Jesselyn Radack: Her First Criminal Offense, 2018 Deposition and Client Daniel Hale

Part One –> “Jesselyn Radack: Her Criminal Conviction, One-Year Suspended Jail Sentence and Her ‘Client’ Edward Snowden“

OPINION: When Jesselyn Radack committed a criminal offense in December 2013, she was representing both Edward Snowden and drone whistleblower, Daniel Hale, the latter of which just happened to be raided by the FBI a month after Radack was sentenced on a reduced felony charge. However, she denies that she was representing him at the time of the raid. Here’s how it started:

There’s no question that Radack stated during a 2018 deposition (above) that she represented Hale in 2013, and after I posted a screenshot of this on Twitter back in 2021, she confirmed that her statements were truthful and accurate.

Hmm.

According to Kennebeck, both attorney Frank Dehn and Radack were brought in during the production of her film, National Bird. 

“During development, I asked a friend from the intelligence community to introduce me to whistleblower attorney Jesselyn Radack.” — Kennebeck

“I had worked sensitive projects before and hired a legal counsel during development who specializes on First Amendment rights, Frank Dehn, and also approached prominent whistleblower attorney Jesselyn Radack…That legal support turned out to be vital during the production of the film when the government tried to silence the whistleblowers.”  — Kennebeck

Radack was brought in to serve as general counsel, not as Hale’s personal attorney, and she acknowledged this at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival. Thus, when he was raided by the FBI on August 8, 2014, he didn’t call her. He called Kennebeck who then got in touch with Dehn:

Less than 24 hours prior to my phone purchase, [Hale] had [his] home raided by the FBI and was now being investigated for espionage. I needed to contact my lawyer, an expert on First Amendment rights, and given the recent turn of events, using my own phone did not seem like a good idea.

With the money from my first small production grant, I hired an attorney, Frank Dehn, to consult me on how I could protect my sources. All those months later, he was the person I called from the burner phone. — Kennebeck

Then Radack was contacted:

With the money from my first small production grant, I hired an attorney, Frank Dehn, to consult me on how I could protect my sources. All those months later, he was the person I called from the burner phone. I also contacted Jesselyn Radack. — Kennebeck

After Radack was put in touch with Hale they made arrangements to meet the following day. Radack says that during their meeting she wrote up a temporary attorney-client agreement on a napkin but why would she do this if she had been representing Hale since 2013, per her 2018 deposition? Had he been confiding in her without the full protection of an attorney-client agreement?

During the deposition, Radack was reminded that the raid occurred in August 2014, but rather than acknowledging that she might be confused about when she represented Hale, or explain why she had inexplicably stated that she had represented him a year prior to the raid taking place, she tried to wriggle out of it by accusing a journalist of publishing the wrong date:

Yeah, no, Gosztola didn’t get his dates wrong. Hale was absolutely raided on August 8, 2014, during the filming of National Bird. In a 2017 interview with Daniel Grinberg, Kennebeck stated (approx. 7:01 mark), “Daniel [Hale] was raided in the middle of production.” 

And at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival, which took place a mere two years before Radack seemingly lost her memory during the deposition, she also stated (approx. 23:47 mark) that he was raided during film production. 

If we’re to believe the statements that Radack made during the deposition that means she was representing Hale in 2013 and “maybe some of 2014,” but then stopped representing him sometime before the August 2014 raid, and then started representing him again after the raid.

During the 2016 film festival, Radack also told the audience that she “still represents” Hale but that’s impossible according to that 2021 tweet I mentioned earlier. As you can see in her tweet below, Radack confirmed that the statements she made in her deposition were correct—as of 2018, she had only represented Hale in 2013 and “maybe some of 2014.”

What I said is true. The case was dormant between 2014-2019.

— unR̶A̶D̶A̶C̶K̶ted (@JesselynRadack) April 6, 2021

However, she also said that it was true that she has been Hale’s attorney since 2014 (see the screenshot I included in my tweet above where she says, “As #DanielHale’s whistleblower lawyer for the past 7 yrs…”). This:

As #DanielHale’s whistleblower lawyer for the past 7 yrs, here are my views on his guilty plea under the Espionage Act: https://t.co/ocRlWfvdtL

— unR̶A̶D̶A̶C̶K̶ted (@JesselynRadack) April 1, 2021

Let’s see if we can navigate this confusing pile of horseshit that Radack has been feeding the American public. She represented Hale in 2013 and maybe part of 2014, but she definitely wasn’t representing him when he got raided in August 2014, per her 2018 deposition.

Radack also didn’t represent Hale between 2014-2019 because his case was “dormant,” but she also represented him after the raid in 2014, as evidenced by her statements in National Bird about writing up an attorney-client agreement on a napkin.

In 2016, she was “still” representing Hale per her statements at the Berlin International Film Festival, but she also had not spoken to him since 2014, per the 2018 deposition.

And according to the standwithdanielhale.org website which was created in 2020 and seems to be run by Radack’s own non-profit called WHISPeR, her non-profit has been “representing” Hale since 2014, despite Radack’s argument that the case was dormant between 2014-2019. Even Kennebeck said that she has “represented” him since 2014.

#Whistleblower attorney @JesselynRadack has represented #DanielHale since the U.S. gov began investigating him 7 years ago. @thedronalisa is Daniel's close friend & supporter. They witnessed the devastating impact the lengthy prosecution had on Daniel. See them on @democracynow. https://t.co/754qEOJR88

— Sonia Kennebeck (@soniakennebeck) July 26, 2021

Finally, according to her 2021 tweet, Radack has also been Hale’s attorney since 2014.

Make sense now? Of course it doesn’t, nor should it.

My guess is that what’s happening with Radack’s 2021 tweet to me is this: She’s using semantics because most people probably don’t know that “legally representing” someone technically means “the process of lawyers representing their clients in court and the work that the lawyers do during the proceedings.”

So yes, she’s been Hale’s attorney since 2014, but no, she hasn’t been “representing” him since 2014, because aside from the raid nothing happened until Hale was charged in 2019.

This, of course, doesn’t explain why she agreed in the deposition that she “represented” Hale in 2013 and 2014, nor why she told an audience at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2016 that she “still represents” him seeing that, as Radack put it, his case was still dormant. Don’t forget that in the deposition, Radack used the past tense to describe her relationship with Hale:

Q: Do you represent somebody who is identified — who’s identified in these documents as Daniel, do you represent that person?

Radack: I did.

2013

Radack was reminded yet again during the deposition that Hale wasn’t raided until August 2014, giving her ample opportunity to realize, “Oh wait, sorry, I was wrong, I never represented Hale or gave him legal advice until after the August 2014 raid,” but she continued to double down on her story that she provided legal services to him back in 2013.

Well, by all means, if Radack wants to take credit for representing Hale in 2013, let’s take a look at what he was doing back then.

According to the government’s superseding indictment, Hale began conducting online searches about journalist Jeremy Scahill as early as April 2013. One of those searches was about Scahill’s book tour and one of his events that was happening in Washington D.C. at the end of the month. Hale decided to attend the event and the very next day, he used his NSA computer to search for “classified information concerning individuals and issues” that pertained to Scahill’s work:

Among the results of his search was information pertaining to a scheduled appearance of the Reporter on or about April 29, 2013 at a Washington, D.C. restaurant/bookstore (Bookstore). 

On or about April 29, 2013, HALE attended a book tour event at the Bookstore, where he met with the Reporter. The next day, on or about April 30, 2013, HALE used his TOP SECRET NSA computer to search for classified information concerning individuals and issues about which the Reporter wrote. 

In May 2013, HALE sent a text to a close friend and confidant (Confidant) stating “[the Reporter] wants me to tell my story about working with drones at the opening screening of his documentary about the war and the use of drones.”

On June 8th, he met with Scahill again at another speaking event and in the video I posted below you can see that Scahill invited Hale to sit next to him on a makeshift stage.

The DOJ indicment also says that Hale attended another bookstore event with the "reporter" on June 8, 2013. Here's Scahill at speaking at Busboys and Poets in D.C. about his book…on June 8, 2013. https://t.co/T96CaSg4X1

— Llama (@TheLlamaFiles) May 9, 2019

At the same exact time that Hale and Scahill were meeting, journalists Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras were in Hong Kong with Snowden. In the last few minutes of Poitras’ documentary, Citizenfour, Greenwald discusses a “second source” with Snowden: 

The media has since reported that this “second source” was likely Hale. According to techdirt.com:

According to the indictment…Hale’s printing and removal of top secret documents began in early 2013 — just a couple of months before the first Snowden leak…In ‘Citizenfour,’ the documentary about Snowden’s first meetings with Glenn Greenwald, Greenwald discusses another leak source that is most likely Hale.

And according to @emptywheel:

There’s a scene of [Citizenfour]…where Bill Binney warns Jeremy Scahill that if he wanted to publish documents from a source we now know to be Hale, with whom (trial exhibits would have shown) Scahill had already met in public, emailed, and texted during the period Hale was leaking, then (Binney instructed Scahill) he needed to do so by meeting in person, secretly.

It was probably too late for Hale by the time Binney gave Scahill this warning.

Then there’s the film’s widely discussed closing scene, showing a meeting where Glenn Greenwald flew to Moscow to update Snowden about ‘the new source’ that has come to The Intercept. Apparently believing he’s using rockstar operational security, he’s writing down — on camera!!! — how The Intercept is communicating with this new source, bragging…Greenwald continues to sketch out the contents of several of the documents — including one of the first ones to be published — that Hale just admitted he shared with The Intercept.

During his meeting with Snowden, Greenwald also told him that Hale’s boldness was “shocking” but that he was “obviously motivated by what you did.” But how is that possible? Initially, that is.

Greenwald and Poitras didn’t arrive in Hong Kong until June 2, 2013, and by then Hale was already using his NSA computer to search for classified documents related to Scahill’s work, meeting with Scahill, and sharing parts of his story. Furthermore, The Guardian didn’t start publishing Snowden’s documents until June 5th, and no one even knew who he was until June 9th. 

It stands to reason that Hale’s initial inspiration came from something or someone other than Snowden unless, of course, he was being fed information about Snowden before the story became public. And Radack wants to take credit for providing “legal services” to Hale during all of this? Okay dokey.

In mid-fall, Radack traveled to Russia to meet with Snowden while Greenwald, Poitras and Scahill discussed putting together an “adversarial” news organization entirely funded by billionaire, Pierre Omidyar. 

On December 5th, Scahill went on Democracy Now and announced the launch of  “a new media venture with Greenwald, filmmaker Laura Poitras and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar,” which is now known today as The Intercept.

The very next day, Radack committed her first criminal offense in connection with Virginia state criminal cases #GC14070623 and #GC14070656, again, while she was representing Hale. Maybe. The one question that everyone should ask Kennebeck is whether she knew that Radack had just been handed a one-year suspended jail sentence when she put her in contact with Hale. Better yet, ask Radack’s “client” Edward Snowden if he knew.