Tuesday, October 23, 2007

the government's first UNSEALED answer to nacchio's claims -- october 22, 2007


today, the washington post is carrying
a "down-the-middle" story on these
newly-unsealed trial court documents,
from the nacchio criminal appeal, in denver.

the wa po story is neither fish, nor fowl.

that is -- while the story makes mention
of the broader implications of the nacchio
documents [putative evidence of a PRE-9/11
program -- or effort to create a program -- to
engage in wholesale, systemic, warrantless sur-
veillance of innocent american citizens], it does
nothing to analyze the unsealed documents
from that point of view. . .

the story, instead, concentrates (perhaps msm-
appropriately) on whether these government
documents undercut nacchio's claims of govern-
ment retaliations, ostensibly for refusing
to go along with wholesale
warrantless spying.

i think the documents do undercut
the claim of retaliation made
by nacchio -- but that is, in
itself -- scarcely a surprise.
in fact, the idea that a con-
victed felon might allege the
existence of a wide-ranging
"g-man" vendetta against him,
personally, is rather yawn-inducing
in many white-collar criminal
defense circles.

it should scarcely be the lede of a wa po
story, in fact. now, the reason i've spent
so many electrons above, casting aspersions
on the credibility of nacchio's retaliation
claim is that it is not the news-story, at all.

the news-story here is that the government's
own documents -- from early 2001 -- corroborate
that substantial meetings on a project called
"groundbreaker" actually took place.

forget whether it offers a "soft-
information is non-actionable
"
defense to the nacchio insider-trading
charges, and subsequent conviction. . .

focus on the fact that the below
excerpts of an interview with james payne,
the government-contracting v.p. at
qwest, confirm that a wide-ranging,
clandestine contracting-process was
underway in february of 2001. the below
is from page 24 of last night's unsealed
government filing -- it is part of the
second appendix of that filing.

click to enlarge:



folks -- this is significant. why was
our government working on "groundbreaker"
a full seven months BEFORE 9/11?

to be clear, i am implying only that
cheney and bush wanted to thwart the
constitution's warrant requirement prior
to their immensely tragic, yet-
entirely-fortuitous excuse -- the
excuse of global terror attacks [i
don't subscribe, in any fashion, to the
tin-foil-hatted-notions that our
government concocted 9/11, at all].

w h e w. . .

but seriously -- if it can be shown
that cheney and bush were actively
seeking warrantless surveillance of
u.s. citizens before 9/11, that would
be the sort of "high crime and mis-
demeanor
" we have been waiting on proof
for -- and this proof comes from the
governmnet's own documents, no less.

forget for a moment, that joe nacchio,
as a convicted felon, is trying to
escape jail for insider-trading, by
dint of unsealing these documents. . .
and read them with your better eyes -- the
eyes that freshly-acknowledge these are
genuine government admissions. notice
that the blackened portions refer to
classified agencies and classified projects.

then apply occam's razor.

"mmMMMmm-peach-mint", anyone?

[i'll raise my hand!]

p e a c e

2 comments:

Wildcat70 said...

This does not in any way undercut Mr. Nacchio's defense.

The Government is controlling the flow of information.

They let out what is favorable to them.

If he had no defense why did they go to such great lengths to keep it out of the trial?

Why are these transcripts so heavily redacted?

What other contracts were there that Qwest did not get?

Why not release the entire transcript.

condor said...

welcome, wildcat70 --

i agree with your observation
about the government's bag full
of tricks, here. i do need to
point out, though, that mr.
nacchio continued to SELL his
stock -- and in amounts larger
than those contemplated by his
filed 10b-5(1) trading plan,
long after it became clear
that -- FOR WHATEVER REASON -- his
firm would not get the govern-
ment contract work. it is no
defense to insider-trading to
say that the government failed
to award qwest a contract for
an IMPERMISSABLE reason, if -- as
mr. nacchio apparently did -- one
continues to SELL, without disclosing
this information to the market.

he was convicted of trading felonies.

these documents DO help establish
that he did not have a reasonable
basis to believe qwest would win
the contract bidding/work -- and
yet, he continued selling his stock,
at an increased pace, without
disclosing what he knew.

sorry for the lack of clarity in
my earlier remarks.

do come back!

p e a c e