August 23rd Sunday Reading: Catch Up on Deception in DC

It’s been a month since I published a Sunday reading post, so if you haven’t been following along every week, you’ve missed seven new articles, all of which I’ve added and summarized below.

I finished Chapter 2 a few weeks ago after dropping this entire series’ biggest bombshell in Chapter 2.3. Now, we’re three articles into Chapter 3, which focuses solely on the emails Jesselyn Radack exchanged with then-federal attorney John De Pue, except for the very last article in the chapter. These are the client-attorney privileged emails she leaked to journalist Michael Isikoff back in June 2002.

I believe we have three, maybe four, more articles in Chapter 3 before we get to the next chapter. Spoiler alert: Chapter 4 is fairly short compared to the rest of the series, but it’s just as entertaining and mind-blowing. It focuses on the discovery order issued in the John Walker Lindh case and Radack’s unprofessional response, which included a barrage of hysterical, childish, and unsubstantiated allegations she lodged against her boss and colleagues.

Chapter 3.3: Radack Directed a Federal Attorney to Withhold Information From the FBI

She actually did this.

Chapter 3.2: Radack Covered Up Four of Her Emails

The four-email coverup: Did you know that when journalist Michael Isikoff and Newsweek published Radack’s emails, they didn’t publish all of them? She built her entire whistleblower story around what was in these emails, so she withheld four of them from Isikoff? In other words, she’s been hiding four emails from the public. Why is that?

Chapter 3.1: Radack’s Story Rests on Less Than 14 Minutes of Legal Research

Just like the title reads: Emails that Radack herself leaked prove she spent less than 14 minutes researching the Lindh case before responding to John De Pue’s inquiry.

Chapter 3: Former Federal Attorney Jesselyn Radack Lied to Maintain Her Cover Within Whistleblower Community

If you want to understand just how deranged Radack’s lies have been over the years so she could further embed herself within the whistleblower community, read this article.

Chapter 2.6: Radack’s Bizarre Claim That an Unknown Figure at the FBI Committed the Ethics Violation

In court filings, her book, and dozens of appearances and interviews, Jesselyn Radack has repeatedly stated that her concern over the FBI interview was always about the ABA’s ethics rule Model Rule 4.2. And yet, even though the term “ethics violation” inexplicably doesn’t make a single appearance in her book or court filings, let alone in conjunction with the FBI, she’s planted “the FBI committed an ethics violation” story in the media an ungodly number of times after she became enraged over that very same agency investigating her for leaking her attorney-client privileged emails.

After spending 20 years overhauling her woefully incompetent image into that of a prominent whistleblower attorney, she has never named a single attorney at the FBI who was responsible for this alleged ethics violation.

For more than two decades, her story boils down to this: After some unknown figure unambiguously told her that Lindh was represented, another unknown figure at the FBI violated ethics rule 4.2 by having him interrogated.

Jesselyn Radack’s whistleblower story boils down to whether John Walker Lindh was represented, and whether the FBI committed an ethics violation by interviewing him. However, her legal opinion was just that: an opinion. Federal prosecutors clearly disagreed with both her and the defense team, and contrary to her delusional self-belief, there’s nothing weird or conspiratorial about attorneys disagreeing with one another.

John De Pue never told her that Lindh was represented, nor did he ask, “Hey, Lindh is represented by counsel, would it be an ethics violation if the FBI interviewed him?” It was, “Hey, Lindh’s father hired an attorney on his behalf. Would it be an ethics violation if the FBI interviewed him?” The first obviously considers him represented; the second does not.

Despite this, Radack has repeatedly planted stories in the press that someone told her Lindh was “unambiguously” represented by counsel, even though she admitted in federal court, under oath, no less, that this was categorically untrue. As usual, this hasn’t stopped her from reframing her legal opinion as an undisputed fact to shore up her whistleblower story, nor has it curtailed her from blaming someone else for it

Chapter 2.4: Radack Didn’t Expose Any Dirty Little Secrets

On multiple occasions, Jesselyn Radack has stated that she was responsible for the government’s criminal case against John Walker Lindh crumbling within 24 hours of Newsweek publishing her emails. For example, she told Harvard University, “I ended up giving my emails, which were unclassified, I ended up giving them to Newsweek. They did a huge article, and the Lindh case ended in a surprise plea bargain deal the next day.”

This never happened because we now know that an ethics violation cannot be used in federal court to suppress a defendant’s statements. In other words, this ethics violation that Radack has been going on and on about made no difference in the case whatsoever.

Furthermore, even if we were to humor her story, the only thing her emails prove is that another federal prosecutor knew Lindh’s father hired an attorney without his son’s knowledge or consent. But, by the time she leaked her emails to journalist Michael Isikoff in June 2002, this was no secret, and neither the government nor Brosnahan needed her emails to inform them of this.

Chapter 2.3: The Bombshell. Radack Either Lied About Impact of Ethics Violation or She’s the Most Incompetent Attorney on the Planet

Contrary to what Radack has told the public for the last 24 years, you can’t use an ethics violation in federal court to suppress evidence, and apparently, every licensed attorney involved in the case, including Lindh’s defense team, knew this except her. Thus, whatever she’s said in dozens of public appearances, interviews, and Twitter posts about her emails destroying the government’s case against Lindh is hogwash. This is the most important article of the series because if Radack’s accusation against the FBI (“they committed an ethics violation when they interviewed Lindh”) didn’t affect Lindh’s criminal case whatsoever, then why would anyone try to hide or destroy her emails, as she later claimed?

Chapter 2.2: Lindh’s Own Father Ignored Radack; Government Worried About Torture and Access to Gitmo Detainees

Lindh’s father has repeatedly spoken about his son’s case and the reasons behind the government’s decision to offer his son a plea deal. None of those reasons includes Radack, her emails, or the ethics violation.

Chapter 2.1: Jesselyn Radack’s Ludicrous Claim She Brought Down the Lindh Case

What more needs to be said? She lied about this because it never happened. Court documents prove it never happened, and my readers are about to find out this upcoming week just how absurd her claims are.

Chapter 2.0: Literally No One Mentioned Radack’s Ethics Violation in the Lindh Case

Imagine telling everyone that your emails destroyed the government’s case against John Walker Lindh, and yet, his own attorneys didn’t use them in court to suppress their client’s statements, nor did they ever formally accuse anyone of committing an ethics violation.

Over the course of the last 24 years, not a single journalist took the time to look into Radack’s story until now. Nor has anyone bothered to question her motives for lying about it, including Amy Goodman from Democracy Now, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Courage Foundation, Anonymous, journalist Chip Gibbons, ExposeFacts, and a long list of others.

Chapter 1.4: What in the World Does Moran v. Burbine Have to do With Jesselyn Radack?

After the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Burbine, media behemoths were outraged. Legal scholars scorned the decision. And state courts adopted the views of Burbine dissenters. However, Yale Kamisar, the “father of Miranda,” and others supported it, including some state judges, all of whom noted the inequality in the dissent’s argument.

Based on Burbine, it doesn’t appear that U.S. authorities were under any obligation to tell Lindh about the attorney his father hired, nor that he was trying to meet with him. It doesn’t seem likely, either, that he would have been considered represented at the time of the FBI interview had the case gone to trial (unless, of course, you’re arguing for the defense).

So, where does this leave us?

This series is about the ethics rule that Radack claims the FBI violated, not the government’s constitutional obligations. So, what was Radack’s reasoning for telling U.S. federal attorneys that Lindh was represented by Brosnahan, despite having never met, communicated with, or consented to his representation? In fact, he was completely unaware of his existence.

This was literally the entire reason why De Pue called her. He didn’t call her about a hypothetical constitutional violation; he wanted to ensure no one violated an ABA ethics rule. He didn’t think, nor did he tell her, that Lindh was considered a represented person; he asked her if McDade or ABA ethics rules considered him a represented person.

It appears that she assumed Lindh was, rather than relying on ABA ethics rules that govern how the attorney-client relationship is formed and defined, rules that may or may not exist. We don’t know because she’s never discussed them.

Thus, in response, she told him that it would be a Rule 4.2 ethics violation for a federal attorney, or someone working under their direction, to interview him, but she didn’t even convey the latter part to him. Worse, to this day, she has no understanding of how ethics violations work in terms of suppressing evidence in federal court.

Chapter 1.3: Burbine Files Write of Habeas Corpus; Appeals Decision, Ends Up in Front of U.S. Supreme Court

After Burbine lost his appeal, he filed an application for writ of habeas corpus. The federal court ultimately rejected his application. He then appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. The court ordered that his conviction be vacated, but the State of Rhode Island had no intention of releasing him. And so, on behalf of the state, John Moran, Superintendent of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, filed a petition for certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court, and on May 13, 1985, it was granted.

Chapter 1.2: State v. Burbine (1982)

Burbine appeals to the Supreme Court of Rhode Island. The Court finds that he was not represented at the time of the police interviews after his sister, unbeknownst to him, hired an attorney on his behalf. See where this going?

Chapter 1.1: The Case of Brian Burbine

When U.S. attorney John De Pue first called Radack seeking advice about any ethical problems that might arise if the FBI interviewed Lindh, he told her that, unbeknownst to Lindh, his father “retained counsel for him.” One might immediately assume that in the eyes of the court, Lindh was unequivocally represented by an attorney. Or, at the very least, he should have been informed that an attorney was hired on his behalf. But, here in the United States, things aren’t always that simple, and therein lies the crux of this fantastical story.

Chapter 1: The McDade Amendment

The McDade Amendment is the law that requires federal attorneys, with some exceptions, to abide by the ethics rules in every state in which they practice. Rule 4.2, which essentially states, “Don’t talk to anyone represented by counsel without their attorney’s consent,” is one of those ethics rules. It’s the ethics rule Radack claims the FBI violated.

For an ethics violation to have occurred, two things had to be true in this particular case: Lindh was represented at the time of the FBI interview, and the FBI agent who interviewed him was working under the direction of a federal attorney.

Deception in DC: The Jesselyn Radack Story (Introduction)

If you’re just joining the series, start with the introduction because it provides valuable background information, including Radack’s whistleblower story, the incredibly manipulative narrative that both she and the media have presented for over 24 years, and why I wrote the series.

The brilliance of her story is that it’s lengthy, multi-faceted, and fairly antiquated, making it difficult for the general public to unravel a sea of bogus information and deceitful conduct she’s disseminated or displayed over the course of decades.

Part 1 focuses on the ethics violation Radack claims the FBI committed when John Walker Lindh was interviewed in 2002, while she was working as a federal attorney at PRAO, the DOJ’s ethics department. It’s the basis for her entire whistleblower story.