"In addition to Bush, suspects in the alleged conspiracy include a who’s who of top officials in Bush’s first term, principally Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Colin Powell, John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet and their aides, says ABC News."
I guess Mueller gets a pass on this one -- but on this one alone!!!
As for Ashcroft and the rest, the guillotines are waiting.
"Immunity argued for Ashcroft, FBI chief; Muslim detainees cite religious bias" by Robert Barnes, Washington Post | December 11, 2008
WASHINGTON - A government lawyer told the Supreme Court yesterday that former attorney general John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller should not be subjected to lawsuits filed by Arab Muslims who were detained in this country after the Sept. 11 attacks and say they were singled out for harsh treatment because of their religion and ethnicity.
Solicitor General Gregory Garre told the justices that Ashcroft and Mueller are protected from such suits when they are carrying out their duties, and that their actions constitute a "perfectly lawful law enforcement response to the 9/11 attacks."
Defending TORTURE is he? All over that false-flag lie?
The oral arguments in the case produced a lively debate, as justices pondered the reach of civil lawsuits targeting public officials who allegedly abuse civil rights, the ability of the nation's leaders to go about their work without harassment, and whether the balance is altered, in the words of Justice Antonin Scalia, "after an attack on this country of the magnitude of 9/11."
Is that why the Patriot Act was ALREADY WRITTEN and READY TO GO?
Ashcroft and Mueller were named in the lawsuit by Javaid Iqbal, a Pakistani television cable installer who was arrested at his Long Island home in the months after the attack. He was held in solitary confinement in a section of a Brooklyn prison known as Admax-Shu, which stands for "administrative maximum special housing unit," where he said he was subjected to numerous beatings and strip searches.
He was convicted of document fraud and deported to Pakistan, but cleared of any involvement in terrorism.
Did he at least get an APOLOGY?
An Egyptian Muslim who was also part of the suit, Ehad Almaghraby, settled with the government for $300,000. Similar suits are pending. Iqbal's case names prison guards, FBI agents, the warden of the prison - which was the subject of a critical report from the Department of Justice's inspector general - up to Ashcroft, who was attorney general at the time of the attack.
Iqbal says policies that were formulated by Ashcroft and Mueller singled him out as a suspect of "high interest" solely because of his nationality and religion. The US Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit in New York acknowledged that top government officials have immunity, but decided it was at least plausible that Ashcroft and Mueller were responsible for, or at least knew about, the discriminatory actions Iqbal alleges.
It said the suit could go forward with evidence-gathering from the lower-level officials in the case, and then a judge could decide whether there was reason to keep the two top officials in the suit. Iqbal's lawyer, Alexander Reinart, said the case presents a basic question of who is responsible for the alleged mistreatment of his client.
But Garre said, "The higher up the chain of command you go, the less plausible it is that the high-level official like the attorney general is going to be aware of and know about the sort of microscopic decisions here: mistreatment in the federal detention facility in Brooklyn, alleged discriminatory applications made by FBI agents in the field."Seeing as the eight of them (plus aides) were MEETING and DRAWING UP TORTURE TACTICS (down to how often you could strike a person), this guy is exposed as nothing but a DAMN LIAR!!
Oh, works for the government does he!?
--more--"
