Bush appointee to the federal court and a man who appears to have a few well-kept secrets of his own.

All federal judges are required under ethics rules to file what is known as “financial disclosure reports.”

The disclosure statement filed by Walton, which was obtained through the dogged efforts of a conservative watchdog group called Judicial Watch, is curious in what it does not reveal. Remember, this judge is arguably handling two of the most sensitive and potentially far-reaching challenges to the free press and the public’s right to know of our times.

In the Plamegate case, a top White House aid, Scooter Libby, has already been indicted and additional indictments may be forthcoming (Karl Rove?). In addition, a bevy of insider journalists in the media-center establishment have been subpoenaed to testify in the case, and one, New York Times reporter Judith Miller, has already done jail time for her initial refusal to identify her sources on the story. Edmonds was fired from her job as an FBI translator after blowing the whistle on alleged espionage being carried out by a fellow FBI employee. She was prevented from pursuing a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit filed in 2002 (based on alleged violations of her civil rights) because of the state-secrets privilege claim, a claim upheld by Judge Walton. That claim essentially shut down her ability to present evidence in the case under the smokescreen that it would jeopardize national security.

An appeal in the Edmonds case was recently rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. She now has a separate case pending in federal court in Washington, D.C. Ironically, in both cases, Judge Walton was randomly assigned to hear her complaints at the District Court level. Walton also has randomly been assigned to hear the Plamegate case involving Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

So given the high-stakes poker being played in both these cases, one civil and one criminal, why has no one in the establishment press bothered to ask what is contained in Judge Walton’s financial disclosure statement? After all, his investments and financial backers would be of keen interest in gauging his ability to hear these cases in an unbiased manner, right?

We already know that Walton has been a Bush-team insider for years. He grew up on the hardscrabble side of life in a steel town in Pennsylvania, and by his own admission was arrested three times as a teenager and even witnessed a stabbing while participating in a street fight. After beating the odds and making it through law school, he rose quickly in the Washington legal establishment, earning an appointment from former President Reagan to a District of Colombia Superior Court judgeship. He was later taken under the wing of the self-styled man of virtue William Bennett, serving as a top gun in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy during Bennett’s tenure there. Then, in 2001, current President Bush appointed him as a federal judge in the District of Columbia.

So it would be natural to suppose that Walton has some loyalty to the Bush administration, but that alone is not proof of bias with respect to the Edmonds and Valerie Plame-related cases.

Still, Edmonds points out that the way Walton landed on her original whistleblower-related case (the one the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear), as well her currently pending case, does seem a bit more than a cosmic coincidence.

“Walton was the original judge on my case (the Supreme Court case), when we filed our case (in District Court in Washington, D.C.) in July 2002,” Edmonds says. “Another judge was assigned to it, then, mysteriously and with no reason, it was transferred to another judge, and then again, a few weeks later, it was transferred to Walton.

 

“Walton is now assigned to my (new) case, … another random one.”

So Judge Walton seems to be in a critical role in serving as the point man in the federal judicial system for two explosive cases — the Edmonds civil case and Libby’s criminal case — both of which have vast implications for the White House and for the country in general.

So shouldn’t we know who’s buttering Walton’s bread in terms of financial backing? Why have ethics rules mandating such disclosures, if the information is not disclosed in cases, such as these, where the stakes are so high?

Well, it seems, at least according to the only document that Judicial Watch could shake loose in its public-records quest, that Walton doesn’t think so. His financial disclosure statement, the one released for public inspection through Judicial Watch, is completely redacted, every line of it.

Take a look here for yourself.

Now, ask yourself, why would that be, and what might lurk in the shadows of Judge Walton’s fiscal closet? If there nothing to hide, then there is nothing to lose by shedding some light on the retractions, is there?

But let’s not jump to conclusions. It’s probably all fine -- just a safety precaution, as the following excerpt from a 2004 Government Accountability Office report explains:

"The Ethics in Government Act requires judges and other federal officials to file financial disclosure reports as a check on conflicts of interest. However, given potential security risks to federal judges, Congress authorized redactions of information that could endanger them. This redaction authority is set to expire at the end of 2005." That has to be why the big boys in the media have ignored this issue to date, right? After all, there are some things that take precedence over national security and the outing of covert CIA operatives.

If not, and these redactions do not, in reality, protect Judge Walton's security, but rather only his dignity, then we have to wonder why our fearless media leaders have been content to graze on other appetizers.

But not to fear, I'm sure if there is cause for alarm, we'll hear the media-pundit elephants charging through the fields toward this alfalfa patch soon.

In the mean time, let’s keep this whole messy topic between you and me, for now. We wouldn’t want to stir up any disharmony inside the Washington press-corps insiders’ circuit. They’ve got future cocktail parties to attend….

 

source: Sourcewatch Judith Miller, Three Islamic Charities tip-off

Miller and Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald Part 1

On April 6, 2004, Josh Marshall reported (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_04_04.php#002807) how U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Chicago "had quite aggressively investigated another Bush White House leak in late 2001 and early 2002. Fitzgerald had been investigating three Islamic charities accused of supporting terrorism -- the Holy Land Foundation, the Global Relief Foundation, and the Benevolence International Foundation. But just before his investigators could swoop in with warrants [December 14, 2001], two of the charities in question got wind of what was coming and, apparently, were able to destroy a good deal of evidence.

"What tipped them off were calls from two reporters at the New York Times who'd been leaked information about the investigation by folks at the White House.

"One of those two reporters was Judy Miller." The other was New York Times reporter Philip Shenon. [3] (http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/7/1148/62336)

Marshall's point in April 2004 wasn't that "the White House did something else wrong," in fact, he wrote, he was "told that in this case the White House really hadn't done anything improper at all."

However, "Fitzgerald was pissed and apparently went after them very aggressively -- and this for a case in which," he was told, "there really wasn't much to go after," which "might be something to keep in mind when figuring how the Plame investigation might play out." [4] (http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_04_04.php#002807)