Who remembers Pamela Willeford, the US Ambassador to Switzerland who happened to be in the hunting party when Cheney shot his 'friend' Whittingdon in the face?

Back in Bern, Marty had been asking Pam questions about the prisons too.

And in Molly Irvins' column that week, she made a point to tell us that Whittingdon just happens to be an expert on prisions.

I've always suspected that this was the reason for these three to be together on the Armstrong ranch for the quail shoot. The ambassador, the VP, and the prison expert conferring on what to tell the Europeans (Swiss, in this case) asking questions so very close to the truth.

Something was going on, that it took so long to cookup the cover story of how the shooting went down.

See no evil. Hear no evil. Say no evil.

Reminds me of the three monkeys.

Evolution going backward.

Except with a nation and the world at stake.

DoD Counsel Linked With Plan To Ignore Geneva; DoD Counsel linked with Bradford Berenson, Sidley Austin: The lawyers weren't all stupid, though: Some of them actively set down to circumvent Geneva.
Link: Mary Walker and Brad Berenson are both in the Federalist Society.
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http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/nation/17333161.htm
E-mail questions if conservative group was party to plan to fire U.S. attorneys
By Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor
McClatchy Newspapers
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Report: "The text of the note reads, 'You guys need a good candidate?' Leo goes on to say he would 'strongly recommend' the Air Force's general counsel, Mary Walker. Walker led a Pentagon working group in 2003, which critics said helped _provide the administration with a rationale to circumvent the international Geneva Conventions_ banning torture in the interrogations of terrorism suspects."

Did you catch that: ["provide the administration with a rationale to circumvent the international Geneva Conventions" ] They didn't choose to "ignore Geneva," but they actively [a] reviewed Geneva; [b] found a way to circumvent it illegally; [c] were aware that the plans and orders did circumvent/not comply with Geneva; but [d] did nothing to ensure that illegally activity was ended.
Sounds like some lazy, reckless lawyers have some explaining to do on meetings, plans: To ignore a law, one must know the law; yet lawyers when they knew the law, but act to circumvent the law, are acting with recklessness: Illegal activity with fully knowledge of their legal requirements; but decisions to not do what they should. [Take your pick: Malfeasance, negligence, recklessness as it relates to the oath of office, 5 USC 3331]

Walker has been implicated in leading an effort to circumvent Geneva. isn't that called a plan and a meeting: Why can't the same lazy legal profession that finds a way to _violate_ and _circumvent_ Geneva, not get off its rear end to _enforce_ Geneva through a direct prosecution of a sitting President?

Apparent GOP/WH Counsel/DoD Legal CounselChecklist:
How to Meet, But Not Really Do Anything Useful To Defend The Constitution

[ ]A. Lawyers meet, create plan to ignore Geneva; [Check]
[ ]B. Illegal activity approved; [Check]
[ ]C. Lawyers find evidence of Geneva violation [Suppressed, target people talking about war crimes with civil lawsuits/subpoenas]
[ ]D. Lawyers meet to create an indictment; [Cancel]
[ ]E. Lawyers work together quickly, within 72 hours, as was done with Libby defense, to prosecute a sitting President. [Feign stupidity, violating 5 USC 3331, requirement to fully assert their oath.]

Lawyer Mary walker knows about circumventing Geneva, prisoner abuse, and Geneva violations: She apparently wrote the manual on how to do it. Doesn't this name-mentioning-problem amount to a fatal assertion by Walker that she's been implicated with war crimes; but the lazy legal profession has no plans to use her involvement to prosecute the President?

For more about lazy American lawyers who planned, met, and organized to violate the law; but have no plan to plan, meet, and organize the enforce the law or prosecute a President:

Fatal Links Between Berenson, DoD's Walker, and Rendition:
Want to know how third party data capture system work? Here's the link between Mary and Bradford Berenson at Sidley Austin on the issues of Geneva, war crimes, rendition, prisoner abuse. It's in the F:Drive

F:\...\09 Clark Master e. [PFP#361873233]
F:\...\09 Clark Master d. [PFP#361698524]

[Leahy, Waxman, Member of Congress Subpoenas: Do a search of Berenson, Walker, and the PFP numbers above. There are more documents, outside American control. ]

Indeed, there must be some lazy lawyers who are whining, "But what does Eastern Europe have to do with the US Atty firings?"

The answer, stupid attorneys, is Mary Walker's fatal disclosures, as reported:
QUOTE: "The report was compiled by a working group appointed by the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II. Air Force General Counsel Mary Walker headed the group, which comprised top civilian and uniformed lawyers from each military branch and consulted with the Justice Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies. It isn't known if President Bush has ever seen the report. A military lawyer who helped prepare the report said that political appointees heading the working group sought to assign to the president virtually unlimited authority on matters of torture -- to assert ‘presidential power at its absolute apex.'"ENDQUOTE
Ref:
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0614-03.htm

See the key words: "political appointees heading the working group sought to assign to the president virtually unlimited authority on matters of torture"; just as the President wanted "unlimited" authority to engage in illegal activity; so too did the same President want "unlimited Authority" to hire and fire legal counsel without Senate oversight.

For those of you you missed the Frontline Piece with PBS, Berenson repeatedly stated he had access to memoranda, briefings, and others things. Today's revelations on Eastern Europe means that there were reviews, Status of Forces Agreements, and other things.

QUOTE:General Counsel Mary Walker headed the group, which comprised top civilian and uniformed lawyers from each military branch and consulted with the Justice Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies ENDQUOTE

A. Once White House counsel reviewed these issues with DOJ OLC, did Berenson send an e-mail to the working group?

B. Which intelligence personnel that Mary Walker coordinated on did Berenson also interface with?

C. When during this briefings did it enter Berenson's mind that the group was apparently actively planning to ignore Geneva, not simply stretch it?

D. As these memos were floating around between Mary Walker, intelligence, OSD, and presumably Berenson -- who admits in the Frontline Piece that he read a memo and attending a briefing with "intelligence" types -- when did it occur to the WH Counsel that the "right" people to talk to wasn't the DOJ OLC, but the JAGs?

It's all well and good for civilian lawyers to feign stupidity on legal matters. What's worse is when they actively plan to circumvent legal requirements; then do nothing as the abuses mount. We don't know for sure how long the abuses in Eastern Europe were occurring; or when Berenson knew, or should have known, that he legal services/attendance at meetings was being used to hide illegal activity from Congress.

But what we do know is this: If you compare the Frontline piece of PBS that Berenson openly discusses information flows, and compare this with the open meetings and memoranda which Mary Walker was involved, it's as if we're connected two halves of the same broken egg. Look at the issues, they seem to compare nicely between what Berenson and Walker are linked:

A. Intelligence officials;
B; Federalist society criminal justice practice area;
C. Rendition
D. Stretching the laws of Geneva;
E. Communicating openly with planning issues with expectation that the planning would never be revealed.

I submit that Mary Walker and Berenson were if not directly, indirectly actively coordinating on the same planning documents; and in attendance with the same meetings; or knew of common people who they both knew that were involved with the Eastern European rendition planning. To ask that they had no connection despite their open, fatal, and consistent remarks along this many different lines of evidence asks that we believe this is chance. Not convincing.
It's more likely that there are active notes of this decision to circumvent Geneva -- as reported in re Mary Walker -- and this is what drove the Senate to stop DoD GC Haynes from being approved; and what got in the way of Keisler's nomination who is with DoJ. I argue that Berenson is most likely in the middle of this planning, if not actively endorsing the plans. Whether he's adjudicated with war crimes remains to be seen. But what we do know is there is too much interest, concern, and attention to these rendition issues; and not enough attention to the other similar planning that should have been balanced with prosecutions of a sitting President.

The more we dive into the Eastern European detention centers, and revelations from Poland and Romania, the more lines of evidence link Berenson with the DoD planning group. Whether he was involved, indirectly aware, or on the periphery remains to be seen> What we do know is that Berenson has an apparent witness-impeachment problem: He asserted that eh "believed" something, which Comey appears to have contradicted; raising the prospect that Berenons's assertions about what he "believed" were not real beliefs, but retroactively crated.

Mary Walker's assertions about plans to circumvent Geneva, the Eastern Europe3 detention issues, Berensons' fatal disclosures on his knowledge of these briefings, and the connection between Walker and Berenson through the Federalist Society appear to form too many lines of evidence that can be dismissed. Rather, it's more likely that there are more common threads, evidence, especially as it relates to evidence of other illegal activity and things we have yet to be told.

Quit messing around with Berenson. Time to issue a subpoena and haul him into Congress to compel him under threat of jail time to explain his apparent inconsistencies in what he believed; vs. what is most reasonable in light of Comey and Mary Walker's statements. There was illegal planning not just for FISA violations, but also for rendition and Geneva. There's one name that keeps surfacing: Brad Berenson. Time for him to get called to Congress under penalty to perjury and respond.