Reply #6: Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's Top Gremlin

[seemslikeadream]

June 11, 2003


Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's Top Gremlin
Spreading Mischief from DoJ to the Federal Bench
By ELAINE CASSEL


I have been watching John Ashcroft so long that it is getting to be a little boring. Promising to use all available means to "fight terrorism," prosecuting every violation of law "to the fullest extent of the law," desperately wanting the death penalty for every possible offense, and, according to his remarks last week before the Senate Judiciary committee, wanting laws changed to impose the death penalty for even more offenses. Ashcroft changes law and procedure by signing Executive Orders, and yes, he can get away with that unless a court stops him. So far, no court has. Some congressional members, damn few, express mild dismay at his tactics, such as locking up resident aliens after 9/11 and holding some of them for months without access to family or lawyers (or charges), then deporting many on the most technical visa violations (some of them the fault of INS, over which he has authority). It never ends-the Ashcroft watch. It only gets worse, and more frightening.

But now I have a new gremlin to watch, someone who is as intent on undermining the law and Constitution as Ashcroft. I am referring to the man behind the criminal prosecution of terrorists, Michael Chertoff. Chertoff, former chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, and a scary looking guy if ever there was one, has been elevated to the level of Court of Appeals judge--the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. What's so scary about Michael? Well, besides having no judicial experience and being a right-ring radical who does not believe in the Constitution and wants to rewrite federal law and rules of procedure on an ad hoc, case by case basis, as it suits him, nothing I guess.

A good place to look for Chertoff's legal philosophy is in the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui , now taking place in the Eastern District of Virginia. Chertoff is not the prosecutor of course, Paul McNulty of the Eastern District is. But Chertoff is McNulty's boss and he is calling the shots. So Chertoff argued the government's case in the super secret hearing before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals last week. The government is trying to block trial judge Leonie Brinkema's ruling that Moussaoui and his lawyers have access to the government's star witnesses against him. The government has refused and appealed. Judge Brinkema, who still believes in the Constitution, rightly ruled that to deny Moussaoui that access is a blatant violation of the Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses.

more
http://www.counterpunch.org/cassel06112003.html

According to a June 20, 2000 article in the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, Chertoff defended accused terrorist financier Dr. Magdy Elamir. Elamir’s HMO was sued by the State of New Jersey to recoup $16.7 million in losses. At least $5.7 million went “to unknown parties... by means of wire transfers to bank accounts where the beneficial owner of the account is unknown,” according to the article.

Foreign intelligence reports given to then chairman of the House International Relations Committee Ben Gilman,
R-New York, in 1998 accused Magdy Elamir of having “had financial ties with Osama bin Laden for years,” according to an Aug. 2, 2002 Dateline NBC broadcast.

In 1999, Magdy Elamir and brother Mohamed were named suspects in Operation Diamondback, an FBI/ATF undercover infiltration of Pakistani arms merchants who sought to arm Osama bin Laden with conventional and nuclear weapons, according to independent researcher and former New Jersey police officer All Dateline confirmed that Elamir and his corporations had paid at least $5,000 to Egyptian arms dealer Diaa Mohsen, who Elamir referred to on camera as a family friend. Moshen was sentenced to 30 months for his involvement in Operation Diamondback. However, Elamir was never convicted. “By the time Operation Diamondback culminated in arrests in the summer of 2001, Michael Chertoff was the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the criminal division and Operation Diamondback would have fallen under his prevue since it was a criminal case and not a counterterrorism case,” Duncan said.

<snip>


Whether or not Chertoff had prior knowledge of Elamir’s alleged connections to Diaa Mohsen and bin Laden is unknown. Calls to Chertoff’s office were not returned.
ACLU Says Bush Choice for Homeland Security Head Worrisome
http://www.universitystar.com/main/article.php?aid=1236

Chertoff Played Key Role In Formulating Controversial 9/11 Policies
January 11, 2005

Statement of Gregory T. Nojeim
ACLU Washington Legislative Office Associate Director
Chief Legislative Counsel

<snip> He has been a vocal champion of the Bush administration’s pervasive belief that the executive branch should be free of many of the checks and balances that keep it from abusing its immense power over our lives and liberty.

His nomination as head of the Department of Homeland Security - a new and untested agency with great influence on civil liberties - means that Chertoff should be questioned aggressively to ensure his fitness for the position, and the strength of his dedication to the Bill of Rights.

This is made more imperative by the fact that, as with Attorney General-nominee Alberto Gonzales, some of Chertoff’s post-9/11 policies have been repudiated by others in the government. Namely, two reports by the Justice Department’s inspector general, released in June and December 2003, castigated Chertoff’s use of rarely enforced and minor immigration violations to hold non-citizens shortly after 9/11 for as long as possible, without bail or access to a lawyer. None of these non-citizens was found to have any connection to the 9/11 attacks.

Chertoff was also an architect of the USA Patriot Act, which has come under increasing fire from conservatives and progressives alike since its passage in 2001. <snip>

http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=17293&c=206

Two top Justice Department officials Friday defended the need for government agencies to aggregate large amounts of personal information in computer databases for both law enforcement and national security purposes.

Speaking on two separate panels about privacy and civil liberties at the Federalist Society, Assistant Attorney Generals Viet Dinh and Michael Chertoff both said information is a key weapon in combating terrorism.

Chertoff, head of the criminal division and a key drafter of last year's major anti-terrorism law, said in a Friday morning panel that critics of Bush administration's civil liberties record are overstating their case."


http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/1102/111502td1.htm