WP,pg1: Embattled Lawyer Had Limited Role in (Moussaoui) Trial

Embattled Lawyer Had Limited Role in 9/11 Trial
By Jerry Markon and Carol Morello
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, March 16, 2006; Page A01


The government lawyer who has thrown the death penalty trial of Sept. 11, 2001, conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui into turmoil by improperly contacting witnesses was supposed to be playing a limited role and was never to be involved with legal strategy or litigating the case.

Carla J. Martin, a former flight attendant whose legal career has been devoted to defending aviation security secrets, was a legal go-between -- a conduit, officials said.

The Transportation Security Administration lawyer located files and arranged witness interviews -- she "made no substantive decisions," prosecutors said, likening her to "outside counsel," and not a member of the decision-making team.

But by taking it upon herself to strategize with potential witnesses, she has violated basic tenets of criminal procedure, prosecutors and outside lawyers say. The veteran government lawyer is accused of what a judge called "egregious errors" -- sending e-mails to witnesses and improperly sharing testimony with them in violation of a court order.

"In this sea of Government attorneys and agents who have assiduously played by the rules, Ms. Martin stands as the lone miscreant," prosecutors wrote yesterday in court papers. "Her aberrant and apparently criminal behavior should not be the basis for undoing the good work of so many."...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/AR2006031502656.html

This should, at a very minumum, get her a warning from her bar association.

This is such an egregious error that not even a first year law student would make.

They choose an incompetent lawyer for their staff because of the value she brings to the team. She proves to be incompetent, so they deserve to be awarded do-overs? I don't think so!
As much as this rascal may have earned what they want to give him, there are rules that we have adopted to avoid tyranny--large or small. Time to suck it up and take your lumps.
Of course, with the unlimited borrowing power of this criminal gang, you won't win against them if they really don't want you to.

I doubt very highly it all went down like that.

snip>

Moussaoui has indicated that he wants to testify, sources said, which is his right under the U.S. Constitution. At his plea hearing, he said he would "fight every inch against the death penalty."

snip>

"We're trying to pinpoint what information the government had before 9/11 . . . to compare it with what Mr. Moussaoui may or may not have known or what they did even with the information that they had," MacMahon said.

Another recently unsealed defense filing says that President Bill Clinton was warned in 1998 "that bin Laden was preparing to hijack United States aircraft." The same filing cites a controversial August 2001 briefing given to President Bush titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S."

The White House declassified that briefing last year after a request from the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks. It warned Bush that the FBI had information that terrorists might be preparing for a hijacking in the United States and might be targeting a building in Lower Manhattan.

"Substantial evidence will be presented at trial," Moussaoui's attorneys wrote in their filing, "that the United States government knew more about al Qaeda's plans to attack the United States than did Mr. Moussaoui."

snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/13/AR2005111301007.html

It's where they describe her actual job, the one she's paid to do. She's a gatekeeper of government secrets. She's asked to go get such and such document declassified, or tells a judge when a courtroom must be cleared because classified evidence is about to come up. In other words she's a go-between, a liaison with the CIA and other agencies...

So, let me look at the fourth paragraph above.

"But by taking it upon herself..."

I pray that this is true, and that she indeed took this upon HERSELF.

Something very bad went down here.

I know I am preaching to the choir here, but here goes.

The Bush administration has always claimed that there was nothing they could have done to prevent 9/11, even after receiving the August 2001 Presidential Daily Brief that warned of an imminent attack involving airplanes.

But now, in Moussaoui's trial, the prosecutor is arguing that if in August Moussaoui had shared information with the FBI, then the government could have avoided 9/11 by improving airport security. For example, by putting all the terrorists on watch lists and by searching for weapons.

But of course they could have done that even without his cooperation. They already had some of the terrorists on watch lists. And at least one airport security guard has gone on record saying that he had stopped one of the terrorists because he looked "suspicious," but then let him on the plane because there was no reason to hold him. If -- as a result of that Presidential Daily Brief -- a "terrorist watch" had been in place, who knows how many lives would have been saved?


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002868147_mouss16.html

"Brinkema's ruling makes it highly unlikely that the jury would vote for death. The case has been challenging because Moussaoui was in jail when the planes were hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. Federal law allows executions only for those who directly cause a death.

"Prosecutors are trying to overcome that hurdle by saying that if Moussaoui had not lied to the FBI about his knowledge of the Sept. 11 plot, the hijackings could have been prevented. Their argument has two key components: If Moussaoui had told the truth, the government says, the FBI would have scrambled to stop the hijackings; and the Federal Aviation Administration would have ramped up security at the nation's airports.

"With Brinkema's ruling, the entire second half of their case is lost, prosecutors said. The barred witnesses are federal airline-security experts who would have testified about the measures the government would have taken based on Moussaoui's information, such as putting the hijackers on "no fly" lists and searching passengers for the small-bladed knives the hijackers used."