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So Much for Federal “Justice”
by
Jacob G. Hornberger,
November 3, 2003
Those who are still operating under the quaint and
innocent notions that the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth
Amendments to the U.S. Constitution are antiquated
technicalities in the new era of the so-called war on
terror and that federal officials can now be trusted with the omnipotent power to
do the right thing in their quest to impose justice on people might want to consider what
happened in a federal district court in Texas recently.
The case involves a 75-year-old
former CIA officer, Edwin P. Wilson, who has served 20
years in jail for illegally selling explosives in the
1970s to the Libyan regime of Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi.
Setting aside Wilson’s conviction, the federal court
ruled that federal officials knowingly used false
testimony to undermine Wilson’s claim that he had
been acting under the direction of the CIA when he sold
the weapons.
Let me repeat that crucial phrase — knowingly used
false testimony. That’s right — U.S. government
officials, who unceasingly portray themselves as
righteous people who are only seeking truth and justice,
especially in their “war on terror,” knowingly
and intentionally used perjured testimony with the intent
of punishing a person who, under our system of
government, was presumed innocent until proven guilty
beyond a reasonable doubt with truthful and honest
evidence in a court of law — and then knowingly and
deliberately kept their wrongdoing covered up for two
decades.
According to the New York Times, the federal
court that set aside Wilson’s conviction “was
scathing in its condemnation of the government’s
conduct.... Judge Hughes said Mr. Wilson’s efforts
to defend himself had been ‘contradicted by a
dishonest agency memorandum issued from a bunker’ at
the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Va.”
The judge stated,
In the course of American justice, one would have to work
hard to conceive of a more fundamentally unfair process
with a consequentially unreliable result than the
fabrication of false data by the government, under oath
by a government official, presented knowingly by the
prosecutor in the courtroom with the express approval of
his superiors in Washington.
Of course, assuming Wilson’s contention is true
— that he was acting under the direction of the CIA
— several intriguing political questions arise: Why
was the CIA illegally selling weapons to a regime that
was renowned for supporting terrorist organizations
around the world? Indeed, did the CIA and Justice
Department go so far as to double-cross one of their own
agents with perjured testimony in order to keep the
CIA’s illegal sales of weapons to a state sponsor of
international terrorism hush-hush from the American
people and the people of the world? What did the CIA
think that Qaddafi was going to do with those weapons?
Not that the fearless members of Congress would dare to
ask such questions, of course.
Meanwhile, U.S. citizens continue to languish
indefinitely in U.S. military dungeons, denied all access
to lawyers and family members, under the federal guise of
“Just trust us because we’re righteous people
who would never do anything wrong in our quest to impose
justice in our ‘war on terror.’” Yeah,
just as in the Edwin Wilson case. For that matter, just
as in the Ruby Ridge and Waco cases, where the feds also
knowingly and intentionally lied and obstructed justice
in their quest to impose “justice” on people
whom they felt were deserving of it.
Not that we needed it, but the Edwin Wilson case is just
one more confirmation that our Constitution and the Bill
of Rights are more important than ever, especially to
protect us from corrupt federal officials who will stop
at nothing — not even perjury — to impose their
concept of “justice” on people against whom
they lack truthful, credible, and honest evidence of
guilt.
Mr. Hornberger is founder and president of The
Future of Freedom Foundation. Send him email.
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