Judge in Scooter Libby, Sibel Edmonds cases

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Judge in Scooter Libby, Sibel Edmonds cases

Postby albion » Mon Dec 19, 2005 1:15 am

I thought this was worth passing along, Bill Conroy posted a few more details about Judge Reggie Walton, who was "randomly" chosen to preside over Scooter Libby's and <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>both</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> of Sibel Edmond's cases. Turns out he's got a mysterious background in -- surprize! -- drug policy.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Judge in Scooter Libby, Sibel Edmonds cases is redacted in action</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>By Bill Conroy,<br><br>Posted on Sat Dec 17th, 2005 at 06:14:22 PM EST<br><br>What do two of the biggest national-security news stories of the century — the Valerie Plame leak scandal and the legal case of FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds — have in common?<br><br>They both are being presided over by the same federal judge in the District of Colombia, Reggie Walton, a Bush appointee to the federal court and a man who appears to have a few well-kept secrets of his own.<br><br>All federal judges are required under ethics rules to file what is known as “financial disclosure reports.”<br><br>The disclosure statement filed by Walton, which was obtained through the dogged efforts of a conservative watchdog group called Judicial Watch, is curious in what it does not reveal. Remember, this judge is arguably handling two of the most sensitive and potentially far-reaching challenges to the free press and the public’s right to know of our times.<br><br>In the Plamegate case, a top White House aid, Scooter Libby, has already been indicted and additional indictments may be forthcoming (Karl Rove?). In addition, a bevy of insider journalists in the media-center establishment have been subpoenaed to testify in the case, and one, New York Times reporter Judith Miller, has already done jail time for her initial refusal to identify her sources on the story.<br><br>Edmonds was fired from her job as an FBI translator after blowing the whistle on alleged espionage being carried out by a fellow FBI employee. She was prevented from pursuing a whistleblower retaliation lawsuit filed in 2002 (based on alleged violations of her civil rights) because of the state-secrets privilege claim, a claim upheld by Judge Walton. That claim essentially shut down her ability to present evidence in the case under the smokescreen that it would jeopardize national security.<br><br>An appeal in the Edmonds case was recently rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court. She now has a separate case pending in federal court in Washington, D.C. Ironically, in both cases, Judge Walton was randomly assigned to hear her complaints at the District Court level. Walton also has randomly been assigned to hear the Plamegate case involving Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.<br><br>So given the high-stakes poker being played in both these cases, one civil and one criminal, why has no one in the establishment press bothered to ask what is contained in Judge Walton’s financial disclosure statement? After all, his investments and financial backers would be of keen interest in gauging his ability to hear these cases in an unbiased manner, right?<br><br>We already know that Walton has been a Bush-team insider for years. He grew up on the hardscrabble side of life in a steel town in Pennsylvania, and by his own admission was arrested three times as a teenager and even witnessed a stabbing while participating in a street fight. After beating the odds and making it through law school, he rose quickly in the Washington legal establishment, earning an appointment from former President Reagan to a District of Colombia Superior Court judgeship. He was later taken under the wing of the self-styled man of virtue William Bennett, serving as a top gun in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy during Bennett’s tenure there. Then, in 2001, current President Bush appointed him as a federal judge in the District of Columbia.<br><br>[...] So shouldn’t we know who’s buttering Walton’s bread in terms of financial backing? Why have ethics rules mandating such disclosures, if the information is not disclosed in cases, such as these, where the stakes are so high?<br><br>Well, it seems, at least according to the only document that Judicial Watch could shake loose in its public-records quest, that Walton doesn’t think so. <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>His financial disclosure statement, the one released for public inspection through Judicial Watch, is completely redacted, every line of it.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>[...] Now, ask yourself, why would that be, and what might lurk in the shadows of Judge Walton’s fiscal closet? If there nothing to hide, then there is nothing to lose by shedding some light on the retractions, is there?<br><br>But let’s not jump to conclusions. It’s probably all fine -- just a safety precaution, as the following excerpt from a 2004 Government Accountability Office report explains:<br><br> <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>"The Ethics in Government Act requires judges and other federal officials to file financial disclosure reports as a check on conflicts of interest. However, given potential security risks to federal judges, Congress authorized redactions of information that could endanger them. This redaction authority is set to expire at the end of 2005."</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>That has to be why the big boys in the media have ignored this issue to date, right? After all, there are some things that take precedence over national security and the outing of covert CIA operatives.<br><br>If not, and these redactions do not, in reality, protect Judge Walton's security, but rather only his dignity, then we have to wonder why our fearless media leaders have been content to graze on other appetizers.<br><br>But not to fear, I'm sure if there is cause for alarm, we'll hear the media-pundit elephants charging through the fields toward this alfalfa patch soon.<br><br>In the mean time, let’s keep this whole messy topic between you and me, for now. We wouldn’t want to stir up any disharmony inside the Washington press-corps insiders’ circuit. They’ve got future cocktail parties to attend….<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/12/17/1">narcosphere.narconews.com...05/12/17/1</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=albion@rigorousintuition>albion</A> at: 12/19/05 12:13 am<br></i>
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Re: Judge in Scooter Libby, Sibel Edmonds cases

Postby albion » Mon Dec 19, 2005 2:56 am

I missed this until just now (& sorry if this was already posted), there was an AP story on Walton last month. Apparently he was a street fighting youth turned hardass judge. AP caught up with him giving a speech at a youth center.<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Judge Comes From Rough-And-Tumble Roots</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>By Pete Yost<br>Associated Press Writer<br><br>Published: Nov 25, 2005 2:17 PM EST<br><br>WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton grew up on the rough streets of a Pennsylvania steel town, far from his courtroom in downtown Washington where the Bush administration may be called to account in the Valerie Plame affair.<br><br>Presiding over the biggest case of his 23-year career as a judge, Walton comes from a far different world than criminal defendant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff.<br><br>Libby graduated from a New England boarding school, Yale University and Columbia University School of Law. Walton attended public schools and a state college, struggled with reading and held a part-time job while attending law school.<br><br>As a teenager, Walton occasionally packed a gun and a straight razor and was arrested three times, he recently told an audience of young men at a juvenile detention facility outside Washington.<br><br>"I would fight you in a second," the judge, 50, said of his teenage years in Donora, Pa. "Most of the kids I grew up with are either dead, junkies or drunks. They didn't do anything with their lives, but that doesn't have to be you."<br><br>In court, Walton is known for his tough sentencing. Outside court, Walton has reached out over the years to thousands of teenagers in trouble just as he was, exhorting them to change their lives.<br><br>Last week, some of the young men in Walton's audience at the Oak Hill Youth Center in Laurel, Md., were defiant.<br><br>"There's nothing out there," said one young man.<br><br>"There is something out there," the judge replied. "You can do something constructive with your life."<br><br>He explained one of the turning points in his own.<br><br>Walton was involved in a street fight in which one young man stabbed another in the back nine times with an ice pick.<br><br>"He didn't die," said Walton, who helped rush the stabbing victim to a hospital. "If he had died, my whole life would probably have been destroyed."<br><br>[...] He says he made it through American University's Washington College of Law by holding down part-time jobs and studying 12 to 13 hours a day, seven days a week. By his senior year, he was on the Dean's List.<br><br>By the time he was 30, he was chief of the career criminal unit in the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. At age 32, President Reagan appointed him to a judgeship on the District of Columbia Superior Court.<br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Prominent Washington defense attorney Bob Bennett — who knew of Walton's work in the U.S. attorney's office and as a judge — introduced Walton to Bennett's brother, Bill Bennett, who was then director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Walton soon became a top ONDCP official.<br><br>"Reggie is an outstanding judge and both Libby and the government will get a fair trial," said Bob Bennett, who has more than a passing interest in the case. He represented New York Times reporter Judith Miller during her 85 days in jail and her subsequent grand jury testimony in the investigation into the Bush administration's leak of Plame's CIA identity to the news media.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><br>[...] Last week, the Libby case and the political problems it's causing the Bush administration never came up during Walton's appearance at the youth center in Laurel, Md. The case and its significance were explained to the young men when the judge was introduced. Then the subject changed.<br><br>"Some people don't have no mother, no father, no houses to go to," one youth said, issuing a challenge to Walton's message that people can turn their lives around.<br><br>"It's hard, I understand that," Walton responded. "I'm not saying it's going to be easy. All I'm saying is you can't give up on life. If somebody had told me — when I was your age, when I was caught up in the court system — that I was going to end up being a lawyer, I'd have said you've got to be out of your mind."<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://ap.lancasteronline.com/6/cia_leak_judge">ap.lancasteronline.com/6/cia_leak_judge</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--> <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=albion@rigorousintuition>albion</A> at: 12/19/05 12:13 am<br></i>
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