Thursday, May 24, 2012

Opinion: Ed Woods and FBI Misconduct

ED WOODS AND F.B.I MISCONDUCT 

"I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.... So help me God."

"After joining up, Kenny became a shooting star: In 2004, he was promoted to sergeant first class with less than 10 years of service – not far outside of normal promotions if Kenny hadn’t been charged in 1996 with providing alcohol to his 11-year-old niece and inappropriately touching and kissing the kid. But he received only an Article 15 nonjudicial punishment for actions that would have led to administrative separation, if not court-martial, for any less-connected soldier.
No big surprise, since Leslie Blade says guardian-angel Woods( ED WOODS) is adamant that the sergeant deserves to have his life changed"
 
Many Peltier supporters are aware of his long time nemesis, self righteous, ex- F.B.I agent, Ed Woods. Woods has created an “anti- Peltier,” website and has made it his life’s mission to see that Leonard Peltier, an innocent man, will never again see the light of freedom. But who is this “Ed Woods,” and what is this organization that he worked/works for really all about? So this piece will be about, “investigating the investigators,” so to say.

Quoted above is the constitutional oath that all F.B.I agents and law enforcement agents swear on upon entering office. While perusing Mr. Woods’ infamous website, I came across an article in which former director of the F.B.I, Louis Freeh, was quoted:

"Mr. Freeh goes on to state, "I believe in the basic truth that lying, cheating or stealing is wholly inconsistent with everything the F.B.I stands for and cannot be tolerated." This is a very ironic statement in that anyone who has studied the true history of the F.B.I would know that, “lying, cheating and stealing,” is the cornerstone of how the F.B.I in reality operates. One need only examine the illegal COINTELPRO policies that were instituted by F.B.I founder, J. Edgar Hoover that targeted almost every single minority group in this country, for a prime example.


There was recently a conference in Sioux Falls , SD , on the AIM occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. Two of the participants were former F.B.I men, Joseph Trimbach and David Price. In the conference these two men were confronted on their personal wrong doings and on F.B.I misconduct in general related to Pine Ridge and the Wounded Knee occupation. Both men were arrogantly defiant regarding their own culpability. Trimbach held to the lie that his committing of Perjury during the Wounded Knee trials by lying about an affidavit that he signed ordering an illegal wire tap and denying knowledge of F.B.I informant, Douglass Durham, was a simple oversight. 

Price, when confronted about Myrtle Poor Bear and a letter by 8th circuit judge, Heaney that stated that the F.B.I agents were, “equally responsible,” for the death of the two agents during the Jumping Bull conflict was equally evasive and defiant. For a little history, Price was one of the agents that while cultivating Louis Moves Camp as a phony witness for the Means/Banks trial took him out on the town and got him liquored up. When he met a young woman they looked the other way when Moves Camp took the woman back to his room and allegedly raped her. The next day Price was hard at work getting the rape charges dropped so they can continue their cultivation of the false witness to put on the stand ( it was later found out that M.C was actually in California and not at Wounded Knee regarding the events he was testifying about). Agent Ron Williams, one of the men that was killed at Jumping Bull along with Joe Stuntz and Jack Coler, assisted Price in the cover up and the manufacturing of the false witness. This does not necessarily justify his fate, but from this you can see that Williams and all the other agents that were in SD at the time were no angels worthy of statues made for them or buildings named after them. Regarding Myrtle Poor Bear, Price was the one that interrogated the mentally fragile woman by showing her pictures of Annie Mae Aquash’s mutilated body while threatening to do worse to her and take her children away if she did not cooperate with them to forge the phony affidavits that were used to extradite Leonard Peltier from Canada . But when Price was asked about his involvement/culpability during this conference he danced around the questions as if he were Muhammad Ali. “Lying, cheating and stealing,” indeed, and remember the oath that these public servants took before GOD on the constitution of the U.S.A?

“Judge Heaney of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, who heard an appeal in Peltier's case (denied on a technicality) wrote in a 1991 letter to Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii: "The United States government overreacted at Wounded Knee . Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievances of the Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one which culminated in the deadly firefight on June 26, 1975 ... The United States government must share responsibility with the Native Americans for the ... firefight ... the government's role can properly be considered a mitigating circumstance." Judge Heaney, in this letter, recommended clemency/commutation of sentence for Mr. Peltier as part of the healing process.”

But what about “All-American, “ex F.B.I agent,” Ed Woods? Would he engage also in such illegal behavior and break his constitutional oath as well? Research by one of Peltier’s attorney’s has uncovered some startling revelations on Mr. Woods himself to confirm the affirmative. It was uncovered that Woods, while on active duty in Cincinnati , was involved in the investigation of the Oklahoma City bombing. During a raid in which a suspect was cornered, Woods had a tape recorder and was recording the proceedings. The suspect, Peter Langon was shot repeatedly and then interrogated/ tortured by Woods himself. When the witness was being interrogated he screamed out to be able to consult with his attorney but was this captured by Woods’ tape recorder? Let’s consult the court records:

“During his testimony, Woods told jurors he turned on a tape recorder in his surveillance car as fellow agents were about to close in on Langon. Five minutes later he shut off the recorder, Woods said.

He never turned the recorder on and off during those five minutes or erased any portion of the recording, Woods testified.

Anthony J. Pellicano, owner of Forensic Audio Lab, disagrees.

His nine-hour analysis of the tape shows that someone turned the recorder on and off NINE TIMES during the 1996 taping, Pellicano told the Dispatch yesterday. Also, someone erased a portion of the tape between the gunfire and Langon's SHOUTED requests for an attorney, he said."

Strike 1. Woods commits Perjury, lying to GOD under oath. But what was Woods trying to cover up by lying about the tape recorder? Did it have something to do with illegal TORTURE and interrogation? Let’s consult Langon’s own testimony:

23) On Jan. 18th, 1996, I was arrested in Columbus , Ohio , while leaving Guthrie's house. During my arrest, I never fired or even pointed a weapon at anyone. Nevertheless, despite being an informant for the Secret Service, a SWAT Team comprised of FBI agents, Deputy U.S Marshals and other law enforcement personnel fired 48 rounds at me that day. They never offered me an opportunity to surrender prior to shooting me.

24) After being stomped and kicked by arresting officers and undergoing surgery for gun shot wounds in the hospital emergency room, I was chained to a wall in a police station and questioned by FBI Special Agent, ED WOOD'S. I did not want this interrogation. I wanted a lawyer, and I asked for one repeatedly. My requests for an attorney, however, were refused.

25) Instead of obtaining an attorney for me, Agent Woods insisted on playing phone messages from Guthrie's answering machine on a tape recorder. When Agent Woods TAUNTED ME with the inference that my associates had betrayed me, and would testify against me, I had had enough. I told him: "You're going to have problems with your witnesses, because they have the blood of Oklahoma City on their hands." Agent Woods definitely took note. "You certainly have my attention now" he said. This turn of events put an end to the interrogation soon thereafter.

STRIKE 2. Illegal Interrogation, Torture and denying the suspect the right to consult an attorney.

So the investigation continues and Woods/ the F.B.I, like Douglass Durham in AIM, are in need of an informant/snitch to rat out the others. So who does Woods turn to? None other then convicted felon, Neo Nazi, White Supremacist, Wife beater, and child molester, Shawn Kenny. But it’s not enough for Woods to use this monster as an informant. He takes it a step further by taking on the role of ,”personal savior,” for Kenny by helping him to get illegally instated into the army and then by making sure that he’s, ‘taken care of,” once he’s in there:

“Why? Because Somebody Up There, probably FBI agent Ed Woods, now retired, has been watching over Kenny, at least since he turned snitch when caught red-handed – literally – passing dye-stained bills related to a bank robbery. Tabatha says: “Thank God my husband was never charged. God was looking out for him.”

God and the U.S. government.

For example, when the Secret Service searched Kenny’s trailer back in the bad ol’ days and found unauthorized weapons, Kenny got a pass even though it’s a serious violation of the law for convicted felons to possess firearms.

And Kenny’s buddies ranged from the neo-Nazi bank robbers to Timothy McVeigh. But while they all got their due, Kenny got the Army – and the Army apparently got the Snitch Promotion Program.

After joining up, Kenny became a shooting star: In 2004, he was promoted to sergeant first class with less than 10 years of service – not far outside of normal promotions if Kenny hadn’t been charged in 1996 with providing alcohol to his 11-year-old niece and inappropriately touching and kissing the kid. But he received only an Article 15 nonjudicial punishment for actions that would have led to administrative separation, if not court-martial, for any less-connected soldier.

No big surprise, since Leslie Blade says guardian-angel Woods is adamant that the sergeant deserves to have his life changed.”

STRIKE 3. Fronting for a Neo-Nazi monster.

So let’s stop and digest this for a moment. Woods is intent on keeping Peltier, an innocent man that got convicted in a farce of a trial that was overflowing with F.B.I misconduct similar to what has been illustrated above, for the rest of his life yet he’s willing to front for this Nazi monster and believes, “he deserves to have his life changed?” Does anyone else besides me see the blatant moral inconsistency? Is Woods a racist and does he have direct ties to the Neo- Nazi’s himself? It wouldn’t surprise me considering the Bureau’s well documented past ties to Hitler and the Nazi party: 

“J. Edgar Hoover, the first director of the FBI (and virulently anti-communist) was a great admirer of the Nazis and was a pen pal of Heinrich Himmler (Reichsfuhrer of the Nazi SS, head of the... Gestapo, and second most powerful leader of the ...Nazi party). Hoover sent Himmler a personal invitation to attend the 1937 World Police Conference in Montreal , and in 1938 welcomed one of Himmler's top aids to the U.S. In June 1939, when the Nazi SS was conducting savage attacks against Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals throughout Germany , Hoover personally autographed a photo of himself and sent it in response to a request, to KRIPO, the Nazi criminal police agency. He continued communication with Nazi police until December 4, 1941 (three days before Pearl Harbor ).”

http://youtu.be/KPEXoW05qYk

And then there is Mr. Woods’ own email conversation that he had with former F.B.I agent, Wesley Swearingen, that’s documented on Woods’ website that sheds some more light on the racist history of the Bureau:

"Many friends have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention FBI abuses. I myself could NOT BELIEVE what I was seeing
when I worked on the Racial Squad in Los Angelous.
Although only about a dozen agents were die hard racists, urged on by J.Edgar Hoover and his Sycophants on the Racial Desk
at the Bureau, just a handful of bad apples are enough to spoil the whole bushel. In fact, the whole LA office was nothing like Memphis , Chicago , Louisville or New York City ." Swearingen F.B.I

" I began to help Geronimo Pratt's attorney's in 1979. The FBI claimed from 1979 to 1997 in several court hearings, that Pratt was guilty of murder. I attended

a court hearing in L.A in 1984 and heard my fellow agents testify that Pratt was guilty of murder. The FBI denied that they had paid Oakland police to operate an illegal wiretap, having received information from that tap that placed Pratt in Oakland at the time of the murder. This all came out in a hearing in 1997, when an honest Judge ordered the FBI to produce the original documents. Some of the same agents who framed Pratt worked on AIM cases. Pratt was released in 1998, pending a new trial. The L.A district attorney did not retry Pratt, because the FBI informant perjured himself during the 1972 trial. Pratt sued the L.A.P.D and the FBI, and in 2000 he won a settlement of 4.5 million." Swearingen F.B.I

So what can be concluded from all this? Is Ed Woods a credible voice that can be trusted to comment impartially on Leonard Peltier’s case or is he just another lying, crooked law enforcement agent with an agenda that has violated his oath to defend the constitution of the U.S.A. ? I believe the answer, based on what has been shared thus far, is obvious. So, in my opinion, Mr. Woods can go on whining about Peltier as long as he wants but more and more it’s becoming apparent that his assertions are dubious and it’s F.B.I misconduct, not a fair trial, that lead to Peltier’s false conviction. To quote the moniker of the promising young film maker, Preston Randolph’s, upcoming film, the heart of Leonard Peltier’s case represents, “The imprisonment of an innocent man by the lies of a guilty government.” And for a taste of irony, Woods in his most recent babbling on his website, attacked the young filmmaker and compared him to a well known Nazi film maker/ propagandist. Was this filmmaker also a friend and associate of Mr. Hoover’s, I’m wondering? Hoover himself engaged in, “Nazi-like,” propaganda when he inserted informants into the media to manipulate how the Bureau was portrayed. In fact, Mr. Woods website itself can be considered a remnant from this same mold of old F.B.I propaganda.

So what can be asserted from this? Instead of being given the privilege and being “puffed up” to look like someone important by being granted the permission to testify against Leonard at his parole hearing, this twisted, sycophant low life, Ed Woods, should rather be in prison himself. Why? To quote one of the most notorious of J. Edgar Hoover’s COINTELPRO victims, Martin Luther King JR., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere.”  

And let’s end up with some quotes from Ed Woods himself from his fabled website:

“But an important question to be asked is why are we even discussing these Agents at this juncture? The answer is simple, because FBI Agents are held to a higher standard; higher than the average citizen, and by most accounts, above that of other law enforcement. And so they should be. They reach a standard that many would not care to maintain for themselves or others. Regrettably, only a handful have damaged the reputation of many loyal, dedicated and professional public servants. It can easily be proven that the record of the approximately eleven thousand current Agents, and the tens of thousands of former and retired agents who have served honorably over the past ninety-four years, exceed the performance of any other organization; in law enforcement or not. The percentage of those who have not met this extraordinarily high standard is almost too small to measure and is barely a fraction of the total. But the actions of a very few who cannot conform to the highest standards demanded does not condemn the entire organization. The standards for entering the Bureau are arguably the highest of all public or private sector jobs. If there is any doubt about that claim; pick up an application. Yet, there is no shortage of those who are willing to join.

The Media

There are those who would like nothing better than to dismantle the FBI. They smell blood in the water and are in a frenzy for headlines. But with all the negative press, what is lost in the process are the countless accomplishments and thousands of successful investigations and prosecutions every year that the public is not reminded about. There are far too many to even begin listing here. And even through all this turmoil, the FBI is still doing its job, and doing it very well.

A paramount example is the Oklahoma City Bombing case itself. This investigation, arguably the most significant domestic case ever, was handled professionally from beginning to end as revealed by the massive amounts of evidence and thousands of leads and interviews that were handled properly and expeditiously resulting in swift justice for America's most notable mass-murderer. On this point, ICT and the NPPA, as well as the vast majority of Americans from all corners, are in full agreement; categorizing McVeigh for what he was, "the most horrific of terrorists." Although, as with Peltier, we must ensure that due process is followed to the letter, even as we all agree unequivocally on one point, McVeigh is guilty. ED WOODS

* There is more irony in this in that based on what has been presented, Woods himself strayed far from, “playing it straight,” in the Oklahoma City Bombing investigations and he himself has fallen way bellow the high standards that he has set for the Bureau. Another blow to his own, already questionable, credibility. One Neo- Nazi monster is given the chair while another one is granted an illegal pass into the army with privileges and someone somewhere calls this, “justice?”

“How Kenny got into the Army in spite of his criminal history -- and his white supremacist tattoos -- is something of a puzzle. So is his promotion just months after the Army convicted him on morals charges involving an 11-year-old girl.

But what really distinguishes Kenny is his alleged relationship with the man who killed 168 people by blowing up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995. A new book based on death row interviews with McVeigh mentions Kenny five times.

Kenny couldn't be reached for comment, of course. His wife, Tabatha Kenny of Cheviot, told a reporter she'd ask him to contact CityBeat. She also said the Army has greatly benefited her family. She means the U.S. Army. It was Kenny's membership in the other army, the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), that ties him to McVeigh.

Kenny and other ARA members met with McVeigh in Elohim City , a right-wing militia center in Oklahoma , before the Oklahoma City bombing, according to Secrets Worth Dying For: Timothy James McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing. But the book isn't the first to raise questions about a Cincinnati link to the Oklahoma City bombing. A CityBeat investigation shows that, within days of the massacre, the FBI and the U.S. Secret Service were asking the same thing.

But perhaps most troubling of all is Kenny's own account of his mission before joining the military. In 1996 he gave secret testimony to a federal grand jury in Philadelphia detailing the ARA's violent intentions. CityBeat obtained a transcript of the testimony.

"We had planned on robbing banks and armored cars," he testified. "Proceeds were to fund the cause, the movement or whatever. Buy guns, ammo, distribute out to other people, like-mindedness groups, to further their cause."
 
Contributed by Mark Holtzman

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