November 20, 2003

Vengeance, Thy Name is Ashcroft

On Wednesday, November 19, I was interviewed by two correspondents from German public radio and television. They are in the U.S. working on a report about America’s attitudes toward the Patriot Act. A few days earlier, they had interviewed New York attorney Lynne Stewart, who in April 2002 was charged with two counts of aiding and abetting terrorism, along with two lesser charges.

Judge John Koeltl dismissed the terrorism charges against her earlier this fall, ruling that the Patriot Act provision under which she was charged was so vague that it could conceivably prohibit many services an attorney would engage in on behalf of a client. Two remaining charges, violating Special Administrative Measures (SAMs), conditions imposed on her contact with her client (the blind Sheik Abdel Rahman, convicted in the 1993 bombings of the World Trade Center), and of lying to the government by signing the SAMs and not intending to abide by them, were allowed to stand, and her trial date was set for January 2004.

I had discussed the Stewart case with the journalists. I said that even if Stewart were acquitted of the remaining charges, she had better watch out, for Attorney General Ashcroft would try to do her in in one way or the other, and that he would do what he could to make it so that she would never practice law again.

Later in the day, I heard that Ashcroft had indicted her on new terrorism charges, providing "personnel" support to terrorists, supposedly by enabling her client to be in touch with terrorists on the "outside."

I have not yet seen the indictment, so I can only comment on the news releases. At this point, it seems that the allegations are an absurd interpretation of the law: an attorney repeats something a client said to the press and that is defined as aiding and abetting terrorism? At this point, I can’t see that this charge is any "better" than the one Judge Koeltl dismissed.

That’s not the point, right now, as I see it. Rather, what is significant is that with the trial date less than two months away, Ashcroft came up with this to (1) get back at Stewart and her attorney, Michael Tigar, for their win on the prior terrorist charges and (2) try to insure that this time, the charges will stick. This time, the Judge won’t be so bold as to strike the charges, Ashcroft must be hoping.

This type of reindictment on "new" charges based on the same facts was almost unheard of in the pres-Ashcroft days. Prosecutors knew when they were beat, and they folded their tents and went on to the next case. But no prosecutor can match John Ashcroft for persistence and vindictiveness. The man knows no discretion. He wants everyone to be charged to the max and sentenced to the max. No plea bargains, he has ordered, except those sanctioned by him. Death to all, if the law allows it, and no mercy to spare any life, for no life that Ashcroft charges is, in his twisted view of justice, worth sparing.

I know of two other examples where Ashcroft has struck back at people who reported problems with government evidence, one in a terrorist case, one not. Both professionals, both are facing sanctions from their professional bodies at this time. They absolutely did the right thing, in the name of principled justice. But what they did was antithetical to Ashcroft justice. The government did not get the verdicts it sought, perhaps, in part at least, due to the actions of these professionsals. But Ashcroft is getting back at them. Even if they are proven to have done no wrong (and experts I have spoken to believe that they are innocent of wrongdoing), the fact that they are under investigation must be reported to malpractice carriers and, in some states, to clients.

I could go on and on–and no doubt will as Act II of the Stewart drama unfolds. For now, I say only to my German friends that I wish I had been wrong. I wish we did not have a religious zealot, a wolf in wolf’s clothing, who holds himself out as a "Christian," as the chief law enforcement officer in the United States. I wish we had someone who believed in justice, and in justice tempered with mercy. I wish we had a man who lived by the word of Jehovah, as written in the Old Testament, a man who believed in the God who said, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay."

But then, I recall that Ashcroft thinks he is God, or at least was put here by God to be Attorney General when 9/11 took place. God was preparing him for 9/11/, the Patriot Act, and all the prosecutions he has overseen since 9/11. That is why God had him lose his Senate race to a dead man. That’s what Ashcroft says.

I shudder to think of all the lives, and even more important, the principles of justice, the foundations of the American judicial system, that have been ruined by his religious and political zealotry, which run rampant, seemingly unchecked by the courts or the Congress.

The Lynne Stewart case is the tip of the iceberg. Ashcroft and company have only just begun with their paybacks for losses in the courtroom. Whoever beats Ashcroft better leave the country. Vengeance is his name, vengeance is his game, and the American criminal justice system is the ultimate loser.

Posted by Elaine Cassel at November 20, 2003 07:38 AM

« November 17, 2003 | Main | November 24, 2003 »