Ed
Wilson's Revenge
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Ed Wilson's Revenge
The Biggest CIA Scandal in History Has Its Feet in the
Starting Blocks in a Houston Court House
by
Michael C. Ruppert
[The following article appeared
in the January, 2000 issue of From The Wilderness -
Copyright
and Reprint Policy]
The following is written after examining
more than 900 pages of documents, in four volumes, filed since last
September, in Houston Federal Court, by attorneys representing former
CIA operative Edwin P. Wilson and the United States Department of Justice.
As strange as it may seem, FTW assures you that there is a document
on file or an on-the-record quote to support everything we now tell
you.
On February 2, 1983, the Houston trial
of former CIA agent Edwin P. Wilson, on Federal charges that he had
unlawfully sold explosives to Libya, hung at a truly precarious moment.
In chambers, the Judge hearing the case had refused to allow a CIA witness,
using the pseudonym William Larson, to testify using a false name. The
CIA, and prosecutors like aggressive Northern Virginia Assistant United
States Attorney (AUSA) Ted Greenberg, relying on investigative materials
produced under the direction of Washington, D.C. AUSAs Larry Barcella
and Carol Bruce, were also concerned about limiting Wilson's ability
to cross examine Larson for "security" reasons. Larson's intended
testimony would have included statements that, according to CIA records
under Larson's care, Ed Wilson had not been a CIA employee or done any
work for the Agency since 1971.
According to Barcella, who gave a detailed
interview to FTW for this story, the Judge's ruling raised serious
security concerns for the Justice Department. The CIA records issue
still needed to be addressed from another angle - and quickly. Wilson's
defense had already made the case that the CIA had known and sanctioned
the activities for which he was now on trial. That position needed to
be countered in the rebuttal phase before the case went to the jury.
Time was running out.
Ed Wilson stood accused of
shipping 42,000 pounds of the plastic explosive C-4 directly to Libyan
dictator Moammar Qadaffy in 1977, and then hiring U.S. experts - former
U.S. Army Green Berets - to teach Qadaffy's people how to make bombs
shaped like lamps, ashtrays and radios. Bombs were actually made, and
foes of Qadaffy were actually murdered. This was the ongoing crime that
had made Wilson, and his still-missing accomplice, former CIA employee
Frank Terpil, the most infamous desperadoes in the world. C-4, according
to some experts, is the most powerful non-nuclear explosive made. Two
pounds in the right places can bring down a jumbo jet. Hence, 42,000
pounds would be enough to bring down 21,000 jumbo jets. C-4 is highly
prized on the world's black markets and is much in demand. It is supposedly
very tightly controlled where it is manufactured - in the U.S.
At the time it was shipped from Houston
International Airport, in 1977, the 42,000 pounds of C-4 represented
almost the entire United States domestic supply. It had been collected
for Wilson by one California explosives distributor who collected it
from a number of manufacturers around the country. Surprisingly, no
one had officially noticed. Wilson had, in earlier and subsequent deals,
also sold a number of handguns to Qadaffy, and several had been used
in assassinations of Libyan dissidents in a number of countries, including
the United States. It was these and other firearms violations by Wilson,
including a scheme to ship more than a thousand M16 rifles to Qadaffy,
that had put the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and
Larry Barcella on Wilson's trail back in late 1977.
That investigation, which resulted in a
1982 Virginia conviction, led to the discovery of the C-4 shipment to
Qadaffy. By January of 1983 Barcella and a team of dedicated BATF agents
had been on Ed Wilson's trail for five long years. Barcella, in Houston
as an observer and advisor, had been "twiddling his thumbs most
of the time," but he did testify as a witness. He was, by virtue
of his role as the originator of the cases, "the institutional
memory" of DoJ. Ted Greenberg had, from the other side of the Potomac
in Alexandria, taken over other investigations stemming from Wilson's
activities which led eventually to the Eatsco scandal. That investigation
involved Wilson cronies Tom Clines, Air Force General Richard Secord,
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Eric von Marbod and the legendary
Ted Shackley.
Shackley had served in the hottest CIA
posts in history. He had run the Miami station known as JM-WAVE, targeting
Fidel Castro in the early 1960s, and had been a key planner in the Bay
of Pigs invasion. He was also directly involved in CIA attempts on Castro's
life in concert with the Mafia. In the mid-sixties he had been the Chief
of Station (COS) in Laos, running the largest covert operation in CIA
history - a secret war intimately tied with opium and heroin smuggling
and the abandonment of large numbers of American POWs. In the late sixties
and early seventies he had served as COS in Saigon at the end of the
Vietnam War. After leaving Saigon, Shackley had, for a time, served
as Chief of the Western Hemisphere Division as the CIA orchestrated
the overthrow of Chile's Salvador Allende. He had then become Associate
Deputy Director of Operations (running all covert operations) in time
to, as FTW believes, "preside" over Ed Wilson's Libyan
affairs and the events that would ultimately result in the downfall
of the Shah of Iran. Everywhere you looked in Wilson's life - post 1971
- you found either Shackley or his career-long deputy and sidekick,
Tom Clines.
Shackley testified twice before Federal
grand juries in the Wilson case. In one of those sessions, included
in Wilson's recent court filings, he denied anything other than social
contacts and a few meetings to evaluate information that never amounted
to much. CIA Inspector General records (some still classified) belied
Shackley's testimony. In light of voluminous CIA material, investigative
reports, witness statements, BATF interviews with Shackley associates
and a long litany of other records, Ted Shackley's testimony made a
lot of people at CIA and DoJ very nervous. [FTW found it very interesting
to note that, in his first testimony, Ted Shackley denied having ever
met Ronald Reagan's CIA Director, William Casey. That may have to be
the subject of another FTW article.]
Notes made by Justice Department lawyers
in meetings held in late 1983, after Wilson's conviction, indicate their
belief that Ted Shackley lied to the grand juries. Unattributed quotes
found in meeting notes include the statements "Stupid -TS lied
to GJ."
The Houston prosecution, for which Greenberg
had served as the primary classified record handler, and AUSAs Jim Powers
and Karen Morrissette, had no difficulty establishing that Wilson, in
1976, had secured plans for miniature timing devices from CIA contractors
and, subsequently, had thousands manufactured and shipped to Libya.
The Houston prosecution had no difficulty - using Barcella's, Bruce's
and Greenberg's investigations - to establish that Wilson had conspired
to obtain and ship the C-4 in 1977. Greenberg, Barcella, Bruce, Karen
Morrissette and local Houston AUSAs also had absolutely no difficulty
establishing that Wilson then chartered a DC-8 to ship the C-4 to Libya
using falsified records. A hapless lawyer friend of Wilson's California
explosives honcho, believing he had clearance from the CIA and other
government agencies, even went along on the delivery. He had also been
arrested and charged in the case. All of this took place under the guidance
of Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard, and the supervision
of Assistant Attorneys General Steven Trott and D. Lowell Jensen.
Evidence of Wilson's venality was not hard
to find and put before the jury. While living in Libya for extended
periods between 1977 and 1981, Wilson hired former Green Berets, some
of whom were, according to FTW sources, alleged to be active-duty
troops posing as rogues and retirees out for money. Using them, he set
up an intensive instructional training program for Qadaffy that was
intended to make the Libyan Colonel a credible terrorist threat - and
credible foe - to any opponent, anywhere in the world. That effort was
an unqualified success. People and things started blowing up and dying
all over the place.
All the while, Wilson traveled the globe
first-class, an ostentatiously wealthy man owning more than 6,000 acres
of prime properties in Virginia, Great Britain and Malta. Much of that,
the prosecution argued, had been paid for with millions from a Libyan
dictator who had subsequently dispatched in 1982, if you believed the
press, assassination teams to blow up Ronald Reagan in the White House.
Making Ed Wilson out to be a very nasty
and unlikable individual was the easy part of the prosecution's case.
The second part of the prosecution's case
was that one-time career CIA Agent Edwin P. Wilson had had absolutely
no official relationship with the Agency since 1971. Wilson was, they
argued, a good guy gone hopelessly bad who had abused his contacts,
experience and the trust placed in him to commit horrible crimes behind
the backs of his former colleagues. And that was where both the Department
of Justice - and the CIA - were in deep, deep trouble on February 2,
1983.
Wilson, a one time career CIA agent, who
had also worked for the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), was fighting
for his life. An "open source" paper trail from CIA showed
that he had not worked at Langley since 1971. Shortly thereafter he
began working for a secret Navy operation known as Task Force 157.
But, according to other records from both CIA and the Navy, he stopped
working for the ONI in 1976 and none of his Navy work was connected
to Libya. After that, or so it seemed, even though he continuously socialized
with some of the most powerful people in the U.S. intelligence community
and the military, he did no official work for anyone. It was in late
1975 and 1976, when George Bush ran the CIA, that Wilson, as an alleged
rogue, opened ties to Qadaffy and began selling weapons, explosives
and other services and equipment to the terrorist regime.
This would not be the last time that a
so-called enemy of the United States in the Arab world would be supplied
with weapons and bomb making materials on a watch under the command
of George H. W. Bush.
While Ed Wilson was training and equipping
Qadaffy, he was also lunching with Bush protégé Shackley. He was providing
personal airplanes for Air Force General Richard Secord to fly around
in, and loaning large sums of money to Shackley's sidekick, Tom Clines.
His company, Consultants International, once a CIA proprietary, which
Wilson "bought" in 1971, was still receiving referral contacts
from the Agency. And while former U.S. Army Green Berets, in Wilson's
employ, were teaching Libyans how to blow things up, Clines, a high-ranking
active CIA officer, was walking Wilson employee Douglas Schlachter through
the halls at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. In 1977 Clines even
introduced Schlachter to Jimmy Carter's newly appointed CIA Director,
Navy Admiral Stansfield Turner. Exclusive parties, horseback riding
events and private hunting parties were held for the "A" list
at Wilson's expansive Mount Airy farm in Northern Virginia.
With the January 1977 change in Presidents
from Ford to Carter it was inevitable that George Bush (the elder) would
have to leave as Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). Shackley, however,
remained in charge of covert operations until December of that year.
Then, with a kiss of death, as Wilson's work and life became increasingly
high-profile, Turner removed Shackley from the prestigious post of ADDO
and transferred him to a non hands-on post out of the loop. It was the
signal that Shackley's career was over. This came at the same time that
Turner gave 800 CIA career covert operatives pink slips and "early
retirement." FTW believes that it is no coincidence that
Barcella's and the BATF investigations of Wilson began at exactly the
same time.
President Jimmy Carter had already begun
the groundbreaking work with Menachem Begin of Israel and Anwar Sadat
of Egypt that would lead to the Camp David peace accords. It would not
be good PR for the U.S. to be exposed secretly arming Sadat's bitter
enemy and next door neighbor, Moammar Qadaffy - especially since Qadaffy
intended to kill Sadat.
The problem with the government's position
in the Wilson case was absolutely huge. It was almost beyond huge. And
the rationale implied during the trial, with the preceding and ensuing
vilification of Wilson in major newspapers, People Magazine and
best selling books like Manhunt by Peter Maas, was that the heinousness
of his crimes justified obsession and even rule-bending in order to
bring the monster to justice. CIA Inspector General investigations,
some partially redacted, made available to Wilson's prosecutorial team,
dating as far back as 1977, proved that Wilson had provided a number
of often embarrassing services for the Agency since 1971. Those records
also showed no less than 80 "non-social" contacts between
Wilson and the CIA between 1971 and 1978. The Agency had many records,
some still classified, of Wilson meeting with Agency personnel - especially
Shackley, Clines or Shackley's secretary.
Contrary to what would later become almost
nonsensical hairsplitting by some of the most powerful, and supposedly
ethical, lawyers in the country, the CIA - according to incredibly detailed
reports compiled by the BATF, the FBI and the CIA's own Inspector General
- was "operationally tasking" Wilson and his employees to
accomplish specific objectives in Libya before, during and after delivery
of the C-4. Both the Justice Department and the CIA had witness statements
that the CIA had been tasking and debriefing Wilson's employees at exactly
the same time that Wilson's employees were teaching Qadaffy's people
how to blow things up.
Wilson's defense against the government's
case had concluded at the end of January. His attorneys had made a compelling
argument that apparently threw the Justice Department and the CIA into
a crisis mode. Exhibits filed in Wilson's motion show that Greenberg
and Barcella were concerned about it in advance. The defense was simple:
Edwin P. Wilson, a loyal American whose company, Consultants International,
received CIA referral business throughout the period, had been sanctioned
by the CIA for the purposes of gathering intelligence, gaining access
to Soviet military equipment in Libyan hands and other murky objectives.
If Ed Wilson had not been sanctioned, he certainly believed that he
had been, and the litany of his CIA contacts reasonably justified that
belief. It was more than enough to raise doubt in the mind of the jury.
Wilson and his trial lawyers had introduced
evidence from 1977 CIA Inspector General reports and other records that
supported his claims. It was not enough to dismiss the case, perhaps,
but it was a point that the prosecution could not let go unchallenged.
There was too much at stake. Contrary to Barcella's suggestion to FTW
that he was essentially an observer in Houston he did say that, "One
of the problems that I had certainly had, from prior cases involving
claims of a CIA defense, was that the Agency's compartmentalization
oftentimes required two or three different people to be doing record
searches because only certain people would be allowed to search certain
components of the Agency.
"It was a pain in the ass from a trial
lawyer's standpoint because you would oftentimes end up with three different
witnesses. And any good defense lawyer…. can make mincemeat out
of them by bouncing back and forth between one and the other… One
of the things that I wanted was one person as a witness to be given
the authority by the CIA to search all components of the Agency, not
just a single component of the Agency. "
The man originally scheduled to perform
that role, to speak for all of the records in the Central Intelligence
Agency, the man with the pseudonym "Larson", had just been
exposed to cross examination by Wilson and been withdrawn. There had
to be another way.
The Briggs Declaration
Charles A. Briggs was, on February 3, 1983,
the third highest-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency.
He was one of few men at CIA who could break through the compartments
and search anywhere for records. He was the man to solve the problem
in Houston. In Langley, Virginia, at 2:23 P.M., Houston time (according
to a government teletype), Charles Briggs signed a declaration stating
that on November 8th of 1982 he had authorized a search of
all records of the CIA "for any material that in any way pertains
to Edwin P. Wilson or the various allegations concerning his activities
after 28 February 1971, when he resigned from the CIA."
Paragraph 4 of the Briggs Declaration states,
"According to CIA records, with one exception while he was employed
by Naval Intelligence in 1972, Mr. Edwin P. Wilson was not asked or
requested, directly or indirectly, to perform or provide any services,
directly or indirectly, for CIA."
At 2:30 P.M., Houston time, CIA General
Counsel Stanley Sporkin certified the affidavit and affixed the seal
of the Central Intelligence Agency to it. It was also notarized by a
notary public licensed in Fairfax County, Virginia. Harold Fahringer,
one of Wilson's attorneys was served with a copy of the affidavit at
3:55 P.M. Houston time - presumably in Houston.
According to a partially declassified CIA
memorandum, included in Wilson's filings, dated March 15, 1983 (40 days
after Wilson's conviction), on the day and evening of February 3, 1983
"CIA attorneys stated to Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) Ted Greenberg
that the Briggs affidavit should not be admitted into evidence as then
written, and requested that Greenberg not introduce the affidavit.
"The signers of the affidavit further
state that CIA General Counsel Stanley Sporkin stated that, at minimum,
the word 'indirectly' should be removed from paragraph four of the Briggs
affidavit.
The signers of the document further state
in the document that AUSA Greenberg decided against complying with the
CIA attorneys' requests described above."
Apparently, through the evening of February
3rd, the phone lines between Langley and Houston were smoking.
FTW has interviewed a number of people close to the trial and
none indicate that Ted Greenberg left Houston to retrieve the declaration.
Stanley Sporkin knew that the affidavit was incorrect and so did a great
many people at CIA. The Houston time apparently indicates that a copy
was telexed to Wilson's lawyer and another copy was placed in the master
DoJ case files in Houston. Larry Barcella has "no recollection"
of being involved in those phone conversations. No phone logs listing
participants in them have, as yet, been disclosed.
In researching this story FTW contacted
best-selling author Peter Maas who wrote the book Manhunt which
detailed the hunt for Ed Wilson and the four and a half year mission
by Barcella, et al to bring him to justice. Maas indicated that he had
been aware of the Briggs affidavit and questions surrounding its use
in court. He was careful to state that it was his belief that Barcella
had no knowledge of the inaccuracies in the document - or the controversy
surrounding it - until after it had been introduced into evidence. The
paper trail seems to contradict this position. Barcella was in almost
every pre-trial conference discussing Wilson's history. He was aware
of the affidavit's existence and, therefore, had to have been aware
that it was inaccurate.
Maas was, however, more open on the subject
of Ted Greenberg who apparently had the power to override the CIA's
top lawyer and number three executive. Maas said simply that Greenberg
was aggressive and not well liked by the other lawyers. He was, in Mass'
opinion, "Capable of anything."
On February 4th 1983, apparently
without objection, the Briggs declaration was entered into evidence
by Assistant U.S. Attorneys. Both the prosecution and the defense rested
and, in the afternoon, the jury began deliberations.
On the morning of February 5th,
1983, the jury sent a note to the trial judge requesting that the Briggs
affidavit be reread. At 9:50 A.M. the Judge empanelled the jury and
reread the affidavit to them. The jury returned to deliberations and,
at 10:45 A.M., sent a note announcing that they had reached a verdict.
Wilson was guilty on all counts. The jury never asked for any other
exhibit to be reread.
That same day a UPI wire service story
described the deliberations. "Juror Betty Metzler said the panel
was divided 11-1 almost from the start, and one juror was not convinced
until Saturday morning by rereading of Briggs' affidavit denying Wilson's
actions had anything to do with the CIA."
A week later, on February 10, 1983, Attorney
Kim E. Rosenfield in the Attorney General's office sent a memorandum
to Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mark Richard who ran DoJ's Criminal
Division. The title of the memorandum was "Duty to Disclose Possibly
False Testimony" and the memorandum pulled no punches. It went
straight to prevailing case law (then and now) as decided by the U.S.
Supreme Court and cited two cases known as Brady and Napue. The Napue
case held that, "Failure of prosecutor to correct testimony which
he knows to be false violates due process, whether the falsehood bears
on credibility of witness or guilt of defendant, if it is in any way
relevant to the case." In Brady the court ruled that "Suppression
of material evidence by the government requires a new trial, irrespective
of good or bad faith."
The memorandum continued, "Prosecutor
has duty to correct false testimony even if falsehood was inadvertent
or caused by another government officer. New trial required if the false
testimony could "in any reasonable likelihood have affected the
judgement of the jury."
The Forrest and the
Trees
FTW has, unfortunately, interviewed
no less than six lawyers in researching this article. The problem with
that is that if one talks to too many lawyers, for too long, one gets
confused - very confused. Medication, meditation and/or prayer is sometimes
required. Clarity vanishes. Occasionally, however, an attorney will
utter statements of breathtaking logic that confirm what the layman
already suspected. We want to thank Larry Barcella for giving us that
kind of clarity in one instance but he may not like what we did with
it.
It would be easy to pull example after
example out of the 900 pages of Exhibits filed by Ed Wilson's attorney,
David Adler, to show various and sundry shocking examples of Wilson's
ongoing contacts with Agency personnel and Ted Shackley. But, to do
that would distract from the real issues. We could laughingly try to
lay out some of the pretzel-bending logic expended by an array of legal
horsepower, up to and including Assistant Attorneys General of the United
States. We could pull quotes, like one in notes from a meeting including
Mark Richard, Lowell Jensen and a half dozen other lawyers in which
someone quipped, "We're bending over backwards to fall down."
From the documents in the filing it is
apparent that through November of 1983, long after Edwin Wilson had
been sentenced to 17 years on the C-4 violations, every lawyer from
the Justice Department who became aware of the "inaccuracy"
of the Briggs affidavit kept their moth shut about it. A reading of
the law and an easily understandable sense of fair play suggest that
this was wrong. That many people were worried about the use of the memorandum
is clear. Both Stanley Sporkin and Mark Richard can be seen, in a variety
of memoranda and meetings, arguing for disclosure or some remedy. It
is apparent that either their consciences or their fears of exposure
were very "sensitized."
And, on close scrutiny, the remedy that
was found does not sit well either. From exhibits filed by Adler on
Wilson's behalf it is apparent that Assistant Attorney General Steven
Trott, now a Judge on the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, gave
permission to the worried lawyers to disclose some "inaccuracies"
in the Briggs affidavit in an obscure paragraph in filings to the 5th
Circuit Court of Appeals. This was long after the conviction. If the
Appeals court said to do something they would, if not, they were off
the hook.
Adler's response on this point is clear
and compelling. "The problem with the logic is, at least, twofold.
The 'disclosure' was made to the appeals court, not the trial court.
I don't believe the Supreme Court's prohibition on the government's
knowing use of false testimony is rectified by admitting the truth to
an entirely different court. The second problem is that telling the
truth and admitting a lie has been told are two different statements…
It [DoJ's attempt to satisfy disclosure requirements] simply mentioned
(in a document only a few select people had access to) that Wilson had
provided 'a few services'. The trial court and, more importantly, the
jury were never told."
Barcella's position is that a lot of honorable
people engaged in a lot of mental effort, that may have "gotten
too technical" to protect the integrity of a conviction that doesn't
need to be undermined.
"While the inaccuracies in the Briggs
affidavit are unfortunate," Barcella said, "they really don't
go to the heart of the defense. To have an authorization defense you
have got to be able to show that the act that you are charged with was
authorized… Wilson never even alleged that he was authorized to
ship the C-4. He didn't want to admit that he had anything to do with
the C-4… He never called Shackley or Clines to the stand because
he knew what they would have said. That claim would have been very easy
to refute.
"People can claim the CIA does weird,
bizarre, strange counterproductive things. And they may be able to claim
that with some good, solid basis behind it. But what kind of logic would
have to be employed to assume that the CIA would authorize the shipment
of 40,000 pounds, 20 tons, of C-4, to the guy that was then the biggest
terrorist in the world?"
Ironically Barcella's own logic is called
into question on three accounts. Once, by the very CIA witness whose
testimony the prosecution refused to allow under the conditions imposed
by the court - William Larson. In a deposition before the Judge's ruling,
according to Adler's motion, Larson told prosecutors "…that
the Agency might consider providing 40,000 pounds of explosives to Libya
if the source who needed to provide the explosives could obtain 'great'
information in return. Larson said the Agency would deal with the devil
if needed."
Second, as regular FTW readers know,
we have often spoken of the pattern of the U.S. secretly arming its
enemies for the purposes of expanding budgets, "stimulating"
the economy and ensuring election victories. Abundant documentation
- irrefutable documentation - exists to indicate that the Rockefellers,
Henry Ford and major American firms financed Adolph Hitler both before
and during the Second World War. Fletcher Prouty, using Department of
Defense Records has documented how, in 1946, we gave half the weapons
intended for use by the U.S. military in the aborted invasion of Japan
to Ho Chi Minh. Iraqgate and the scandal around Banco Nacional
de Lavoro (BNL) and Kennametal showed us how George Bush had secretly
armed Sadam Hussein before the Gulf War. Even Ted Shackley's own book,
The Third Option (McGraw-Hill, 1981), suggests that arming both
sides of a conflict is often the best way to control the outcome, sharpen
skills and make a profit.
Third, the concept of plausible deniability
is not a theoretical abstract from spy novels. It is an enshrined principle
of covert operations around the world. There is a point in the food
chain at which deniability by higher ups is essential to the conduct
of all covert operations. Ed Wilson made millions of dollars
because he was taking the risks. He knew that if Shackley or
(the now deceased) Tom Clines ever took the stand, they would deny any
connection to his actions. That, FTW believes, was the deal from
the start. Deniability is reportedly one of Ted Shackley's favorite
words.
Is it really so hard to believe? It is
harder for FTW to believe that Ed Wilson had so much contact
with Agency employees and they didn't know about the C-4. Is that possible
when Wilson's personal assistant Douglas Schlachter was walking the
halls at CIA headquarters with Clines? That would kind of make the reported
$30 billion CIA budget a waste of money wouldn't it? And, as it plays
right now, believing that we live in a nation governed by the rule of
law doesn't make much sense either. Our favorite quote from all of the
exhibits so far is not an exact quote but rather a note included with
the exhibits. It was made during a meeting of lawyers held on an undetermined
date after the trial. Attending the meeting were D. Lowell Jensen, Mark
Richard, Stanley Sporkin, Larry Barcella,, Houston AUSA Jim Powers,
CIA Attorney David Pearline, DoJ Lawyer Kim Rosenfield (who wrote the
Duty to Disclose memorandum) and several other people.
Jensen, now a sitting U.S. District Court
Judge in Oakland said that the premise was that DoJ didn't need to disclose
because Wilson already knew the facts. As recorded in the notes Stanley
Sporkin the replied, "Goes beyond that… this is record affidavit,
if found things in records, must be disclosed. - Not in someone's mind."
We wish that Justice was that simple.
NEXT?
In a response made public on January 18,
the Department of Justice acknowledged that Ted Greenberg introduced
inaccurate testimony at Wilson's trial. David Adler has told FTW
that he has until February 11th to file his response to the
DoJ at which time the court may grant Wilson's motion to set aside the
conviction, reject it, or hold a hearing. Adler has told FTW
of his intention to subpoena all of the involved attorneys and judges
and put them on the stand if a hearing is granted. Adler also intends
to call Ted Shackley. Former CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner
was also on the list of potential witnesses until he was critically
injured in an airplane accident on Jan 15th.
If the hearing takes place David Adler
may then have to admonish each witness of their rights against self-incrimination
before asking them about their role in the submission of, and their
ensuing silence about, the Briggs affidavit.
FTW will be following every development
closely. We are in the process of obtaining a copy of the government's
response and we will report on that next month. We have secured permission
from Wilson and his lawyer for a telephone interview but, as of press
time, the Federal Prison at Allenwood, Pennsylvania has not put me on
the approved phone list. - We are not holding our breath. FTW
has already been denied permission to interview Wilson in person.
If Edwin Wilson's conviction is vacated then a great deal more than
just one man will be on trial next. And it is hard to believe that the
government, after the mountains of press devoted to Wilson, could let
him walk without another trial. It is also not inconceivable that the
first conviction could be placed in jeopardy as well. Wilson's last
conviction, 25 years for conspiracy to murder Larry Barcella and other
prosecutors, remains intact but Wilson has now served 17 years. If two
convictions are thrown out then he is at least eligible for a parole
hearing. At 71, and with reportedly failing health, there might remain
little justification for keeping him locked up in a maximum security
prison.
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