We Get to See the Hatfill Warrant
Judge Lamberth has just ruled that the government has to unseal the materials it submitted to get search warrants related to Stephen Hatfill (h/t scribe).
This should be fun.
After all, it’s telling enough that the government doesn’t want us to see the search warrant application. And one of the reasons the government didn’t want to release the materials is because it wants to keep the identity of a confidential informant secret; I do hope we’ll be able to tell whether they had something more than people who had analyzed the writing on the envelopes to point to Hatfill.
But given how flimsy the government’s case against Ivins remains, I look forward to seeing what they were thinking back earlier in this process.
It’s almost funny that the Government’s opposition was supposedly based on Hatfill’s privacy rights. They were so obviously concerned with those when he was a suspect.
Whoa! You pulled a rabbit out of yer Hatfill among a sea of cars! Outstanding!
Option 1. Appeal.
Option 2. Redact the whole thing, since any of it “could” reveal the informant.
Option 3. Ignore the order.
Option 4. Is it Jan 20 yet?
And another thing. “Confidential Informant” is a term that is wildly overused by just about everybody, from cops, prosecutors all the way down to bloggers. Just because some flunk cop or aggressive prosecutor calls a tipster a “confidential informant” does not make it so. Whether under the old Agillar-Spinelli test, or that of its predominant replacement, the Illinois v. Gates totality of the circumstances measure, defendants are permitted to challenge the confidentiality of information, especially that from informants/tipsters. If the delineation in the affidavit does not sufficiently lay out credibility and veracity, the defendant gets to “go behind the affidavit” and obtain disclosure of all the pertinent information surrounding the tipster.
It takes a fairly accomplished criminal lawyer to so attack a warrant, because they are presumed valid on their face, but it sure can be done. I will bet dollars to donuts that the government has a total pile of shit affidavit here, and that they are very fortunate that Ivins is not alive to attack it. Very fortunate.
Fortunate indeed. My question, from a non-lawyer, is what can be done to the government employees that created the “pile of shit”?
Probably nothing. Hatfill not only was never charged, but has settled all civil claims. Ivins is dead. I don’t see that anyone else is going to have the standing to really go after the warrants. The Amerithrax case as a whoile can be nipped at around the edges; but affidavits are sworn submissions that really bind law enforcement and prosecutors involved, the ability to attack them goes to the heart of the credibility of the whole deal.
And besides that, fed legal resources likely to be tied up for decades piecing together tapestry of BushCo crime family illegal activities.
Overheard at DOJ: Okay, but it there any way to release it without giving it to that Wheeler b***h as well?
Boxturtle (Suspects Marcy gives them nightmares)
Remind me again. Hatfill was the first ”lone gunman”, right?
Officially, yes. There was yet another dude, can’t remember his name this second, that they liked early on too; but they didn’t get so far as screwing overtly with him publicly.
And they drained the pond in Maryland to look for invasive fish from China or what?
OT – Obama will be required to give up Blackberry
on so many levels …
OT: for those with a strong stomach, quotes from director/writer rod lurie, floyd abrams and she-who-will-not-be-named chastising valerie plame for her lack of cooperation in springing dust bunny from jail. a sample:
Still, says Lurie, “Valerie Plame is wrong. Judy is a heroine.”
read it and weep.
that is pathetic…spinning Judith “I was fucking right” Miller into a heroine is beyond a stretch. It is a flat out lie. Judith has friends in the movie industry geez
Not quite OT: The DOJ writes back to Conyers. They cough up some OLC opinions and some Rumsfeldian logic, but no Siegleman docs. (h/t to TPM Muckraker).
That paragraph from the HJC staffer is a hoot. (I always figured that those nice young people sitting behind the reps and the senators were the brains of the operation.) Rumsfeld and the Uncertainty Principle both — someone is enjoying her/himself. C’mon, WO: don’t you think they’re closing in?
EW you are on it
Senator Leahy seemed especially pissed about this case
“Already, after 30 minutes or so, the two ranking members of the Committee have both told Mueller that, in essence, they do not accept or believe the FBI’s accusations against Bruce Ivins. The Democratic Chairman of the Committee, Pat Leahy (who was a target of the anthrax attacks) told Mueller categorically that he simply does not believe that Ivins was the prime culprit if he was a participant at all, and said he is absolutely convinced that there were others involved in the preparation and mailing of the anthrax.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..judiciary/
How about the reputation of the hightech robodogs whose avant garde trainers in neosearch need vindication for their innovative methods of teaching the world’s best coldTrail scentDetector species to identify flecks of the hypolimnion as traceable to the litigant? I admit to skipping vast swaths of the Friday document disseminations from DoJ postIvin demise, but, I would expect those specialists to have some published comments in these past six months concerning the denouement’s abrupt redirection of the investigation away from their initially dog-substantiated suspect.
OT
I need help. I am posting my first Oxdown. In my saved copy there is a
more break in the middle of the post. Did I exceed a word limit?
What does this mean? Help would be most appreciated.
I got it..That is the tag for “read more”…Duh.
ah! thank you for that.
hey klynn,
this happened to me when i wrote my first diary. i kept trying to get this break to go away, then finally just published the diary to see what it looked like. it came out fine, no break, everything formatted correctly.
Elliot helps
Linking as easy as pie
http://oxdown.firedoglake.com/diary/1720
good news..Kennedy back
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/
ot Piss. When will they throw us a bone?
UPDATE: Numerous sources — including this one and this one — are now reporting that the Senate Democratic caucus has reached a deal with Joe Lieberman, and he will retain his Chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. The deal will be ratified in a vote tomorrow morning (and will entail his losing a totally meaningless subcommittee chair).
http://www.salon.com/opinion/g…..7/emanuel/
Hey, I had my opening line on my Oxdown perfect. When it posted, it screwed it up!
I’m not happy about that.
You are allowed a while to edit (an hour or two, I think).
Off to read it…
One of the nice things about Oxdown is that you can re-edit it even after you have published it.
If that opening line offends you, go back to it and re-edit to your heart’s content!
Thanks MadDog and JimWhite. Went back and did the edit.
Thanks skdadl…There is a whole article I could write on the negative economic impact on Canada regarding Ohio and the big 2.5…
Looks great to me, klynn. I wish I knew enough to comment, but this is how I learn, and that is one terrifically well-researched and argued post. Go, klynn!